under the new ed law

"a district is no stronger than its weakest school" (district takes the designation of its weakest schools)
lowest achieving 20% of schools in state become Level 3 schools (then 35 Level 4 "underperforming" schools)
there are also Level 4 districts from a district review
Level 3 schools were, when the rules were being developed, under reconstruction for the district: THAT IS NO LONGER TRUE
the regs now as passed now are not what they were planned to be when the deputy commissioner came to Worcester: Level 3's will not be identified until this fall including this year's MCAS data
Worcester therefore will have LESS THAN 29 Level 3 schools when the list is released this fall
(the 29 included all that had status under NCLB; that is NOT the state standard under the new regs!)
growth model will be included the FOLLOWING YEAR, so the list will change again in 2012
Lowest achieving 20% of schools based on 4 years of data: MCAS CPI, % of failing/warning, in 2011 median student growth percentile, high school graduation, high school dropout rate
"limited effectiveness of the qualitative reviews" done by the state
looks like 62% at Level 1, 15% at Level 2, 20% at Level 3, 2% at Level 4: prediction for fall
does not believe that there will not be additional Level 4 schools released in the fall