State education staff shrinking
Springfield Republican
Natalia E. Arbulu
April 22, 2005
The state Department of Education needs to give more guidance and support to low performing schools if student test scores are to improve, according to a research report scheduled to be released today.
The report, titled "Reaching Capacity: A Blueprint for the State Role in Improving Low Performing Schools and Districts," was written by the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy at MassINC.
The report examines department limitations and deficiencies and gives intervention strategies that could help struggling schools.
These interventions require the Legislature to invest more in the department so that it can have the capacity to provide necessary services to schools, the report said.
The department "has not received the resources and support it needs to do its expanded job under education reform," Rennie Center Executive Director S. Paul Reville said.
The Rennie Center interviewed principals, superintendents and members of the state Department of Education for the report.
While the Legislature has pumped billions of dollars into school systems, its support of the department has declined.
Of the $3.9 billion the state spent on education in 2004, only .24 percent, or $9.3 million, went toward the department's administration. In 1994, .44 percent of the $1.8 billion education budget went towards the department, the report said.
The report said the department's staff is small in comparison to states like South Carolina and Maryland that educate fewer students but have staffs up to 25 percent larger.
Department salaries are too low to attract experienced principals and superintendents, many of whom would have to take a pay cut.
The department has 510 employees - 287 federally funded employees and 223 state employees.
In 1980, the department had 990 employees, 623 of whom were state employees.
The report concludes that the department lacks the capacity to work with the hundreds of schools and districts that are in need of improvement based on state performance standards developed under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
The state has only reviewed 33 of the 376 schools and 132 districts found in need of improvement last fall.
"With its current capacity, the DOE is effectively forced to take a triage approach to intervention in schools - focusing almost exclusively on schools in the restructuring category," the report read.
Department spokeswoman Heidi B. Perlman said that while the state does not have the capacity to help all schools, it feels it is making progress.
Intervention strategies to help low performing schools include an increase in the state's ability to provide professional development in math, special education, and the instruction of English-language learners, the creation of state-level incentives to strengthen local leadership and more state guidance on curricular options.
Also needed is a faster turnaround of MCAS results and the development of a "value-added" system that tracks students growth in MCAS performance over time.
Springfield Schools Superintendent Joseph P. Burke, who was interviewed for the report, said the recommendations are important and necessary if low performing schools are to succeed.
Superintendents across the state are pushing for the value-added analysis system which gives officials "a much better picture of the quality of education (delivered)," Burke said.