Notes on Level 4 schools: a recap

As I said below, today I was at an MASC meeting on Level 4 schools. The deputy commissioner spoke to us. Below are some of my notes:

MASC Urban districts with Karla Brooks Baehr
mix of urban (Holyoke, Clinton, Lowell) here along with Lynnfield, Winchendon, Amesbury, Upper Cape Tech

pre-NCLB: accountability was built on school reviews w/ labels underperforming and chronically underperforming
NCLB brought in AYP w/ federal labels (in need of improvement, corrective action, restructuring)
AYP was an ever-increasing line
state labels also Commonwealth priority schools and Commonwealth pilot (on their way to being priority)
District EQA reviews (2000-08); in August 2008 Legislation eliminating EQA/EMAC
Commissioner's district meant as punitive, but a way to give additional assistance: as a way to organize those with most Commonwealth priority schools: nine largest urban districts,plus Holyoke
urban superintendent network meeting monthly

2008-09 year of transition: 15 district evaluations (six best practice reviews for sped), redesigning entire system
2009-10: 20 district evaluations (half were best practice evaluations, focus on ELL kids doing well), draft regulations in fall, new law in January, new regs in April

[best practice documents are all put online once they are written up]
the district, rather than the school, is where the state integrates
accountability is essential but not enough
assistance and interviention proportional to need
districts and schools needing intervention is independent of NCLB (by last fall, more than half of MA schools were ID'ed as needing help under NCLB; in a few years it will be 80%) and proportional to state's ability to help
"we can't have a system of assistance that all schools are bad"
"if we're going to take the step of labelling, we have to be able to help"
(in other words, the state has, to an extent, dismissed the NCLB status as being increasingly meaningless)