If states are the laboratories for democracy, the Lawrence schools are now the laboratory for overhauling a failing urban school district. State and local officials gathered in the Merrimack Valley city on Wednesday morning to unveil a sweeping school turnaround plan for the district, which was put in state receivership last November after years of troubled leadership and poorly performing schools.
The turnaround plan vows to push control over schools from the central office down to the school level, bring added hours to the school year, and, most notably, tap successful charter school operators to oversee the city’s most troubled schools.
The plan sets ambitious goals for a system that currently graduates fewer than half of its students. The targets include improving student performance within three years to put Lawrence among the top five districts of the 24 state-designated gateway cities (it currently ranks 22nd). Within five to seven years, the plan aims to have Lawrence students meet the statewide average for English and math scores on the MCAS exam.
Jeff Riley, a former Boston school principal and administrator, was tapped by state officials to serve as the receiver in charge of the Lawrence schools and given broad powers over everything from teacher staffing decisions to the structure of the school day and curriculum. The turnaround plan identifies “a lack of effective instruction in many classrooms” as the core problem behind poor student achievement in Lawrence. Over the last three months, Riley and his staff have been reviewing the performance of 70 of the district’s 800 teachers whose records raised particular concerns. In an interview after today’s announcement, Riley said 20 of those teachers have resigned, while 10 have been approved to continue in the district. The remaining 40 will either be put on “improvement plans” to track their performance going forward or dismissed.
The boldest move in the turnaround plan is bringing in charter school operators to help manage the district’s most distressed schools. These partnerships will “turn on its ear the traditional distinction between the charter school community and the traditional public school community,” said state Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester at today’s announcement.
“We’re looking forward to building a team that has the same values – hard work on behalf of the kids,” said Sheila Balboni, executive director of the Lawrence Community Day Charter School, which will be tapped to help manage Arlington Elementary School.
Other charter school organizations that will be part of the Lawrence effort are MATCH Charter School in Boston, which will provide math tutors to high school students, and Phoenix Charter Academy of Chelsea, which will open a high school in Lawrence targeting dropouts and those at risk of dropping out. Also being brought in is Unlocking Potential, a school turnaround group currently overseeing reforms at the Gavin Middle School in Boston.
“I’m really excited about the use of proven school management partners to do the turnaround process,” says Justin Cohen, president of the School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight, a Boston nonprofit that has developed turnaround strategies being used by school districts in a number of states. The use of outside partners with proven track records to help turn around failing schools is “not the norm yet,” says Cohen, but “is an emerging trend” that districts are adopting.
