State Takes Over Holyoke School

The state Board of Higher Education voted to take control of a middle school in Holyoke yesterday, declaring it to be “chronically underperforming.” The state board now has the power to remove the school’s principal, fire “bad” teachers, hire “good” teachers and pay them more and do other things intended to improve student performance. An article in this morning’s Globe says this is only the third school to undergo this fate. Everyone should watch the progress of this school very closely because it’s predictable that not much will change. The Department of Education’s dictates are just empty rhetoric – if you took those same “bad” teachers and put them in a school filled with students from affluent, stable families, those teachers would magically become “good” teachers. But now the Department of Education has acted and for once, we can measure its performance.