Superintendent: Arlington Middle needs work, but is not failing

Published: 01/08/2008
By Zach Church
Staff writer

LAWRENCE - Arlington Middle School began an increased emphasis on math and reading yesterday, in the wake of news that it faces state takeover.
The state Board of Education will vote on that recommendation, likely in February. If accepted, the state could require the replacement of the school's principal. The new principal could, in turn, fire teachers.
In the meantime, the 490 students at the Arlington Street school will have 15 minutes more a day each of English and math instruction. And at the central office downtown, Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy is preparing a defense of the students' academic performance. Laboy yesterday also defended Arlington Middle staff, saying he will not dismiss the principal or teachers there.
Laboy said he plans to show that the fifth-grade through eighth-grade school, while having room for improvement, does not fit the legal definition of "chronically underperforming" as it has been labeled by acting Education Commissioner Jeff Nellhaus.
Arlington Middle is one of six schools statewide Nellhaus has recommended for Priority 1 status. The others are in Springfield and Holyoke. The designation is the result of continued failure to meet adequate yearly progress on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests. Test results are considered the long-term measuring stick used by the state to determine improvement at schools.
Adequate yearly progress is based on math and English MCAS scores, but Laboy said the increased time in those subjects will not be test preparation.
Even if the school is subjected to some state control, it is unclear how heavy-handed state education leaders would be. Board of Education Chairman Paul Rivelle said the board won't be declaring any school Priority 1 until it has measured the state's "own capacity to provide support and assistance" to Massachusetts' most struggling schools.
"We're in the mode of wanting to support schools and make sure our involvement makes a constructive difference," Rivelle said. "We're not in the business of just labeling people and walking away."
Rivelle said the board will use its Jan. 22 meeting to consider how to act on Nellhaus' recommendations. An actual decision isn't likely until February, he said.
Laboy spoke before the board in December, though only for a few minutes, he said. He is preparing a much longer presentation he hopes to give later this month.
In a three-page memo to the School Committee, Laboy argues that students at the school met adequate yearly progress for English language arts MCAS tests in 2006. Students last year did not hit that target for English language arts.
Students failed to meet goals for math in 2006 and 2007.
Despite those failures, Laboy said, the state cannot declare Arlington Middle "chronically underperforming" unless it fails to meet adequate yearly progress across the board for two years in a row. Arlington, he said, has been unfairly clumped in with the other schools facing Priority 1 action.
"If you're going to measure all schools, you've got to measure with the same stick," Laboy said yesterday. "We understand that we have to meet that threshold. All we're asking is that the assessments are fair and credible."
Arlington Middle did fail to meet adequate yearly progress across the board in both 2003 and 2004, poor MCAS performance years after the school showed progress in the early years of the decade.
In 2005, the school was restructured and a new principal was brought in. But Laboy said he believes the roller coaster ride of success and failure in MCAS scores at the school has left the state with the wrong impression.
"When we questioned the status with (Department of Education) staff, we were told it was because of the length of time the school had been identified as underperforming," Laboy wrote to the committee.
The superintendent also wrote that staff turnover, a transient student population, a growing special education population and the predominance of students who speak English as a second language add challenges to boosting performance at Arlington Middle.
Department of Education data shows that more than 88 percent of students at Arlington Middle come from low-income families, about 5 percent more than the district average.