The state Department of Education released a preliminary list yesterday of schools that are not improving fast enough under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, but exactly how those schools will get up to speed remains to be seen.

On the one hand, 45 schools statewide managed to pull themselves off last year’s list by improving their MCAS test scores, MCAS participation and attendance, all of which are used to measure adequate yearly progress. But those gains were more than outweighed by the nearly 200 schools that joined the list this year by failing to make adequate progress two years in a row.

Education experts say the state doesn’t have enough money to intervene effectively in struggling districts now, and there is no budget for a new, accelerated intervention system that the state Board of Education is scheduled to vote on Oct. 24.

The Great Schools Campaign, managed by Mass Insight Education, yesterday called on the Department of Education to use the $5 million it has for assistance for just 10 of the lowest-performing schools instead of spreading it more thinly among more districts.

S. Paul Reville, executive director of the Cambridge-based Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, agreed that the state’s capacity to intervene is an issue.

“The state has done a good job… at the identification phase,” Mr. Reville said. “They’re less clear what you actually do about it… The reality is that the state doesn’t have enormous capacity right now to engineer significant interventions for turnaround schools.”

The problem isn’t unique to Massachusetts. Nationally, he said, other districts haven’t been able to turn large school systems around. “You have no uniformly high-functioning urban district,” he said.

Districts are making some changes for themselves.

In Worcester, whose four middle schools were listed in need of corrective action last year, the district doubled the number of English language arts classes seventh-graders take and doubled the number of math courses for low-scoring eighth-graders, said Worcester Deputy Superintendent Stephen E. Mills.

But overall, the district needs more money for tutoring for students and coaches for teachers, said Superintendent James A. Caradonio. It would cost $5.72 million for the right level of intervention services at the city’s nine underperforming schools alone, according to a district analysis.

The lists the state released yesterday are preliminary because they do not take into account the result of MCAS alternative assessments and schools that serve only kindergarten through second-graders, said Heidi B. Perlman, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education. The numbers do not usually change drastically after those are considered, she said.

Locally, the range of schools in need of improvement, corrective action or restructuring stretches from Southbridge to Fitchburg and Marlboro to East Brookfield. One benefit of the designations is that it conveys to parents the urgency of the problem, Mr. Reville said. “They need to be at the table when thinking about what it is you should do in the school community,” he said.

The state Board of Education is accepting public comment through Friday on its proposal for intervening in struggling schools. If passed, schools that are identified for restructuring would become Priority Schools, Ms. Perlman said. Under the proposal, the state board could order them to be managed by a third party.

Contact Jacqueline Reis by e-mail at jreis@telegram.com.

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