Prince George's Replacing Teachers

Action at 21 Schools Geared to Meeting U.S. Benchmarks

Teachers of core subjects who do not meet state qualifications in their chosen fields will be replaced at 21 Prince George's County schools under a set of school improvement plans.

Thirty-nine Maryland schools have failed to meet academic standards required by the federal No Child Left Behind law for at least five years. Under the law's provisions, schools with consistently low performance must take drastic measures to improve achievement. The options include replacing all or most of the staff, changing principals or placing the school under management by an outside organization, among others.

In Prince George's, all 21 schools that require restructuring are designated for the staff replacement option; some will also replace their principals. The schools' plans were approved in January by the county school board and are being confirmed in smaller chunks by the Maryland State Board of Education.

The state board approved plans Tuesday for Oxon Hill Elementary School, Largo High School and Benjamin Stoddert, Oxon Hill and Ernest Everett Just middle schools. The board also approved similar staff replacement plans for three schools in Baltimore County, and for a school in Harford County, which is replacing its principal with one trained by the New Leaders for New Schools program, a nonprofit organization that focuses on boosting urban school systems' performance.

John E. Deasy, the Prince George's superintendent, said teachers who are replaced can apply to teach in other subjects for which they are qualified. Others could work to earn the state's "highly qualified" designation, which can require graduate-level work or passing an examination in a subject area.

It was not clear how many teachers will be affected.

Since taking office in 2006, Deasy has made it a mission to hire highly qualified teachers, particularly in core subjects such as reading, math and science.

"I think it's an undeniable fact that when you have highly qualified teachers in front of students, they can do better," Deasy said.

As an example, he cited Arrowhead Elementary, which began restructuring last year. The percentage of Arrowhead students who showed proficiency on state tests of reading jumped from 54.3 percent in 2006 to 70.9 percent in 2007. During the same period, the percentage showing proficiency in math went from 62 percent to 68.7 percent.

The president of the Prince George's educators association did not return a call requesting comment.

Deasy said the restructuring plans include additional measures. At Largo High, start times will be an hour earlier to reduce conflicts with evening classes and allow more after-school professional development for teachers. Oxon Hill Elementary is introducing a student discipline program that will establish and reward behavioral expectations.

The schools' individual plans were sometimes elliptical in describing what will happen with personnel: "In order to create a more focused, rigorous, instructional program, the addition of highly qualified staff is recommended," the proposal for Oxon Hill Middle School said.

At Benjamin Stoddert Middle School, the wording was more blunt. "Although data has demonstrated growth in many of the grade levels, growth targets were not met in reading and math," the plan said. "The Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent, Regional Assistant and Chief Accountability Officer believe that the current principal has taken the school as far as they are able."

The stricter measures follow a 2006 report by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy that criticized school systems' reliance on "turnaround specialists" to improve performance rather than attempting more systematic overhauls.

A second report by the center in December praised Prince George's for some of the measures it had taken to improve student achievement at struggling schools.