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Mass InsightE D U C A T I O N

The UnfinishedAgendaCharting a Course for the Second Decade of Massachusetts Education Reform

Mass Insight Education and Research Institute (project organizer)Mass Insight Education is an independent non-profit organization focused on improving studentachievement in Massachusetts public schools. Through extensive school district networks and trainingand technical assistance based on converting research into effective organizational reform practices;leadership development programs; public service outreach initiatives; and public opinion, policy and field research reports, Mass InsightEducation supports the thoughtful implementation of the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act, with a primary focus on its central initiative—the statewide standards and testing program.

Steering Committee of The Great Schools CampaignPaul S. Grogan, Co-Chair, President, The Boston FoundationGloria Larson, Co-Chair, Of Counsel, Foley Hoag LLPCora Beth Abel, Director of Education, Massachusetts Biotechnology CouncilDr. Claudia Bach, Superintendent, Andover Public SchoolsDr. Karla Brooks Baehr, Superintendent, Lowell Public SchoolsMaura O. Banta, Corporate Community Relations Manager, IBMDr. Edward J. Benz, President, Dana Farber Cancer InstituteDr. Nadine Binkley, Superintendent, Peabody Public SchoolsDr. Joseph P. Burke, Superintendent, Springfield Public SchoolsDr. James Caradonio, Superintendent, Worcester Public SchoolsMichael Costello, Managing Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopersDr. Joseph M. Cronin, President, Edvisors, Inc. Prof. William Dandridge, Lesley UniversityGary DiCamillo, President and CEO, TAC WorldwideJames Darr, Senior Fellow, The Boston FoundationDr. Paul Dakin, Superintendent, Revere Public SchoolsHenry Dinger, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLPDr. Paul J. Fonteyn, Provost, University of Massachusetts BostonChristopher Gabrieli, Chairman Mass2020Dr. Irene Sherry Kaplan, Superintendent, Canton Public SchoolsRichard Lord, President and CEO, Associated Industries of MassachusettsAlan Macdonald, Executive Director, Massachusetts Business RoundtableDr. Basan Nembirkow, Superintendent, Brockton Public SchoolsDr. Thomas Payzant, Superintendent, Boston Public SchoolsMark Roosevelt, Managing Director, Massachusetts Business Alliance for EducationMichael Ruettgers, Chairman of the Board of Directors, EMC Corporation Mark Russell, Vice President of Engineering—Integrated Defense Systems, Raytheon CompanyProf. Robert B. Schwartz, Director, Education Policy and Management Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education Dr. Krishna Vedula, Dean, Francis College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts LowellDr. Blenda Wilson, President and CEO, Nellie Mae Education FoundationDr. Jack Wilson, President, University of Massachusetts


ALLIANCEFOR BETTER SCHOOLS/

MASSACHUSETTS

Other Mass InsightEducation LeadershipSupporters include:

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Project Partners

The Unfinished AgendaCharting a Course for the Second Decade

of Massachusetts Education Reform

February, 2005


AcknowledgementsThe Mass Insight Education and Research Institute would like to express its appreciation to the co-chairs of the Great Schools Cam-paign, Paul Grogan, President, The Boston Foundation, and Gloria Larson, Of Counsel, Foley Hoag LLP. In addition, our thanks goto the entire Steering Committee of the Great Schools Campaign, our school superintendent partners in Mass Insight Education’sCoalition for Higher Standards school network, and all of the business, community, academic, school, and legislative leaders whoparticipated in the discussions that informed this publication.

Our sincere thanks also go to The Boston Foundation and Alliance for Better Schools for the early financial support they providedto help underwrite the Great Schools Campaign.

None of this work would be possible without the contributions of Mass Insight Education’s other leadership corporate and philan-thropic contributors, including Bank of America (formerly FleetBoston), State Street Corporation, the Irene E. and George A. DavisFoundation, Verizon Corporation, IBM, EMC Corporation, Washington Mutual, the Barr Foundation, and the Nellie Mae Educa-tion Foundation.

We have always believed that raising standards and improving student achievement must be a community-wide endeavor. To thatend, we have conducted quarterly public opinion surveys of Massachusetts residents (in association with our sister organization,Mass Insight Corporation) that have included education-related questions since the beginning of Massachusetts’ higher-standardseffort in 1993. The October 2004 survey provided information for the Great Schools Campaign and this report.

Mass Insight Education and Research InstituteWilliam Guenther, President and FounderAndrew Calkins, Executive DirectorAlison Fraser, Assistant DirectorDanielle Stein, Policy AssociateJoanna Manikas, Manager, Production and DesignMary Beth Sorgi, Communications ManagerDr. Grace Belfiore, Senior EditorDeborah Abbott, Business ManagerDr. Thomas Fortmann, Senior Math ConsultantDr. Michael Klugerman, Instructor and Manager, Math Content Training ProgramsNaseem Jaffer, Instructor and Manager, Math Coaching ProgramsLaura Geryk, Instructor and Facilitator, Math Content Training ProgramsSee www.massinsight.org for a complete list of Mass Insight Education field consultants andpartner organizations, including Lesley University, Learning Innovations/West Ed, ClassMeasures Inc.,ASK Enterprises, and the UMass Donahue Institute.

Mass Insight Education

18 Tremont Street, Suite 930, Boston, MA 02108

Tel: 617-722-4160 | Fax: 617-722-4151

www.massinsight.org | www.buildingblocks.org

Email: [email protected]

Copyright©2005 by the Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, a 501c3 non-profit organization. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy this report for non-commercial use.

Contents

Preface 1

Executive Summary 3

Context for The Unfinished Agenda: Where We Are and What We’ve Learned 6

Overview of the Great Schools Campaign: A Call for New Goals, New Funding, and New Reforms 8

Recommendations of the Campaign:

1. New Goals

1.1 Raise the ceiling: Excellence in math and science 10

1.2 Raise the floor: Passing should mean proficiency 11

1.3 No excuses: Turn around failing schools 12

2. New Funding

2.1 Make money matter 13

3. New Reforms

3.1 People: Developing and deploying our most important resource 16

3.2 Program design: Matching high-impact investments with the areas of highest need 19

3.3 Operations: Building in more flexibility to do the right thing 20

Building a Marketplace of Support Providers 21

The Turnaround schools: Intensive intervention in the state’s lowest performing schools 22

Next steps 24

A Note About Mass Insight Education and the Recommendations in This Report

The Unfinished Agenda calls for an expansion of public funding for a range of school-improvement services, including teacher and leader-ship development, interventions in struggling schools and districts, and assistance with student performance data analysis. All are areas inwhich Mass Insight Education is actively partnering with school districts across the state and in conjunction with a number of partners,including Lesley University, Learning Innovations at WestEd, the UMass Donahue Institute, and ASK Enterprises.

Based on our experience and the evidence from states with a track record of outside support for schools, the report’s recommendationspoint to the need for a new, diverse, high-capacity cottage industry in the state to assist school districts and state government in the pursuitof the Commonwealth’s higher-standards goals. The scale of the challenge before us calls for capacity-building in every corner of reform:within the schools, within state and local government, and within the partner universities, nonprofits (like MIE) and for-profits that willplay vital roles in the improvement of student achievement. Great schools need strong partners, and MIE would be proud to have helpedspur the development of many such partners in Massachusetts.

Mass Insight Education The Unfinished Agenda — 1

Preface

Supreme Judicial Court to State House: The Buck Stops There

NOW WHAT?

Twelve years after Massachusetts' original school-funding court case helped lead to the drafting and

passage of its landmark Education Reform Act of 1993, the Commonwealth's highest court has dis-

missed the successor to that case. In declining to act on Hancock v. Driscoll, the Supreme Judicial

Court lay the responsibility for continued improvement of the state's public schools directly at the

feet of the Governor and legislative leaders.

For twelve years, state action on school reform was driven in

part by the threat of judicial intervention of the kind that is

now reshaping education in New York and other states. Higher

expectations, statewide learning standards, tests based on those

standards, accountability systems for students and schools,

emergency help for high school students who had fallen

behind — not to mention more than $20 billion in new state

investment: all of this was the fruit of widespread consensus

that if the state failed to step up on its own, the courts would

make it address the challenge of an inequitable, underperform-

ing public school system.

