Peabody School Committee concerned over falling MCAS

PEABODY – Members of the School Committee tried getting to the bottom of declining MCAS scores among third graders Tuesday night with the help of Literacy Coordinator Sarah Lacourciere.Board members have been frustrated and confused over why their students, who were once fairing well on the MCAS, steadily began to see lower performance scores since the district decided to adopt a new instructional program under the advice and training of consultants from Tufts University back in 2005.School Committee member Ed Nizwantowski has long spoken his disappointment with the style of teaching, arguing that veteran Peabody teachers were comfortable with their own practices and knew what methods worked best.”We’re overtraining people who already trained,” he said. And they’re being trained by people who have never taught in a classroom.”School Committee member Dave McGeney echoed his feelings.”Teachers told us we were going down the wrong path?and those concerns were passed off as resistance,” he said. “With the benefit of hindsight, a lot of those concerns were well founded.”Lacourciere openly admitted that 2005 was a difficult year for Peabody third graders in particular who saw a dramatic drop in their MCAS scores across the district. She couldn’t pinpoint why that was exactly, but rather listed several possible variables, such as an increase in low-income students, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency. She also said that it might have been due to a lack of a structured and cohesive phonics program.Her solution, however, was the installment of the Fundations program, which just began this school year. It reaches students at all reading and writing levels, not just the top 80 percent.”I’m hoping that as teachers are implementing Fundations from grades K-3?the scores will improve,” she said, adding that only time will tell when those students enter the third grade and take the MCAS for their first time.But, according to Lacourciere, what it really came down to was the lack of resources for both teachers and students who were thrown into the new program. She said teachers didn’t have a reference book or guide to help them with the new style of teaching back in 2005, when scores were their lowest. For the first time this year, teachers have been supplied with a binder full of instructional information.”It wasn’t a controversial program, it was the way it was done,” said School Committee member Beverley Ann Griffin Dunne in agreement. “We were wrong in doing it this way?We need to have all the pieces from the beginning.””It’s no big deal if we try something new and it doesn’t work out,” said McGeney. “But it’s a tragedy if we stay on the wrong path because of fear.”Lacourciere, however, remains optimistic in the new approach with Fundations.”I do think we’re on the right path.”On a side note, Lacourciere said that many classrooms don’t have enough books for all the children to read as a classroom. School Committee member Ed Charest reached out to the public for their donations of children’s books, new and used, to their nearby school. Any such donations are currently accepted at the Carroll School.