State identifies three dozen
'underperforming' schools
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March 4, 2010 12:12 PM
By James Vaznis
Boston Globe staff
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Mass. Level 4 'underperforming' schools

' The following is a preliminary list of "Level 4" underperforming Massachusetts schools, as determined by the state state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The state defines a Level 4 school as one that has performed poorly on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System in both the Math and English Language Arts sections over a four-year span and hasn't shown signs of "substantial improvement." (just showing F.R. School

Fall River Henry Lord Middle MS
Fall River John J Doran ES
Fall River Matthew J Kuss Middle MS

" The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education identified nearly three dozen schools today that will likely be declared “underperforming,” under a new law that gives superintendents sweeping powers to overhaul those schools.
Mass. Level 4 'underperforming' schoolsTwelve schools are located in Boston, 10 are in Springfield, and the remaining 13 are scattered across Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford and Worcester.

     -Fall River  (3)
     -New Bedford  (1)
     -Holyoke  (2)
     -Lawrence  (2)
     -Lowell  (1)
     -Lynn  (2)
     -Worcester  (2)


" The schools are considered to be the worst of the worst, culled from a pool of roughly 370 schools – the bottom 20 percent of the state’s 1,846 schools, based on persistently low test scores and other longstanding academic issues, such as failure to meet federal education standards.

School superintendents will have three years to turn around these schools. Failure to do so could prompt the state to take them over.


“These are schools where results are unacceptably low,” said Mitchell Chester, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, of the newly identified schools. “Kids are not being well-served in these schools.”
The state will require superintendents in these districts to remove principals at these schools who have been there for at least two years.

Superintendents can also tap dramatic powers under the new state law to overhaul these schools. Actions that could be taken include lengthening the school day and forcing all teachers and staff members to reapply for their jobs.

The list of underperforming schools is considered preliminary because the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has not yet approved regulations to execute provisions of the two-month-old law. The board is expected to vote on those regulations later this month.
Chester said he decided to release the list today because many superintendents have been clamoring to get going on turnaround plans."

Matthew J Kuss Middle School

Now we know why the lower drop out figures were announced by the Fall River School Department with such fanfare. Even though it was an extremely small sample without enough data to build a legitmate trend line over time to gauge it's efficacy, it was treated as if schools in Fall River were doing much, much better.

While the dropout figures were better, and that is certainly a good thing, the timing of the announcement was no accident. I'm sure it was made public just in time to lessen the blow of this horrible news. This has been a consistent pattern by the School Administration, to lessen the impact of bad news by highlighting some small victory before the bad news boom is lowered. Your secret is out MMB!

I thought this superintendent was suppossed to produce results? Great job there MMB. Do I even have to guess how many minorites attend these schools? How many "coaches" are at these schools, and how much time to they spend out of their offices interacting with teachers as oppossed to sitting in their offices drinking coffee and giving shelter to slacker staff who wish to hide from kids? Is there a police presence at these schools to make the staff and students feel safe? Don't you have enough funding to make that happen? And if security is such a problem , and has been for years  at all Fall River schools, why wasn't that one of the first things you straightened out when you took over? Any fool on the street knows that teachers cannot teach and students cannot learn if they are constantly terrified. You don't need a PhD to know that, it's everyday, average citizen common sense. Something is wrong here, very wrong.

John J Doran Elementary School

I know how much Fall Riverites like to play the "compare" game. How does it make you feel that after Boston and Springfield, Fall River has the most failing schools? We have three and "lowly" New Bedford only has ONE! We have more than sad sack cities Lawrence , Lowell  and Worcester, a city with a huge hispanic population.

We have no excuses. In fact, most of the cities listed have large Hispanic and minority populations as well. Doesn't that indicate we should greatly expand bi-lingual education programs in Fall River? These cities carry with them the same community problems of high unemployment, drug addiction and violent crime that we have right here in Fall River. So why are we so much worse?

Henry Lord Middle School

Fall River 3, New Bedford 1.  Third place in losersville. Worse than New Bedford. The numbers don't lie. Worse than all those pretty much completely failing cities we do not feel we should be compared to. But we are worse than them.

No cops...no fireman...no tash collections...no jobs....terrible schools....incompetent politicians....incompetent public employees at the highest level...Yes, we have quite the lovely City here my friends.

What are you going to do about it? Yelling at me for showing you the truth won't help, but go ahead if it makes you feel better! I hope this information makes you mad enough to DEMAND better things from your government. I hope it makes you mad enough to vote a whole whopping bunch of new people to the City Council and legislative delegation , the same people who over the years brought you this great mess. And if the new guy keeps screwing up and not taking responsibility for running the city like he promised he would, vote his behind out too!

For once, you all have my permission to be IRISH : Get mad AND get even, VOTE THE BUMS OUT!

Fall River 3, New Bedford 1...Yep, We'll Try!

UPDATE:
Here's an update on the photo's of the wonderful schools rated as loser's by the State.....enjoy...maybe some day you'll actually take pride in something that's done correctly...oh wait, there isn't anything in Fall River that's done right....except stupidity!