The decision by the SJC changes the landscape in some ways,

but not in others. The SJC found that since the original

McDuffy case was filed in 1993, the state has been “moving sys-

temically” to address the inadequacies of public education in

the plaintiff communities. However, the court also acknowl-

edged that “serious inadequacies in public education remain”

in the Commonwealth, and five of seven justices reaffirmed

that the Massachusetts Constitution imposes an obligation on

the part of the Commonwealth to ensure that a quality public

education be available to every student in the state.

Our Position on Hancock v. Driscoll

In the amicus curiae brief prepared for us by Good-

win Procter, LLP, Mass Insight Education, along with

the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education

and Associated Industries of Massachusetts, agreed

with the plaintiffs in Hancock v. Driscoll that students

in some urban school districts were not receiving the

education they are entitled to under the state consti-

tution.

We continue to believe that is the case. However, we

disagreed that the remedy was entirely a matter of

more spending. Money matters, but all of the evi-

dence — here and elsewhere — suggests that how

money is spent is as important as having it available.

Court-ordered solutions generally do not produce

effective public policy. Decisions on the detailed list

of reforms and investments that Superior Court Judge

Margot Botsford suggested in her findings (reviewed

by the SJC) are best left for the state to decide.

It is now up to the state to make those decisions —

and take the actions necessary to make Massachu-

setts' schools known here and around the world as

great schools.

2 — The Unfinished Agenda Mass Insight Education

In short, the message was: the job's not done. Massachu-

setts has, in fact, passed into a second decade of school

reform — one that presents challenges every bit as

daunting as those the Commonwealth met successfully

during the first decade (see box). Those challenges will

test us all: policymakers, educators, community leaders,

business leaders, school improvement service providers,

taxpayers, parents and students.

We can meet the challenges if we learn from the experi-

ences of our first decade of reform. What were the hall-

marks of the Commonwealth's approach to improving

public school during the first decade?

• Setting clear goals

• Providing adequate funding

• Reforming the system where reforms were needed

Those same hallmarks will serve us well now. That is

what this report and the coalition that developed it are

all about: updating and clarifying the goals, strategies,

and most pressing needs of school reform as Massachu-

setts enters the second decade of this work.

Great public schools are the single most important asset a state can have to assure its future pros-

perity. Access to great schools for urban and poorer students is the civil rights issue of our time.

Mass Insight Education and the leaders of the Great Schools Campaign look forward to working

with the Governor and legislature to complete the Commonwealth's unfinished agenda of

education reform.

—William Guenther and Andrew Calkins

Preface

Three Signals of an Unfinished Agenda

1. Math performance — 43% of all Massachusetts'

tenth graders failed or were scored “Needs

Improvement” on the 2004 MCAS math test.

That's more than 30,000 students statewide at risk

of graduating from high school with no better

than eighth-grade skills in math.

2. Failing schools — In virtually all of the 114

lowest performing schools (elementaries, middle

schools, and high schools) now on state and

federal "watch lists" for consistent under-perform-

ance, seven of ten students score in the bottom

two categories on the MCAS math tests.

3. Minority achievement gap — While 92% of the

Class of 2005 has attained a Competency Deter-

mination by passing MCAS, nearly one of five

African-American, Hispanic, urban or economically

disadvantaged students has yet to do so.


The context for this report

THE FIRST DECADE of education reform inMassachusetts focused on setting — forthe first time — rigorous, statewide

academic standards, establishing high-qualitytests tied to those standards, and successfullyimplementing a graduation requirementstaked to minimally acceptable skills. Substan-tial new state funding provided support forthe goals of higher standards. It’s now time tobuild on the accomplishments of that first

decade. Massachusetts must set new goals andhelp schools continue to raise student achieve-ment with a comprehensive package of target-ed funding and new reforms. New goals, newfunding and new reforms must be adopted asan integrated package, because (as we learnedso clearly in the first decade) overall successdepends on clarity and accomplishment ineach of these areas.

The first decade of reform also taught ussomething else. Schools — as would anyorganization contemplating such fundamentalchange — need considerable outside supportin order to meet the new goals that govern-ment and society have set for them.

New goals

Raise the ceiling: Excellence in math and sci-ence. Massachusetts, with its skills-dependenteconomy, can no longer afford to have any-thing less than world-class schools. Math andscience education, in particular, must be dra-matically improved at all levels, in all schools,

if our students are to compete successfully inthe global economy. We need to increase thepercentage of students performing at the“advanced” level in math MCAS tests by half,from 29% to 45%, with similar progress goalsfor science and literacy.

Raise the floor: Passing should mean profi-ciency. The 220 MCAS score required forhigh school graduation equates to an eighth-grade skill level, according to a recent, author-itative report by Achieve, Inc. A score of 240is defined by Massachusetts standards as “pro-ficient” — ready for success in college or in askilled job. We must increase the passingscore to 230 by 2010 and 240 by 2014, thegoal established by the federal NCLB law.

No excuses: Turn around failing schoolsnow. Twelve years into the education reformeffort, more than 100 of Massachusetts’ 1,894public schools continue to fail to provide stu-dents with the opportunity to learn guaran-teed by the state Constitution. With a greatersense of urgency, the state must invest in avariety of creative and aggressive strategies toturn around the performance of the 100 low-est-performing schools within the next threeyears.

New funding

Massachusetts must ensure that new statemoney is spent so as to maximize its effecton improving student performance. Chapter70 state aid should be adequate, equitablyallocated, with predictable increases. Howev-er, the lesson of the first decade of educationreform is that in too many cases, general statefunding has not led to higher student achieve-ment. The state should move towards target-ing $400 to $600 million of state aid (10-15%of the total) for specific investments inresearch-based strategies that are known toimprove academic achievement, and are oftenhard to budget for at the local level, includ-ing content-based professional development,

New goals, new funding and newreforms — success depends on clarity andaccomplishment in each of these areas.

The Unfinished Agenda

Charting a Course for the Second Decade of Massachusetts Education Reform

Executive Summary


leadership training, more time-on-learning,and early childhood education.

New reforms

To achieve the new goals, there are some criti-cal challenges that can only be tackled asstatewide problems with statewide solutionsusing targeted new funding where appropri-ate. They include:

People: Investments to improve teachingand leadership

Massachusetts must make a $50 millioninvestment in high-quality content train-ing, focusing especially on math and sci-ence at the elementary and middle schoollevels. Studies show that most teachers atthose levels do not have the content knowl-edge necessary to teach higher-standardsmath and science effectively.

The state’s public and private colleges anduniversities, together with the appropriatestate agencies, should take the lead inestablishing more comprehensive, coordi-nated, and rigorous programs to recruitand prepare the best teachers in the coun-try, again focused particularly on math andscience. Nearly half of Massachusetts’teacher workforce will turn over during thenext decade. The creation of a competentteaching force should be a benchmark forpublic institutions of higher education.

Incentive pay must be used as part of a pack-age of funding and reforms to attract talent-ed teachers to critical areas — math and sci-ence and positions in struggling schools inexchange for managerial flexibility.

High-quality, on-going leadership traininginstitutes should be provided on a regionalbasis for principals and superintendents.(Cost: $2 million per year for at least threeyears.) Years of standards-based reform

have produced a new knowledge baseabout effective school improvement —knowledge and skills that every school anddistrict need and deserve to have.

Program Design: Matching high-impactinvestments with the areas of highest need

Standards and accountability have exposedcritical areas of need that cut across districtand school lines and should be addressed atthe scale of statewide initiatives. They include:

A longer school day: The research is clearthat students (especially those from disad-vantaged backgrounds) benefit significantlyfrom more time to learn. The state shouldsupport lengthened school days for urbanstudents and those who are falling behind,with a special emphasis on models thatincorporate the extra time into their corestructures and school culture.

Pre-school and all-day kindergarten: Thestate is already moving ahead in thisimportant area, using a process that couldserve as a model for the kinds of targetedinvestments recommended here. The key isto weigh each investment within the largercontext of reform, and not to regard anysingle measure as a silver bullet.

