Superintendent Boone’s Record - What the Numbers Show

Monday, November 09, 2015

GoLocalWorcester News Team and Kate Nagle

Superintendent Melinda Boone’s departure from Worcester after six plus years has her critics celebrating the end of her tenure, while her supporters are highlighting her successes.

GoLocalWorcester broke down the numbers of the Worcester schools based on key measures - SAT scores, dropout rates and MCAS scores - during the five-full years in which Boone led the school system. One element that also has lacked review is comparative investment in education and the rate of increase in spending during this period.

SLIDES: See the Boone Numbers BELOW

Defenders such as Tracey Novick, who lost her bid for re-election on the Worcester School Committee wrote in her 2012 evaluation of Boone, “I want also to commend Superintendent Boone and the administration on their responsiveness and flexibility throughout this budget process: responding to parental concerns regarding elementary class size; responding to Council advocacy for fully staffed nursing; responding to principals on supplies and support staff.”

Others raised concerns about Boone’s management, lack of transparency and inability or unwillingness to manage the issue of crime and safety in the public schools.

According to an analysis of Worcester School numbers as reported by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Boone’s results were consistent and for the most part positive, but also unspectacular. If the goal of education improvement is minuscule incremental improvement in test scores and dropout rates then Boone hit the goal.

Test Scores

During Boone’s tenure, there were small improvements in SAT scores and an increase in the number of students who took the tests, but the increase was negligible. Over five years, the average reading SAT score only increased three points from 436 to 439. Similarly, writing increased from 428 to 431 and math SAT score rose from 446 to 460 — the largest increase of the three segments of the test.

MCAS scores during the Boone tenure increased significantly - the percentage of advanced and proficient grew from 63% of the 12th graders to 77% by her last full year.

Greatest Accomplishment

The highest area of accomplishment for Boone was the drop in the dropout rate from 3.5% to 2.1%. For Boone, who is heading to Norfolk, Virginia with a key from the City of Worcester in her possession — the next Superintendent will need to build on this area of success.

“Dr. Boone has significantly lowered the Worcester Public Schools' dropout rate. That means hundreds of Worcester kids who, rather than dropping out, now have high school diplomas. That's real impact and real leadership,” said Ed Augustus, worcester’s City Manager.

During her tenure, Worcester saw the total budget of the School Department increase under Boone from $346.5 million in 2010 and rose over the years to $373 million in 2013.

Boone’s Biggest Failure

No superintendent in a city the size of Worcester is going to have a tenure without critique, but the episode at the end of her tenure that exemplified her biggest weakness was the inability to manage complex public relations issues such as the arrest of two employees for child pornography. For parents, nothing may be more concerning then learning that school employees were not properly vetted.

At the time two members of the School Department spoke out,”The public would have benefited from timely reporting as to these incidents. The WPS would have benefited as well, as it would have been able to explain what took place, and the precautions it utilizes in the hiring and screening processes," said School Committee member Brian O'Connell. "When it addresses these developments in a prompt, forthright,thorough, public and transparent way, responsively to the media, it builds trust and respect."

School Committee member and GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™ John Monfredo added, "It would benefit the school system to address these arrests publicly with the understanding that as a system of over 3,000 employees and everyone passing a [background check] that sometimes we have employees fall between the cracks but we are swiftly dealing with the situation when in occurs. This happens in all walks of life in our community."

The Next Superintendent

For the next Superintendent of the Worcester Schools, he or she will face a very different school committee. The new school committee is significantly more fiscally conservative and will be far more aggressive in monitoring the new superintendent.