Maryland education officials are pushing failing schools to replace their principals and teaching staffs, according to a report released today by a Washington-based nonprofit research group.
Such drastic steps are not as widely applied elsewhere in the country for schools that have not met the federal standards under the No Child Left Behind Act, according to the Center on Education Policy. "I think in Maryland it has grown out of a frustration at the pace of change," said Jack Jennings, the center's president.
In addition, the number of schools that are on the verge of being placed in the most troubled category, called restructuring, has risen swiftly from four to 38. It takes four years of poor test scores before a school is placed in that category, meaning the first batch of schools that were identified as having problems under NCLB have now been tagged as needing major changes. A few schools in the state had previously been labeled as failing under Maryland's predecessor for gauging accountability.
About half of the schools across the state that have had years of poor performance are in the city. Today's report says Maryland initially tried to bring about reform by bringing in turnaround experts. That approach was seen as less disruptive, but those efforts generally didn't work. Only 16 percent of schools that were the most troubled were able to improve significantly, the report said.
"We are very comfortable being more aggressive about this," said state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, adding that most of the local superintendents in the state concur with the approach. "We have seen much better results" when the staff is replaced, she said.
Grasmick once tried to take over several problem schools but was blocked by the Maryland General Assembly. The next most drastic measure, some believe, is to force a staff overhaul.
Because the Maryland schools have only started using the new strategy of getting rid of most of the staff, it is too early to draw any conclusions, according to the report.. But the center said interviews with teachers in several schools indicate that the upheaval of making teachers reapply for their jobs has dissipated over time.
In particular, the report noted Annapolis High School, where staff morale went down initially. But the situation had improved over the course of last year when the report noted attendance was up, participation in honors and Advanced Placement classes had increased and African-American students had raised their grades.