Assisting at-risk students who need extrahelp: Our state’s student accountabilityrequirements demand that we provideremediation programs to every child whoneeds the help. The state has made signifi-cant investments in this area that need tobe maintained, with the recent cuts at leastpartially restored.

Effective use of performance data toimprove instruction: Statewide invest-ments in this area would help educatorsapply more effectively what they learn fromMCAS and other data to the improvementof curricula and teaching approaches.

Executive Summary


Operations: Building in more flexibilityto do the right thing

Even as local education budgets expand-ed during the first decade of reform,superintendents’ flexibility in the use ofthose funds was not matched with flexi-bility over a great many other dimensionsof reform. To enable local school leadersto do their best work, the state should:

Remove all school administratorsfrom collective bargaining agree-ments. Removing principals fromcollective bargaining and makingthem accountable to superintendentsfor performance was one of the mostimportant changes made in the 1993Education Reform Act. Principals andsuperintendents need the same flexi-bility in hiring their own administra-tive staff.

Simplify and consolidate all rules,regulations, and paperworkrequired of districts by governmentat all levels; consolidate grant pro-grams. Massachusetts’ many smalldistricts (380 in all) do not have thecapacity to keep up with the sheerweight of reporting requirements.

Provide flexibility to superintend-ents to intervene more vigorously onbehalf of struggling schools. Thestate should implement the recom-mendations of Partners in Progress,produced by the Governor’s TaskForce on State Intervention in Under-Performing Districts. These includeproviding superintendents with theauthority to reconstitute low-perform-ing schools and to have increased flex-ibility over staffing, schedules andwork rules in those buildings. (See box.)

No Excuses: Turn around the state’s lowest-performing schools

The reforms discussed in this report should beapplied, generally speaking, across the state.But they should be applied more immediately andmore intensively on behalf of the schools thaturgently need the help.

State and federal accountability programs havecollectively produced a set of 114 Massachusettsschools (out of 1894) that are clearly and consis-tently failing the students they serve. Most ofthese schools are located in urban areas, servinglargely poor, minority populations.

Massachusetts policymakers, educators, and thepublic should feel a tremendous sense ofurgency about turning around these schools,before another generation of students movesthrough them to emerge inadequately equipped.

The state should:

Declare an emergency for the state’s 100 (orso) lowest performing schools. The stateshould expand — make available earlier —emergency provisions for these schools,allowing superintendents to take the neces-sary steps to make rapid, significant improve-ment.

Build a diverse, high-capacity cottageindustry of school-improvement serviceproviders–universities, non-profits, and oth-ers–to help districts carry out turnaroundstrategies in these schools.

Make failing schools models for reform,pioneering strategies that can be appliedmore broadly elsewhere. These schools canand should be approached as opportunities todo more than “tinker around the edges” ofschool improvement. They have significantneeds, which need to be met with significantresources (financial and otherwise). Theirsuccess can then inform education reformmore broadly across the state.

Executive Summary


CONTEXT

The Unfinished Agenda of School Reform:Where We Are and What We’ve Learned

SINCE PASSAGE OF THE EDUCATION REFORM

ACT OF 1993, Massachusetts’ publicschool students have benefited from new

statewide academic standards, high-qualitytesting, a graduation requirement, and moreequitable funding for schools across commu-nities of differing economic profiles. With 96%of the class of 2004 meeting state requirementsto graduate, and with the Massachusetts stan-dards guiding steady improvement in schoolsthroughout the state, many of the 1993 goalshave been achieved.

But much work still lies ahead.

Too little effort has been devoted to estab-lishing excellence as a goal, moving beyondpassing and proficiency to produce schoolsthat are international leaders and studentswith a world-class education.

Too many students are meeting only theminimum “Needs Improvement” standards(roughly equivalent to an eighth-grade edu-cation, according to the authoritative reportfrom the national non-profit Achieve, Inc.).They are thus still falling well below the“Proficiency” level — defined by state stan-dards and national studies as the skill levelrequired for success in college or for a well-paying job.

Too many minority students, disproportionate-ly clustered in low-performing urban schools,lag significantly behind their white peers.

In addition, more than 100 of Massachu-setts’ 1,894 schools are clearly and continu-ously failing to provide students with anadequate education, as measured by state,national, and independent standards. Hun-dreds more schools, though improving, still

post distressingly low levels of student per-formance, especially in mathematics andscience.

An expanded vision for the next decade ofeducation is essential for the future of theMassachusetts economy. At a time when theCommonwealth is striving to attain and retainleadership in high technology, biotechnologyand other knowledge-based industries, wecannot continue to graduate students lackingthe skills necessary to succeed in those indus-tries or in college — skill levels that are oftenrequired for even entry-level jobs in a knowl-edge economy.

In our second decade of education reform,Massachusetts must continue to raise the floorof public education in the state, revisiting thestate’s role based on what we learned duringthe first decade. But we must also raise theceiling, pushing all schools — and students —to look beyond passing to proficiency, andbeyond proficiency to excellence.

In the 1990s, Massachusetts over-estimatedthe capacity of schools to respond to theheightened expectations for student achieve-ment. During this next decade, the Common-wealth must organize itself (and its fundingpriorities) to build that capacity. We must cre-ate and nurture an educational environmentin which success is the norm and the expecta-tion, and we must find faster and more effec-tive ways to intervene when schools fail to

Too many students are still falling wellbelow the “Proficiency” level – defined bystate standards as the skill level required for

success in college or for a well-paying job.

The Supreme Judicial Court has dismissedMassachusetts’ ground-breaking educationfunding case, Hancock v. Driscoll, anddeliberately handed responsibility for con-tinued ed reform to the Governor and statelegislature.

Schools are facing increasing pressure tomeet achievement levels established by thefederal No Child Left Behind Act.

Industry and civic leaders are united intheir opinion that public education in 2005is at once a critical economic issue for thestate and a pressing civil rights issue forthose students trapped in underperformingschools.

In the following pages, the Great SchoolsCampaign outlines its vision for the next gen-eration of education reform in Massachusetts.

adequately serve their students. We must giveadministrators and teachers more flexibility tochoose and craft methods that fit the needs oftheir schools and their students, and we musthold them accountable for the results.

Money matters... sometimes

Paraphrasing Richard Murnane and FrankLevy in their influential 1996 article, “WhyMoney Matters Sometimes”: While an ade-quate supply of money clearly is essential,investments are only effective when they arelinked to real reform and targeted at programsthat lead to improved student achievement.We must be willing to spend additional publicdollars to improve education — but we musthave a strategy to ensure that those dollars arespent on programs that get results.

The timing is right to articulate an expandedvision for a second decade of reform in Massachusetts.


Where We Are and What We’ve Learned

The two dotted lines: % of students passing 10th-grade MCAS tests, ‘98-’04 The two solid lines: % of students achieving Proficiency or better

The Challenges of Reform’s Second Decade: Just as steep, just as important — and more complex

0

100%

ELAMath

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

ELAMath

The First Decade’sImprovement Gap:

Bringing all students tominimum competencylevels in ELA and math

The Second Decade’sImprovement Gap:

Bringing all students toproficiency


THE GREAT SCHOOLS CAMPAIGN, organ-ized by the Mass Insight Educationand Research Institute and co-chaired

by Paul Grogan of The Boston Foundationand Gloria Larson of Foley Hoag LLP (seeSteering Committee, inside cover), has con-vened and engaged a broad coalition of schoolsuperintendents, business and communityleaders, academic experts, and other reformpartners around three guiding principles:

New, aggressive goals have to focus onturning around our failing schools, raisingthe minimum standards bar for all stu-dents, and expecting excellence for anincreasing number of students and schools.

State funding, linked to new goals andreforms, needs to be adequate to achievethe goals, predictable enough to allow localdistricts to plan ahead, and allocated in away that promotes the use of programs andreforms that have been proven to increasestudent achievement.

New, multiple reforms are needed toimprove teaching, strengthen school lead-ership, and turn around low-performingschools by making them models for theemerging knowledge base on effectivereforms, incorporating (among otherstrategies) longer school days and incentivepay for highly skilled teachers, linked toflexibility in managing schools.

