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New state education czar focused on achievement gap(New Haven Register (New Haven, CT) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 2--State Education Commissioner Mark K. McQuillan has a bashful smile and a rumpled suit. Don't let that fool you. McQuillan means business. He means to close Connecticut's achievement gap, the largest in the country, where low-income urban students often lag several grades behind their more affluent suburban peers. Connecticut's achievement gap can be easily seen in the disparity in average student scores in neighboring communities: Bridgeport and Fairfield, Hartford and West Hartford, Waterbury and Cheshire, New Haven and Woodbridge. "We must be prepared for corrective action and new ways of interacting with school leaders," he warned the state Board of Education at a recent board meeting. As schools, for instance, reach their fifth and watershed year on a federal "needs improvement" list because of low student test scores, the federal No Child Left Behind law calls for the schools to be reconstituted. The federal government let state governments define what that means. Connecticut's legislature this spring used the budget law to order the Education Department to "reconstitute" schools through aggressive interventions that could include state takeovers. "This is the ultimate destination for a school that is not making any progress," McQuillan told the state school board. McQuillan faces that thorny problem this month. His department will announce which state schools are failing federal standards, therefore requiring intervention. "At one time Connecticut led the nation," McQuillan said about why he came to Connecticut. "I did see this as a state in transition. We are building an accountability organization. The department is a vehicle for change." To that end, he has already reorganized the sprawling Education department by creating a new division for accountability and assessment; a bureau focused on schools that are failing to meet federal standards; and another bureau to oversee and expand school choice. "He brings energy, vision, and great interpersonal skills with experience in some of the things we need to do," said Allan Taylor, chairman of the state Board of Education, which hired McQuillan from a pool of 12 applicants. He said the board wanted a commissioner who would emphasize accountability. "We need to play a more active role in directly improving schools' academic performance. Our state constitution requires us to educate equally. Mark has been directly involved in accountability systems in Massachusetts and not just accountability, but in technical assistance, helping schools improve," he said. McQuillan doggedly stays on that message. "The first challenge is the achievement gap and that there are a lot of schools bordering on corrective action under NCLB," he said, later emphasizing "At the very top of the agenda is closing the achievement gap," and "The achievement gap cannot continue." The new state law calls for the state to intervene in failing school districts to a degree that has not been known before in the state. "It's really about holding people to high standards. The real work is driving instruction down to the classroom from headquarters and bringing the best teachers to the schools that have the greatest need. That's the real hard work," McQuillan said. McQuillan started out as a high school English teacher in Newtown, Mass. in 1974, but quickly rose up the ranks of the Massachusetts Department of Education while he earned several advanced degrees in education at Harvard University. Before he became Connecitcut's education commissioner, he served as executive director of EDCO, an agency that provided regional education services to Massachusetts school districts. Prior to that, from 2002 to 2004, McQuillan was deputy commissioner and chief operating officer for the Massachusetts Department of Education. He is also author of several publications on reading and on the ramifications of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. He is co-editor of Thought and Language/ Language and Reading, which is published by the Harvard Educational Review. McQuillan's long history in Massachusetts education may have been favorable in the eyes of the Connecticut search panel. Massachusetts is recognized nationally for making major strides in closing the achievement gap, and in liberally experimenting with solutions to the achievement gap. Massachusetts also tends to rank highest in many national measures of student achievement. "Massachusetts is a state that has really taken seriously the task of raising minority and lowincome student scores," said Marc Porter Magee, research director for Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, an education research and advocacy group. The National Assessment for Educational Progress, called the Nation's Report card, ranked Connecticut sixth in the nation for fourth grade reading scores and ninth for fourth grade math; the state ranked 23rd in eighth grade in reading and 21st in math. Massachusetts ranked first in all those categories. To see more of New Haven Register, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nhregister.com. Copyright (c) 2007, New Haven Register, Conn. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |