<p>I’d like to hear about what other measures were tried before this drastic action was proposed by the Superintendent.</p>
<p>That being said, perhaps the best way to deal with schools that consistently underperform is to close them and disperse the students elsewhere, to better schools within the district.</p>
<p>Due to NCLB, the school had four options and one was working with the teachers for changes. The Superintendent wound up choosing the fire everyone and rehire. They can rehire up to 50% of the previous staff. There was a discussion about this on the radio and apparently this district is the densest city in New England (an educational consultant mentioned this - I don’t know if it is true).</p>
<p>This does provide an opportunity for Teach for America teachers to come in with bright, young teachers to try to make a difference. I know nothing about this district other than what I heard this morning.</p>
<p>There was a discussion of the Lawrence, MA schools too. Lawrence is one of the worst districts in MA and the city is currently in receivership with the state trying to figure out what to do with it.</p>
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So the parents of 93% of the students either didn’t know their kids weren’t proficient in math, weren’t willing to supplement that deficiency in some way, were unable to supplement that deficiency, or really weren’t involved enough to care to improve their kid’s proficiency. </p>
<p>I’m not excusing the school’s teachers or administrators (did they fire them??) but I think it’s likely they’ll bring in a new suite of teachers and have the same problems.</p>