To accomplish all of the above, we must bewilling to rethink some longstanding ways ofdoing business and experiment broadly withnew approaches. Specifically:

The state must redefine its role to suit therequirements of this second decade ofreform. School reform can work wellwhen skilled leaders at the local level havethe flexibility and resources to select andorganize the programming needed to

improve the performance of their schools.That philosophy — shaped and givenurgency by the first-ever state standards —guided the Commonwealth’s generalapproach in the first decade. But as weenter the second decade, it has becomeclear that standards and accountabilityhave exposed critical areas of need — somequite localized (underperforming schoolsor districts) and some pervasively statewide(math/science teaching capacity, effectiveuse of performance data). The state mustnow organize itself to take direct aim atthose challenges and take an affirmative,proactive role in enabling the solutions.That does not mean radical expansion ofthe Department of Education, but it doesmean a substantial (for this historicallystrong local-control state) redefinition ofthe state’s role in identifying, prioritizing,and supporting a comprehensive strategyto respond to the local and statewidechallenges surfaced by standards andaccountability.

Some of the challenges require statewidesolutions — i.e., solutions of real scale.The redefinition described above, focusedon building capacity both in and outside ofthe schools, is already underway to somedegree. The DOE has received high marksfrom the field for its Performance Improve-ment Mapping program, aimed at helping

It has become clear that standards andaccountability have exposed critical areasof need – some quite localized (underper-forming schools or districts) and some per-

vasively statewide (math/science teachingcapacity, effective use of performance data).

OVERVIEW

Great Schools:A Call for New Goals, New Funding, and New Reforms

struggling schools develop data-driven,results-oriented school improvement plans.The Board of Higher Education is experi-menting with a promising math-science-technology “pipeline” teacher recruitmentmodel. Various state agencies, legislativeleaders, and the Governor have alreadybeen responsive to, or expressed deepinterest in, many of the issues raised inthis report. But in a state inefficientlyorganized around too many small units(380 school districts in all), capacity inthe field to reach reform’s ultimate goalsis sorely lacking. This is by far the mostcritical issue of the second decade.

In areas where scale matters — forexample, working much more vigorous-ly across school district/college/agencyinstitutional lines to prepare teachersand school leaders better, or employingtechnology to support the design ofinstruction and analysis of data — thestate can and must expand its impact, itsdirect investment and its leadership.

We must implement reform in twodistinct categories: broadly applicableinnovation and improvement supportfor schools and districts across theCommonwealth; and a substantiallymore intensive effort to turn aroundfailing schools. All schools and dis-tricts would applaud and benefit fromthe streamlining of Department of Edu-cation paperwork and grant require-ments (as California recently accom-plished), broadscale teacher trainingprograms to ensure deep subject-matterexpertise in the critical areas of mathand science, and solid, standards-basedleadership training for school adminis-trators. The state’s lowest-performingschools present an especially urgentchallenge — and an opportunity to

experiment with deeper levels of innova-tion. In making such schools models ofreform, we can substantially improve theeducational experience for the studentsthey serve and collect valuable data to sup-port decisions on which strategies workbest and could be applied more broadly.


A Call for New Goals, New Funding, and New Reforms

Public to state: “School reform is anunfinished agenda”

In a recent statewide poll conducted by MassInsight Education to give voice to the public’sassessment of the first decade of educationreform and opinions on priorities for the decadeahead:

54% of those questioned characterized edu-cation reform as an “unfinished agenda” inMassachusetts — nearly four times theresponse to any other characterization.

57% said that new reforms will require newmoney — but that the money should be tiedto reforms proven to increase student per-formance. Just 21% said that more moneyalone was the answer.

93% said it is important to turn around theperformance of the 100 worst-performingschools within the next three years.

73% considered it important to increase theMCAS score required for high school graduation.

69% called for improved teacher training inareas such as math and science.

67% called for more classes in advanced subjects.

These results and others are presented in Mass Insight Education’s report on the survey,The Unfinished Agenda: The Public’s View ofMassachusetts School Reform, available atwww.massinsight.org.


IF WE HAVE LEARNED one thing from ourfirst decade of school reform in Massa-chusetts, it is the power and importance

of setting measurable goals.

In the ten years following passage of the 1993Education Reform Act, Massachusetts focusedon setting — for the first time — statewideacademic standards, establishing high-qualityMCAS tests directly aligned with the stan-dards, and instituting (amidst some contro-versy) a graduation requirement staked tothose standards and tests along with substan-tial new state funding to support the newgoals. That requirement — set at the equiva-lent of an eighth-grade skill level, and only inEnglish and math — presented, and continuesto present, a daunting challenge for some dis-tricts in the state. It is clear, however, that thegraduation requirement and the effortrequired to meet it were the catalysts that pro-pelled Massachusetts forward in its largelysuccessful education reform drive in the late1990s and early part of this decade.

But what was an attainable (though difficult)goal from 1993-2003 still reflects a skill levelthat was accurately labeled by the DOE andthe Board of Education: “Needs Improve-ment.” Our state’s accomplishments havemade us a national model. Nonetheless, wehave only partly fulfilled the ultimate vision –and constitutional mandate – for equivalenteducational opportunity sufficient to prepareevery Massachusetts student for post-highschool success.

We must learn from our own success. Movingforward, we need to articulate — and codify —a new set of consistent, clear, measurablegoals. Mass Insight Education and the part-ners we assembled to inform this report pro-pose that state leaders adopt new, forward-looking goals in three critical areas: promot-ing genuine academic excellence (particularlyin the high-priority areas of math and sci-ence); raising the minimum achievement bar

for all; and following through on a commit-ment to turn around failing schools.

1.1 Raise the ceiling:Excellence in math and science

Massachusetts — more than many other states— cannot afford to have anything less thanworld-class schools. With its high-cost, high-skill economy, Massachusetts is locked in a racewith other regions around the country andaround the world for leadership in cutting-edge, knowledge-based industries. The Com-monwealth needs to attract and retain globalindustries — and the people these leading busi-nesses employ — with the quality of our publicschool graduates and with schools recognizedthroughout the country for excellence.

Make Massachusetts’ schools and stu-dents among the best in the world inmath and science. If our state is to contin-ue its leadership role in an increasinglytechnological global economy, we must allcommit ourselves to preparing students tomeet the intellectual demands of that econ-omy. This discussion is well underway inMassachusetts, but it is time to movebeyond $2 and $3 million pilot teachertraining programs and scale this effortappropriately to the need — an investmentof $50 million annually for math and sci-ence teacher training. (Mass Insight Educa-

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RECOMMENDATIONS

1. New Goals

the advanced level in math; 43% score atthe two lowest categories — failing and“needs improvement.” The superintendentsin MIE’s Coalition for Higher Standardsschool network uniformly tell us that thedirection of first-decade school reformfocused their districts’ attention andresources on students and programs at orbelow the passing level on MCAS. Thependulum needs to swing at least partiallyin the other direction: ensuring that ourschools are pushing more students towardacademic excellence and are providing theopportunities in all schools for talented,motivated students to achieve that excel-lence. As MCAS science results becomepart of the graduation requirement, thestate should set equally aggressive goals forimproving the percentage of studentsachieving at the advanced level in that field— and back up that requirement withstrategies to produce the qualified scienceteachers schools will need to reach thosegoals.

1.2 Raise the floor:Passing should mean proficiency

Increase the requirement for high schoolgraduation from an MCAS score of 220to an MCAS score of 230 by 2010 and (asrequired by federal law) to 240 by 2014.A score of 220 equates to an eighth-gradeeducation. A score of 240 is defined byMassachusetts standards as “Proficient” —ready for college or success in a high-skill


New Goals

tion’s 2003 report, Raising Math Achieve-ment in Massachusetts, put the cost ofretraining 10,000 teachers in math contentknowledge at $24 million. Providing on-going coaching for those teachers wouldcost an additional $12 million annually.)The Governor, the DOE, and the stateBoard of Education have already begundiscussing the timeline for including sci-ence in the graduation requirement, a nec-essary provision, but insufficient withoutan investement strategy to produce quali-fied science teachers.

