Statewide school district?

AFTER A dozen years, education reform is without question a success in Massachusetts. SAT scores were reported this week to have risen for the 14th straight year, and at a rate well above the national average. Massachusetts public school students rank first or second on many national tests, both in reading and math, and the state stands first in the percentage of high schoolers who go to college.

But two overriding goals still need to be accomplished if education reform is to fulfill its promise: Students doing only adequate work need encouragement to become enthusiastic and accomplished learners, and students struggling to get by need to be pulled into the mainstream.

Efforts on the first task -- to induce higher-level work -- are beginning to show promise. More difficult will be the second. Fortunately, one of the abiding tenets of the reformers, both state and local, has been that the strugglers deserve individual attention to raise their own expectations for themselves along with their performance. Unfortunately, the results have been spotty, varying widely from district to district.

Even more troubling is that far too many entire schools, many of them in poor urban settings with large minority enrollments, have been unable to deliver a decent education to far too many of their students.

A radical approach to this problem is being prepared for submission to the Legislature this fall. Its most striking feature is the creation of a statewide district that would contain 100 or more of the lowest-performing schools. About half would be in Boston, Springfield, and Worcester, with the others spread in cities and towns across the state.

A key to the proposal is that the super-district would negotiate its own collective bargaining agreement with teachers. Those who chose to stay in their schools, and the new teachers attracted to the challenge, would receive increased pay based partly on longer school days and years. Also contemplated are incremental salaries for math and science teachers and additional pay for teachers whose students show improvement. Principals would have increased flexibility in managing their administrative staffs as well as the teachers. The district would be a special department within the state Department of Education, run by its own executive director in coordination with local officials. A $25 million appropriation would be sought to get the project going.

The idea comes from a coalition of civic groups called the Great Schools Campaign, convened by the independent advocacy group Mass Insight Education.

Even as it circulates in draft form, the proposal is generating both skepticism and enthusiasm. State Education Commissioner David Driscoll agrees with the urgency of improving poor schools -- ''We have to do it a lot more quickly," he said in an interview -- but he questions whether current state efforts have been given a fair chance to prove their worth. Ed Doherty, assistant to the president of the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers, agrees that a focus on a manageable number of schools makes sense but worries that teachers would be made scapegoats rather than collaborators.

Doherty also points out that the state is dominated by two teacher unions, his MFT and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, creating confusion as to who would negotiate the new contract.

William Guenther, president of Mass Insight Education, emphasizes that the proposal is still in draft form. He says he has sought, and will continue to seek, counsel and support from all parties, including teachers, local officials, educators, and legislators. While test scores and other indicators show Massachussetts schools improving overall, Guenther notes, there are still about 50 schools in the state where more than half the students fail the math MCAS test year after year, with no sign of improvement.

Mass Insight recently won a grant of nearly $600,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help develop turnaround models for low-performing schools. The immediate inspiration for the Massachusetts proposal comes from New York City and Miami, where special districts were successful in jump-starting a number of schools.

Irving Hamer, deputy to Miami's superintendent of schools, Rudy Crew, describes marked improvement within a single year in the 39 Miami schools assigned to a special district. Hamer will be a consultant to the Gates-supported project.

Paul Reville, executive director of the Rennie Center for Education Research, says he believes the case still needs to be made that a statewide district is politically feasible and would work if it were implemented. But he agrees with Guenther that underperforming schools are ''the next big challenge for education reform."

It is worth remembering that the significant progress from education reform grew out of the strenuous efforts of people all through the system. There was contention and disagreement, as there will be in the future. But success is far more likely if cooperation is broad in planning the model as well as implementing it.

The strongest arguments for some form of dramatic intervention are the thousands of students whose chance for an inspiring education may slip away if too much time is lost.