By Jesse Liebman --
March 5, 2010
Boston education officials announced Thursday that staff at six schools will have to reapply for their jobs and five principals will be replaced after the schools were identified along with three dozen statewide that will likely be declared "underperforming" and at risk to massive overhauls.
In announcing the shake-up, Superintendent Carol R. Johnson said the schools require top-notch staffs to successfully turn them around. She emphasized that staff members are not being fired and that employees not rehired would be allowed to seek work at other district schools.
"We feel it's important for teachers to recommit themselves to the tough work ahead,'' Johnson said at a press conference at the Holland Elementary School in Dorchester, which was on the state's list.
Johnson's move irritated the teachers union, which accused
her of trying to "evict'' hard-working teachers and said it is exploring possible
legal action.
With almost 17,000 students at risk in the 35 targeted schools, state education officials said yesterday that radical change is crucial and needs to come promptly. The students are tremendously poor and of disadvantaged ethnic and racial groups.
The state could receive an infusion of $250 million from the federal government to help these schools and others. The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday that Massachusetts is among more than a dozen states that will advance to the final round of President Obama's Race to the Top competition, which will reward states that aggressively fix failing schools and expand independently run charter schools.
The schools are considered to be the worst of the worst, generated from a group of roughly 370 schools, the bottom 20 percent of the state's 1,846 schools, based on steadily low test scores. In developing the preliminary list, state education officials also weighed other factors, such as a school's inability to meet federal education standards under the No Child Left Behind law.
Many superintendents in the affected districts welcomed the designations, even though it could bring negative attention to the schools. That is because it comes with a trade-off: a possible $500,000 federal grant, independent of the Race to the Top money, to fund each school's improvement plan.