Further: the state should setfirm goals to increase the per-centage of students performingat the “advanced” MCAS levels:in math to 45% by 2010 , forinstance. Currently, 29% ofhigh school students achieve at

An MCAS score of 220 equates to an8th grade education.

U.S. students lag behind competitivecountries in math achievement

Average mathematics scale scores of eighth-grade students, by country: 2003

Source: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA),Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), 2003.

Country Average ScoreSingapore 605Republic of Korea 589Hong Kong SAR 586Chinese Taipei 585Japan 570Belgium-Flemish 537Netherlands 536Estonia 531Hungary 529Malaysia 508Latvia 508Russian Federation 508Slovak Republic 508Australia 505United States 504

New Goals

job. The goal of the graduation require-ment is to ensure that all Massachusettsstudents leave high school with an educa-tion adequate to allow participation in thestate’s economy. In a high-skill economy in2005, an eighth-grade education is notgood enough.

1.3 No excuses:Turn around failing schools

Significantly improve the performance ofMassachusetts’ 100 lowest-performingschools within the next three years. It istime to declare an emergency in the smallpercentage of Massachusetts’ 1,894 schoolsthat are failing — year after year — to pro-vide students with an adequate opportunityto learn, as guaranteed by the state consti-tution. For the first time, more than tenyears into the reform effort, the state canidentify these schools with confidencebecause multiple years of MCAS data showother schools serving similar student popu-lations to be performing better. The factthat these schools are overwhelmingly clus-tered in cities, where they serve the state’spoorest, most heavily minority communi-ties, makes this more than a question offairness: it is the civil rights issue of ourtime. Students served by these schools arepassing through their doors even as thechallenge of what to do is endlessly debated— here in Massachusetts, and in everyother state across the country. The statemust begin investing — today — in a vari-ety of creative and far more aggressivestrategies to improve the programs andservices of these schools before they failanother generation of young people.


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20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

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AdvancedProficientNeeds Improvement

7%

23%

High-performing urban schools show:There is no excuse any longer forchronic low performancePercent of students passing math MCAS in demographically similar urban schools

Source: Massachusetts Department of Education, 2004

Mass Insight Education 13

AS SCHOOLS EMBARK on a new round ofreforms aimed at achieving ambitiousnew goals, they need to be assured

that the dollars invested will be adequate tomeet the challenge, that they will be allocatedequitably, and that they will be available pre-dictably, allowing districts to sustain existingprograms and plan future priorities.

What constitutes “adequate funding” for edu-cation is a highly charged topic that is beingvigorously debated in state houses and court-rooms across the country. In Massachusetts,there is reasonable consensus that, from apoint of lower-than-average state investmentand inequitable spending among rich andpoor districts in the early 1990s, the Com-monwealth has come a long way (more than$20 billion invested) towards enabling everydistrict to spend within a range that could betermed “adequate.”

That commitment needs to continue in thissecond decade of reform. It could be moresharply defined by updating the foundationformula used to determine state funding foreach district.

But “adequate” funding does not necessarilylead to higher achievement across the board.Beyond those initial, underlying principles,Massachusetts must also find ways to ensurethat public resources are spent to maximumeffect on improving student performance.This was not achieved adequately, in allschools, during the first decade of reform.

2.1 Make money matter

Target 10-15% of state aid for large-scaleinvestments in strategies known toimprove academic achievement, andrequire a local match to build sharedownership. Research and experience tell usthat some educational investments have agreater return in terms of student achieve-ment than others. The current system of

state aid to education does little to encour-age that state dollars are spent on the mostpromising strategies. Absent such encour-agement, it is no surprise that too manydistricts are caught in a bind where statefunds are deployed only to maintain thestatus quo of current programming; thereare few funds remaining and little incentiveto invest in critical areas that will in factimprove student performance. High-qualitycontent training for teachers of math andscience, a longer school day, full-daykindergarten, and early childhood educa-tion are investments that often lose out tothe need to protect staffing levels and payfor salary increases, other contractual obli-gations, or special education. These areareas that will only receive attention if thestate makes a major commitment — andmakes it easier for decision-makers at thelocal level (including superintendents,school committees, and municipal officials)to reframe their budgets.

Three criteria for targeted state investments.This is not a new idea. High-quality profes-sional development for teachers and adminis-trators was viewed by the framers of the 1993education reform law as a strategic imperativethat deserved fairly aggressive advocacy by thestate. It is representative of this “category” ofreform because it fits three criteria:

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RECOMMENDATIONS

2. New Funding


Combining targeted spending withrequired local matches would be mosteffective of all. One way for the state to usescarce resources most strategically would beto set aside a portion of state funds for useonly on specific reform investments — andthen only when matched with local educa-tion dollars. This approach might be called“Shared Ownership” investing, because itinvolves shared investment and responsibili-ty for both the local district and the state. Arequirement for a local district match mighthelp preserve good programming if andwhen state funds disappear, because the dis-tricts would already have been investing inthe program themselves.

In taking this approach, the state must strikethe right balance between allowing localeducators the flexibility to make criticaldecisions about what strategies are right fortheir districts, and assuring that enoughmoney is targeted toward a small group ofresearch-based strategies. Those strategiesmight include:

• Staff development that embodies thecharacteristics of the national research-based models: content-oriented, team-based, off-site institutes matched with on-site coaching, well integrated with districtgoals and school improvement plans.

• Full-day kindergarten and early child-hood education — clearly a priority formany (but not necessarily all) superin-tendents.

• Longer school days and/or academicyears — a hallmark of virtually all of theschools that are the state’s top performersin serving highly disadvantaged studentpopulations.

• Integrated data management and effec-tive application of the data to improveteaching — a strong finding from a wide

New Funding

• There is a considerable research baseconfirming its importance to significanteducational improvement.

• Funding it at the district level is clearly adifficult proposition, as staff developmentin districts has been supported over timeby soft money.

• Widespread impact requires large-scalestatewide investments and policy deci-sions.

Spending mandates are problematic. Ris-ing from $75 per student in 1998, staffdevelopment was required to be spent bydistricts at the rate of $125 per student outof each district’s Chapter 70 allotment ofstate reform funding by 2002. But oversightwas minimal and districts acknowledgedfinding many and varied ways of showingthey had met the minimum. When fundingbecame tight in FY03, the requirement waseliminated.

Targeted spending creates a statewide net-work of programs. The state’s funding ofMCAS remediation programs has pursued adifferent, more successful model. Theseresources have been disbursed on a formulabasis (though districts have to apply) as aseparate line item from the Chapter 70funds. The investments reached their peakat $50 million per year in the early part ofthis decade. However, when remediationfunding was cut 80% in the FY04 budget,most school districts lost exactly 80% oftheir remediation programs.

Massachusetts must find ways to ensurethat public resources are spent to maximum effect on improving student performance.


range of effective-practice studies, includ-ing Mass Insight Education’s own researchinto 28 “Vanguard” models in Massachu-setts (www.buildingblocks.org).

The state must develop a strategy to movefrom the current system to one in which 10-15% of all state education aid is earmarked forcritical investments like those describedabove. Reallocation of some existing funds isone option. Another would be to require that50% of all new state aid money be targeted inthis way, until the total pool of targetedmoney equals the desired percentage of totalstate aid.

New Funding


CLEAR GOALS CREATE CONSENSUS andgive direction to the work. Adequatefunding, spent strategically, creates

the possibility of success. Both are necessary ifwe are to substantially improve Massachusetts’public schools – but insufficient withoutchanges to the delivery system itself.

Money linked to reform. The framers of theMassachusetts Education Reform Act under-stood this. The state’s commitment in 1993 toincreased funding for public education waspart of a “grand bargain” that initiated a rangeof vital reforms. Some among them have beenquite visible over the years: for example,accountability for students, schools, andschool districts (which pre-dated the federalaccountability requirements from No ChildLeft Behind). Others have been less apparentto the public eye but no less important in theirway: removal of school principals fromunions, for example, and changes in theauthority granted to school committees.

The second decade of standards-based schoolimprovement in Massachusetts must bring asecond generation of reforms. If the firstdecade focused primarily on the implementa-tion of common learning standards andaccountability for results, this second genera-tion of reforms must focus on enabling schooldistrict leaders to reach their student achieve-ment targets.

