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The Very Challenged
Districts
The major cities and demographically
distressed towns are the twenty-five communities at
the lower end of the state's demography. These districts
received substantial amounts of education reform funding
as a result of the Education Reform Act of 1993. In
fact, these twenty-five districts, which have 31% of
the students in Massachusetts, received 55% of the education
reform funding.
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1992 - 1999 Student Performance:
Very Challenged Communities
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Per-Pupil
Ed.Reform
Aid FY99
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Malden
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62
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46
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16
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-0.98
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970
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Leominster
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53
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33
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20
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-1.00
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2110
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Gardner
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49
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40
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9
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-1.00
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2016
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Webster
|
65
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48
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17
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-1.13
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1018
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North Adams
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55
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51
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4
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-1.17
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1947
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Ware
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51
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30
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21
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-1.22
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1732
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Ludlow
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53
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17
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36
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-1.31
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1304
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Everett
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61
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56
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5
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-1.46
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1785
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Taunton
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57
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51
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6
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-1.47
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1606
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Chicopee
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57
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53
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4
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-1.64
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1757
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Somerville
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57
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34
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23
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-1.65
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1559
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Brockton
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58
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62
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-4
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-1.71
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2745
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Revere
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56
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56
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2
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-1.72
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2183
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Worcester
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67
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54
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13
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-1.74
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2330
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Southbridge
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39
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42
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-3
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-1.79
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1598
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AVERAGE
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56
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45
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11
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-1.40
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1777
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1992 - 1999 Student Performance:
The Most Challenged Communities
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Per-Pupil
Ed.Reform
Aid FY99
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Fitchburg
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66
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59
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7
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-2.02
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2269
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Lynn
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68
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66
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2
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-2.22
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2925
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Boston
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67
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56
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11
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-2.31
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1806
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Fall River
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69
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61
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8
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-2.82
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2262
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Springfield
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68
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72
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-4
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-2.86
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2466
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Lowell
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67
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64
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3
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-2.88
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3119
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New Bedford
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67
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66
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1
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-2.96
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2054
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Holyoke
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70
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77
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-7
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-3.93
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3124
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Chelsea
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78
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61
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17
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-4.23
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3318
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Lawrence
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74
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75
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-1
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-4.81
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3643
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AVERAGE
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69
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66
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4
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-3.11
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2699
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Looking at these Very Challenged districts
in terms of changes in student performance between 1992
and 1999 shows a troubling pattern. While these communities
generally had fewer students failing the MCAS Grade
8 Math test in 1999 than had failed the 1992 MEAP, the
improvement was much less robust than was the case in
Middle Massachusetts. The average improvement for Malden
through Southbridge was 11 percent. The average improvement
for the ten most disadvantaged communities (Fitchburg
to Lawrence) was 4 percent. This compares to the 21%
improvement in the Math 1992 MEAP - 1999 MCAS scores
of Middle Massachusetts Communities listed previously.
This is unsettling for two reasons:
1) These communities received significant new state
education reform yet have not improved as much as communities
receiving much less aid; 2) These Very Challenged communities
need to dramatically improve results in order to have
substantial numbers of their students passing MCAS.
Summary
We have new state aid going where it
is needed - low spending communities. We have improvement
in systems that did not have demographic disadvantage
with which to contend. Places like Woburn and East Longmeadow
and Rockland have made solid progress since 1992. Woburn
and East Longmeadow have been mainstays of my Effective
School Districts Reports, and Rockland moved up dramatically
in rank over the seven years pre-and post reform. Rockland,
as a McDuffy plaintiff that was underspending pre-reform,
received significant new state aid and its improvement
suggests that a shortage of money was indeed a barrier
to school improvement in that district.
Brockton and Lawrence and the other
cities did not move much between 1992 and 1999. That
does not establish that these communities do not need
more money; it does suggest that there is more work
that needs to be done in urban schools than just increasing
the per-pupil spending levels.
The fundamental problem that faces
reformers in 2000 is the same problem that faced them
in 1993, in 1985, and in 1965. Education reform has
not fundamentally affected the way schools work. Whatever
changes have occurred have been at the margins.
For those who live in advantaged communities
and for many who live in Middle Massachusetts towns,
that is fine. Based on 199 MCAS results the schools
are working fairly well. That is not the case in the
disadvantaged communities that are home to over 30%
of our population; those schools have not been able
to overcome the demographic barriers that impede progress,
Fail rates in some urban classrooms approach 90%.
This research and the results of the
first two years of MCAS strongly suggests that schools
in our cities and disadvantaged towns need to be fundamentally
reorganized in order to be successful in educating their
children. Increasing funding in the absence of such
threshold change will not ensure a fair learning opportunity
for all.
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