How? By removing barriers at all levels(statewide, district, school, classroom) and inall of the relevant areas (district managementand governance, collective bargaining, highereducation, state government) that prevent thebuilding of capacity and its most effectivedeployment.

It’s not a matter — as is often stated — of sim-ply “working smarter.” It’s about redesigningmore strategically the systems that determinestudent achievement. These systems can beorganized in a number of ways. For this

report, we have collected them in three cate-gories: People, Program Design, and Opera-tions.

Note: The reforms suggested here, across allthree categories, are broadly applicable to all ofthe Commonwealth’s public schools and schooldistricts. In a separate section at the end of thereport, we argue that these reforms need to beimplemented immediately and more intensivelyto turn around the state’s small number ofunacceptably under-performing schools.

3.1 People: Develop and more effec-tively deploy our most importanceresource

Effective teaching: Central to education at alllevels is the knowledgeable, well-trained, com-mitted teacher. Massachusetts’ public schoolshave tens of thousands of such teachers mak-ing a fundamental difference in the lives ofstudents every day. Massachusetts (like everystate) also faces three major challenges:

• Too many teachers do not have the capabil-ities and content knowledge required to beproficient in the subjects they teach, partic-ularly in math and science. This is not theirfault; we have raised student achievementstandards and done little to raise teachercapacity levels commensurately.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

3. New Reforms


focused training of teachers to boost theirmath and science skills. However, the effortmust be substantially expanded to reach allteachers who need support. As important:the state can lead the way (as it has alreadybegun to do) in pressing districts andproviders to change their approach toteacher development, embedding muchmore of it through in-school coaching ofthe work teachers are doing in their class-rooms. This is where the “Shared Owner-ship” model of targeted state investmentrequiring a local match comes in. Partici-pating districts would receive state fundsonly if their programs met effective-prac-tice guidelines — which in turn would pro-vide superintendents with the incentive toimpact-bargain local work rules and con-tractual requirements where necessary. TheDOE routinely applies this thinking to itsgrant programs — but they are too small toprovoke broadscale change.

Priming the pipeline into math, science,and other high-need teaching areas willrequire a level of collaboration that isunprecedented in Massachusetts.As one example, colleges and universitiesneed to adjust their course requirementsfor aspiring elementary teachers so theytake at least three courses in math content— a change they would have to do in col-laboration with each other, because deans(perhaps justifiably) worry that a unilateralchange will result in fewer applying stu-dents. The state should spur this develop-ment by heightening certification require-ments to more adequately reflect thedemanding math standards in today’s pub-lic schools.

All of this calls for a new task force, com-posed of public/private college presidentsand supported by the state, to quicklydevelop the package of policy, licensure,

New Reforms

• With the Baby Boom generation alreadybeginning to retire, schools will need tohire a large number of new teachers —some estimates range as high as 50% —over the rest of this decade. Much needs tobe done to make sure that the “pipeline”into the teaching profession draws bright,energetic individuals and that their pre-service training prepares them well.

• Critical shortages are already apparent insome areas. Precisely because math and sci-ence are so critical to this state’s economy,the best math and science students emergefrom college with options more lucrativethan teaching these subjects at the K-12level. And, in all disciplines, the mostdesirable teachers have many attractiveoptions outside of teaching in troubledinner-city schools where their efforts aremost urgently needed.

These are deeply embedded challenges. Solv-ing them will require fundamental changes inthe ways the state, our colleges and our schooldistricts recruit, prepare, license, induct,develop, evaluate, compensate, and deploy ourteacher workforce.

Massachusetts must expand and refine itsefforts to retrain current teachers. TheDepartment of Education has made teacherdevelopment — particularly in math — apriority, and the state is currently using itslimited federal funds to supply content-

Precisely because math and science are socritical to this state’s economy, the best mathand science students emerge from collegewith options more lucrative than teachingthese subjects at the K-12 level.


New Reforms

and coursework reforms necessary to makeMassachusetts the pre-eminent center formath and science teacher preparation inthe country.

Colleges and the state are not the onlyplayers here. Districts should much moreproactively implement “distributed leader-ship” models that create professionaladvancement opportunities for teachers —and that do not necessarily take them outof the classroom. Teacher associations needto embrace these reforms (as some alreadyhave) and see them as part of their owncharter to ensure proper preparation oftheir members and, consequently, lowerattrition.

Salary structures and work rules mustsupport reform’s achievement goals.“Incentive pay” has become a hot topic,and extra remuneration or loan forgivenessprograms for teachers in high-need disci-plines or serving high-need populations isworth pursuing. It is just one piece, howev-er, of a puzzle that has plagued the progressof education reform here and across thecountry: how to most effectively matchcapacity with critical need. The otherpieces in the puzzle involve other forms ofperformance- or “responsibility-based” payand the entire range of work rules gov-erned by collective bargaining in Massa-chusetts. Progress on these issues dependsin large part on communication betweenand among school districts and union lead-ers. School reform progresses best whenevery stakeholder shares the same vision,and is held equally accountable for results.The districts Mass Insight Education hasstudied that have made the most progresshave done so in cooperation — occasional-ly hard-bargained — with their unions, notin opposition to them.

Effective leadership: The assumption of the1993 Education Reform Act was that districtand school leaders, armed with new fundingand the urgency borne of new accountability,would know what needed to be done to bringstudents to much higher standards for learn-ing. That turned out to be just partly true, forall kinds of reasons — among them, a sub-stantially altered landscape for which mosteducators simply weren’t prepared. The stateran leadership institutes in the 1990s and hasbegun, more recently, to become involved inleadership development programs aimed atthe district and school level. But these pro-grams to date have scarce resources and littlescale.

The need for more and better leadershiptraining and development programs is drama-tized by the flight of some of Massachusetts’larger districts away from reliance on the tra-ditional conduits of new leaders. Boston,Springfield, and a number of regional collabo-ratives have begun “grow-your-own-leaders”programs, some supported by national grantsfrom funders such as the Broad and Wallacefoundations. These programs look somethinglike the medical residency model, relying onmentoring and real-world practice to givetheir participants a practical, effective headstart.

They and some other field-based leadershipdevelopment programs, such as the joint Har-vard Business School/Harvard GraduateSchool of Education model, the District Man-agement Council’s effective-practice collabo-rative and the emerging DOE collaborationswith the National Institute for School Leader-

The districts that have made the mostprogress have done so in cooperation with

their unions, not in opposition to them.


and learning: disadvantaged students needmore time to reach the higher-skills expecta-tions the state has set, and the most promisingapplication of extra time seems to be in mod-els of whole-school design — not simplyappending hours of remediation to the regularschool day.

Pre-school and all-day kindergarten: Cur-rently, about half of Massachusetts’ kinder-gartners are in full-day programs. Participa-tion in pre-school programs (and those pro-grams’ quality) varies largely by zip code.While there is some disagreement in theresearch community about the proven long-term academic effects of early childhood edu-cation, there seems to be consensus on itsbehavioral effects and on the impact of high-quality programs when provided to the chil-dren of greatest need. The state is already welldown the road towards making initial invest-ments in this area — using a process thatcould well serve as a model, generally, for thekinds of targeted state spending recommend-ed in this report. The key, which cuts acrossall of the various investments policymakerswill consider, is to view and weigh eachinvestment within the larger context ofreform. Each of these investments is necessary— but not, by themselves, sufficient.

Effective use of performance data toimprove instruction: The key to investing indata analysis is understanding that it’s notreally about data analysis. It’s about applyingthe analysis to reshape curricula, improveteaching strategies, and encourage collabora-tion among teachers. The state has made mas-sive investments in producing good data(through MCAS). The opportunity now is tomake further investments that help schoolleaders and teachers fully incorporate per-formance assessment and lessons gleanedfrom the data into the fabric and culture ofthe school. The DOE, the Governor, andmembers of the Legislature have each

New Reforms

ship and the Massachusetts Association ofSchool Superintendents, deserve state fundingsupport and (if warranted) immediate expan-sion. There is no silver bullet in educationreform, but excellence in school and districtleadership, along with teacher quality, proba-bly comes closer than anything else.

3.2 Program design: Match high-impact investments with the areasof highest need

This category encompasses much of whatschool and district leaders would consider tobe their job: organizing resources and struc-tures to fulfill a vision of high achievement.The fundamental principle of standards-basedreform is that higher statewide expectationsfor achievement, coupled with assessmentscarrying some measure of accountability,would drive wholesale changes in the waysschool programs are designed.

The Great Schools Campaign’s recommenda-tions in this category focus on four areas iden-tified by our collaborating superintendents.They represent dimensions of reform wherehigh need can be readily matched with solu-tions of high impact.

A longer school day: Virtually all of thestate’s urban schools that clearly outperformtheir demographic peers do so in part throughthe wise use of extended time in school —both during the school year and by extendingthe length of the academic year. Worcester’sUniversity Park Campus School and theBoston Collegiate School (formerly the SouthBoston Harbor Charter School) are two exam-ples. The research is becoming clear on time

The key to investing in data analysis isunderstanding that it’s not really aboutdata analysis.


New Reforms

expressed interest in widening the state’s rolein this area. That should happen – as quicklyas in the FY2006 budget.

Fulfilling our commitment to students whoneed extra help: In 2002-2003, Massachu-setts spent $50 million on remediation pro-grams in an effort to help the Class of 2003pass the MCAS, as this was the first classrequired to pass to earn a diploma. Since then,the budget for remediation has been reducedto $10 million, and more reductions could belooming. With the cuts, most schools (espe-cially at the elementary and middle schoollevels) have had to eliminate the extra-helpclasses, tutoring, and summer programs thatsupported at-risk students in developinggrade-level skills. While it can be argued that,twelve years into school reform, schoolsshould be having to serve fewer and fewer stu-dents with below-grade-level skills, our state’sstudent accountability requirements demandthat we provide these programs in everyschool district. Much has been learned abouteffective remediation (see the Keep thePromise reports at www.massinsight.org), andthe state puts the integrity and success of itsreform effort at risk in cutting the remedia-tion budget.

3.3 Operations: Building in more flexibility to do the right thing

Flexibility, our Coalition for Higher Standardssuperintendents have told us, is one of thegreat conundrums of Massachusetts’ approachto standards-based reform. Even as theirbudgets have expanded over the years withChapter 70 block grants, their flexibility in theuse of those funds has not been matched withflexibility over a great many other dimensionsof reform. Those constraints have preventedthem from making most effective use of theirhuman resources, working most efficientlywith the DOE, and intervening in any reallysignificant way to turn around their mosttroubled schools.

Some of the solutions recommended herewould require additional legislative action, ontop of what was accomplished through the1993 Act. Some may require special dispensa-tion — if such a thing is possible — from thefederal government over grant-related appli-cation and reporting requirements.

Remove all school administrators from col-lective bargaining agreements. The 1993reform act took principals out of bargainingunits — a step that has been universally rec-ognized as very positive for successful reform.But other district and school-level administra-tors remain in unions today. It is time to com-plete the work, giving principals and superin-tendents more flexibility in shaping and lead-ing their management teams.

Simplify and consolidate all rules, regula-tions, and paperwork required of districtsby the state. Over and over, superintendentshave told us, they are hampered in their abili-ty to implement reform by the sheer weight ofreporting requirements to various state agen-cies. Partly driven by Massachusetts’ ownaccountability systems, partly by No ChildLeft Behind, and partly by other demandsunrelated to accountability, governmentrecord-keeping and reporting requirementshave become time-consuming beyond theirvalue. This is particularly true in Massachu-setts’ legions of smaller districts, which do nothave the central office infrastructure neces-sary to keep up.

An example: a grant process that engulfs eventhe most entrepreneurial school districts in

Flexibility in the use of [Chapter 70] funds has not been matched with flexibility over a great many other

dimensions of reform.


New Reforms

paperwork and regulations. The state shouldconsider modeling itself after recent changesin the federal grantmaking process, consoli-dating different programs into a smaller num-ber of integrated grants. California providesanother model, having recently consolidated26 existing grant programs into six blockgrants. The DOE and the Board of HigherEducation are aware of the issue and havesought to relieve districts’ burden, movingtowards online grant applications and otherreforms. But more could be done.

Provide flexibility to superintendents tointervene more vigorously on behalf ofstruggling schools. Partners in Progress, thereport by the Governor’s Task Force on StateIntervention in Under-Performing Districts(and chaired by Great Schools Campaign co-chair Paul Grogan), found that excessive con-straints on leadership undermine a school dis-trict’s ability to turnaround low performingschools. Partners in Progress recommendedbroad policy changes, such as providing “allsuperintendents with authority to reconstitutetheir lowest performing schools, includingauthority to establish pilot schools and charterschools…hire own staff and remove teach-ers…[and] remove administrators from col-lective bargaining.” With such reforms inplace, districts would not have to wait for aschool to fail consistently for four to five yearsbefore having the legal authority to use appro-priate measures and tools to turn around theschool. (Even now, it is unclear how readilythose powers will be granted to districts witha “chronically underperforming school” — themost serious category.) The state shouldimplement these recommendations and speedup the pace at which schools move throughreview and planning phases into categoriesthat permit local leaders to take appropriateaction.

Building a Marketplace of Support Providers

If reform’s second decade is its capacity-building era, who

will help districts build their capacity? In some states, the

education agency is the sole provider, in part through highly

resourced regional bureaus. In Massachusetts, where the

DOE’s head count has shrunk considerably despite its increas-

ing responsibilities over the past 15 years, the answer is more

likely to be found in an expanded, lively marketplace of

school-improvement service providers.

That marketplace needs encouragement. Because fund-

ing for school-improvement services has been sporadic, at

best, the “industry” of providers of such services has never

matured in Massachusetts. School districts have contracted

for in-service training and other services with professional

associations, individual consultants (often retired educators),

universities, regional consortia such as EDCO and TEC, and

nonprofit organizations such as Mass Insight Education,

Learning Innovations at WestEd, and Research for Better

Teaching. (Mass Insight Education has been a provider of

staff and leadership development since its inception in 1997.)

Some districts are involved with the whole-school models

piloted by the New American Schools initiative launched by

President George H.W. Bush (for example: Success for All,

Co-Nect, Roots & Wings), or with other national reform net-

works and foundations (Gates, Carnegie, Broad, Wallace).

But these programs are for the most part quite disconnected

from each other, even in districts where several of them are

working at once. The DOE has begun to play an important

role in assembling Massachusetts’ service providers and in

viewing their collective development as an important step

forward for the state. For example, the agency already makes

a strong effort to shape providers’ work through the RFP

process for competitive grant programs. That kind of

“benign management” should be encouraged and expand-

ed. As schools and school districts become identified for

intervention and the state’s investments rise in this area, they

— and the state as a whole — will profit from the presence

of a healthy, dynamic, collaborative marketplace of school-

improvement service providers.


New Reforms

In Massachusetts today, a decade and two years afterthe launch of standards-based reform, a small percent-age of schools are clearly and consistently failing thestudents they serve. Most of those schools are locatedin urban areas, serving largely poor, minority popula-tions where parents have few alternatives to inadequatepublic schools.

Governor Romney echoed the convictions of a widerange of national and local figures when, in his 2005State of the State speech, he described the continuinginequity of educational opportunity between childrenof different races and economic backgrounds as thecivil rights issue of our time.

A deliberate, thoughtful process has produced reason-able consensus about these schools — 114 out of 1,894in the Commonwealth (see next page). They them-selves have had roughly the equivalent opportunity toteach as comparable schools, serving comparable stu-dent populations, spending comparable amounts perstudent and all within the same statewide, standards-driven environment. But their students’ achievementlevels do not measure up to those at the comparableschools — and have not, consistently, over the pastfour years. These students, compared to counterpartsin similar schools, have clearly not enjoyed an equiva-lent opportunity to learn.

These schools need help: intensive intervention thatintegrates many of the reform ideas advanced in thisreport, but applied at a much more intensive level. Itis the state’s Constitutional responsibility to ensurethat they get it.

How? By following these three principles, adapted inpart from the Partners in Progress report prepared bythe Governor’s Task Force on State Interventions inUnder-Performing Districts:

The Commonwealth must expand — and makeavailable earlier — emergency provisions forchronically underperforming schools, throughlegislative action if necessary. Whatever powers

the state would assume at the most extreme level ofintervention — total receivership of a school or dis-trict — should be granted to superintendents whenschools have performed poorly and withoutimprovement for three consecutive years. Superin-tendents with schools in that category should auto-matically be permitted to enact “failing school”rules, rather than having to wait for a school to benamed to the federal “restructuring” list after five ormore years of failure. The Department of Educationshould support these superintendents with funding,resources, and training. Superintendents shouldhave increased latitude over the hiring, firing, andplacement of personnel, and a range of work rulesincluding schedules and time for learning. Convert-ing these schools into magnets, charters, pilots, orHorace Mann schools should be a ready option.The same principles should apply to whole districtsdeemed in need of intervention; at the penultimatestage (before receivership), local leadership shouldbe granted the flexibility necessary to effect imme-diate change — and professional assistance (seebelow) to inform that change process.

State government’s role in these turnaroundsshould be to invest and steer, not row. It would bedifficult for the DOE to perform its current moni-toring/evaluating role and a new role as turnaroundservice provider, simultaneously. The state can andshould set standards and directions for the turn-around initiatives, and (of course) assess the results.But the day-in, day-out work of whole-school andwhole-district intervention will most likely best becarried out by a diverse, high-capacity cottageindustry of school-improvement service providers.That is how a blend of public, philanthropic, andprivate funding and initiative can most quickly pro-duce the expertise Massachusetts needs, and at ascale that matches the potential need. There isprecedent in the supplemental education services

The Turnaround Schools: Intensive Intervention in the State’s Lowest Performing Schools


New Reforms

industry, which expanded geometrically on theheels of federal and state support for supplemental(main remedial/tutorial) kinds of programs.

These struggling schools should become viewedas potential models for effective reform. There isan opportunity here to do more than turn around agroup of under-achieving schools, as essential asthat is. The framers of the Great Schools Campaignask: why not view these schools as potential modelsfor effective reform? The relatively small number offailing schools and the critical need to turn themaround quickly make these schools ideal candidatesto become pilots for effective school improvement— an environment in which the state’s (and thenation’s) most innovative educational thinkers andmost experienced educational reformers can applyand perfect methods for improving student per-formance, all for the benefit of historically under-served student populations.

The point is to get quickly past the defensivenessand embarrassment of labels, and move much morequickly (now that so much multi-year performancedata are in place) through the analysis and planningphases into interventions — proactive turnaroundstrategies that link the DOE, district leaders, andschool-improvement partners around the principlesand reforms suggested throughout this report.

We have spent twelve years and a lot of money toget to this point: knowing, based on irrefutable evi-dence, where we need to work hardest to make sureMassachusetts fulfills its Constitutional responsibili-ty to children. Now, the question is: do we have thepublic will necessary to accomplish that work?

114 Schools That Need SignificantHelp — Now

The Great Schools Campaign’s list of the 114

lowest performing schools in Massachusetts

is not a new list in any way; it is a combina-

tion of other lists from the state and federal

governments.

The list includes:

Each of the schools that has been identi-

fied for Restructuring, Corrective Action,

or Aggregate Improvement in two sub-

jects, and Aggregate Improvement in one

subject and Subgroup Improvement in the

second subject have made the list; and

Each of the schools that has been declared

Underperforming or Chronically Underper-

forming by the Massachusetts DOE since

2000, minus the one school that has

improved enough in four years to be

removed from the list.

What does all of this mean in plain English?

It means that these 114 schools have pro-

duced low achievement levels in literacy and

math against the state’s expectations for all

schools and have not shown a capacity to

improve on their own, over a period of at

least two years and — for half of them — as

many as four or five. The 114 schools identi-

fied by the list are in 24 different districts

(out of 373) across the Commonwealth;

however, nearly 80% of the schools are in

just eight districts. The list will be available at

www.massinsight.org.

(continued from previous page)


New Reforms

intervene on the issue of equitable schoolfunding. In effect, the court said, the state hasbeen heading in the right direction andshould not need judicial intervention to stayon that course. But it also issued a warningthat inequities in educational opportunity per-sist between rich and poor districts, and thatinaction on the state’s part in addressing thoseinequities might reawaken the court’s interest.

If Massachusetts were to fully commit itself tothe goals, funding, and reforms outlined inthese pages, education reform will still be anunfinished agenda ten years from now. But:more schools will be successful, and manymore students will be learning up to the stan-dards their time and place in the world has setfor them. They will emerge from our publicschools much better prepared to create abright future for themselves. And Massachu-setts schools will in fact be Great Schools,known around the country and the world asmodels of high achievement.

Next Steps

The Great Schools Campaign’s call to sharpenthe vision, retool the funding, and refocus thereforms should in no way diminish apprecia-tion of what has been accomplished here inMassachusetts since 1993. Educators, policy-makers, reform experts, advocates, parents,and students have all played critical roles inmaking the Commonwealth a model for thenation. To say that education reform in Mass-achusetts is an unfinished agenda is not toimply criticism of past results; it is to promisea renewed commitment and continuedprogress.

Ask any educator and you’ll hear that, in fact,the challenge of improving public educationwill always be an unfinished agenda. A chang-ing world and a dynamic economy constantlyplace new demands on our schools. Withmore research and more experience come newstrategies to meet both old and new demands.Schools must constantly react to what weneed and incorporate what we know.

The Unfinished Agenda is an effort to capture,at the level of state organizational strategy,what we do know today about Massachusetts’drive to improve our public schools: where weare, how far we have to go, and what we’velearned that would help us get there. Themany collaborators who have joined the GreatSchools Campaign are working to developspecific proposals, following up on the policydirections outlined here. Campaign partnerswill be working closely with leaders from theGovernor’s office and from the two houses ofthe state legislature in the hope that thestrongly bipartisan nature of the state’s educa-tion reform effort to date can be continued.

Sustaining that bipartisan legislative andgubernatorial commitment to educationreform became even more important, ofcourse, in the wake of the Supreme JudicialCourt’s decision in Hancock v. Driscoll not to

The Mass Insight Education and Research Institute is a nonprofit organization,

founded in 1997, that is focused on improving student achievement in public

schools through the effective implementation of standards-based reform.

Our work supports and is informed by close partnerships with 30 school districts

in Massachusetts (the Coalition for Higher Standards), representing more than

300,000 students. Our programs concentrate on school reform in Massachusetts,

but have been held up as national models and increasingly will support effective

implementation of higher standards in other states.

We are:

Researchers and communicators: A key source of information and field

research on education reform in Massachusetts — for interested stakeholders at

all levels, from parents to policymakers — and a national resource for informa-

tion on the effective implementation of higher standards, through our Building

Blocks Initiative for Standards-Based Reform.

Policy facilitators: A leading statewide convener and catalyst for thoughtful,

informed state policymaking on education-related issues.

Leaders in standards-based services to schools: A provider of practical,

research-based technical services, leadership training programs, and consulting

services to schools and school districts — all focused on organizational strategies

that help schools and districts transform themselves into higher-standards com-

munities of learning. We have provided intensive leadership training to more

than 1300 school and district leaders since 1998. Much of our current work

focuses on integrated approaches to math reform, through the Math Achievement

Partnership and other programs.

See www.massinsight.org and www.buildingblocks.org for details.


Leadership SponsorsNellie Mae Education FoundationBank of America State Street CorporationIrene E. and George A. Davis FoundationThe Boston FoundationVerizon CommunicationsWashington MutualBarr FoundationIBMEMC Corporation

Major SponsorsAllmerica Financial Charitable FoundationJohn Hancock Financial ServicesPricewaterhouseCoopers

Contributing SponsorsBlue Cross Blue Shield Gorton’s SeafoodsIntel CorporationLiberty MutualMass 2020National Grid USAPhilips Medical Systems


Mass Insight Education18 Tremont Street, Suite 930Boston, MA 02108tel: 617-722-4160fax: 617-722-4151email: [email protected]

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