Stripping Democracy to Raise Test Scores: A School Receivership Case Study

When a business is failing, it enters into receivership. A receiver is an appointed trustee that comes in to take over the company assets and avoid bankruptcy (Kenton 2019). The receiver is charged with completing a project, which can range from selling assets to pay off debts, to increasing workplace efficiency and working with creditors (Palmer). In recent decades, receivership has been adopted by states to improve school district performance. In these cases, receivers are assigned to underperforming school districts and can override decisions and make significant changes. Although these practices may be helpful for a business because they attempt to maximize profit, minimize debt, and increase workplace efficiency, I argue that these are not the same goals of public schools. What helps for-profit companies does not necessarily help public schools, which are a public good and community hub. Professor David Hursh cautions the public school system from adopting capitalistic forms of accountability, saying "educators need to question whether neoliberal approaches to education should replace the previously dominant social democratic approaches" (Hursh 2007). Receivership patterns in districts with high populations of students of color beg the following questions: (1) Do business models like receivership belong in social service programs like education? (2) Does a receiver have too much power over a school district and community? and (3) In the case of Holyoke Public Schools, is receivership through test-based accountability a fair response, considering the unique demographics of the district? In 2015, Holyoke Public Schools (HPS) in Holyoke, MA made headlines as the second school district in Massachusetts to be placed into receivership. School receivership in Massachusetts occurs when the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education votes that a school district is “chronically underperforming” (Riley & Zrike 2018). The school district was deemed “chronically underperforming” because student performance on tests and graduation rates were considered critically low, indicating that the children attending that district may not have access to the same quality of education as others in the state. When this happened, the policy called for outside intervention and a receiver came in to help “turn around” the school (Riley and Zrike 2018). A receiver is a person or organization responsible for taking charge of a school district and developing a detailed plan and set of goals to increase student performance. The receiver selected to take charge of HPS was Dr. Stephen Zrike. Holyoke was an interesting case because of the ways that its receivership nature varied from that of Lawrence, Massachusetts, the first district to enter into receivership. In 2011, Lawrence was voted into receivership because of its “chronically underperforming” status, coupling student performance with “inconsistent governance and leadership and insufficiently coherent and comprehensive district systems” (“Chronically Underperforming Districts: Frequently Asked Questions”). In comparison, Holyoke was the first Massachusetts district to enter into receivership solely based on evaluation of student performance. This event in Holyoke

mirrors a larger shift in national implementations of receivership across the country. According to Nelson (2018), state education boards are now frequently using low test scores as a reason for intervention, in comparison to historically intervening because of a district’s “financial mismanagement or cases of other illegal activities at the local level.” In Holyoke, student performance was assessed by test scores and graduation rates (Riley and Zrike 2018). Comparing HPS test scores to state averages may not be the best way to assess student success at HPS. The district houses far more English Language Learners than the state average and the test used to determine performance is the English Language Arts MCAS (“District profile—Holyoke (01370000)”, n.d.). Holyoke is also an interesting district to examine because of the ways the city of Holyoke and the HPS student body are unique to Massachusetts. Holyoke is located in Hampden County, an area that contains over 30% of Massachusetts’ Puerto Rican population (Boston Planning & Development Agency Research Division 2017). Roughly 5,500 students are currently enrolled in Holyoke Public Schools, with near 80% of the students identified as Puerto Rican (“About –Holyoke Public Schools”). Of these 5,500 students, roughly 29% are English Language Learners (ELLs), the majority of whom have been identified as native Spanish-speakers (“District profile—Holyoke”.). Roughly 47% of households in the city of Holyoke speak a language other than English at home. The average household income in Holyoke is $37,954, which means that 30% of residents live below the poverty line. This translates to 84% of the student body being identified as high-need and 78% being identified as economically disadvantaged (“District profile—Holyoke(01370000)”, n.d.). As far as reputations go, Holyoke is historically known as the birthplace of volleyball (“Report: Holyoke” 2019). More recently, it has been identified as the “most dangerous city” in Massachusetts, based on its violent crime and theft rates (Stebbins & Sauter, n.d.). Before being voted into receivership, HPS was falling far behind Massachusetts averages in terms of student attendance, testing performance, and graduation rates. According to the Massachusetts Department of Education, HPS chronic absenteeism was at 28.9% in 2015 , in comparison to 12.9% across Massachusetts. Also, the average number of absent days per HPS student was four days higher than Massachusetts students as a whole (“2015 Report Card Overview—Holyoke(01370000)”, n.d.). Between 2012 and 2015, HPS student ELA MCAS performance was between 32-34%, while the state average was around 69%. The four-year graduation rate was roughly 60.2%, which was nearly 26 percentage points lower than the state average (“2015 Report Card Overview—Holyoke(01370000)”, n.d.). This meant that HPS students were attending school less, performing worse on the MCAS, and were less likely to graduate than many other Massachusetts students. HPS did not accept its receivership status without a fight. The battle between HPS and the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to resist receivership has been ongoing for over ten years, with HPS pushing back on state-holds on the school. The battle first became publicized in 2003. The superintendent at the time Eduardo B. Carballo argued that the receivership was “not the kind of reward a school district should get when they're working hard,"

pleading with the board, "I think if you're patient with us . . . I think you're going to see some change" (Kurtz 2003). In 2015, however, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education decided to go on with the takeover process, and the district has been in receivership ever since. In 2018, the HPS school system renewed its receiver status and its 2015 “Turnaround Plan” for another three years. The policy itself is intended to ensure that all students are receiving highquality education and that the school district is held accountable if this is not the case. According to the report released by receiver Dr. Stephen Zrike, the current receivership period at HPS led to several positive outcomes, like a 7-point decrease in chronic student absence, a 50% reduction in the dropout rate, and a graduation rate increase from 60.2% to 69.9% percent in 3 years (Riley & Zrike, 2018). Despite the improved numbers in terms of student performance, in this essay I will critically assess power dynamics within this receiver-district relationship, potential drawbacks of this relationship, as well as the role of the receiver. Holyoke Public Schools is a part of a larger trend within the U.S., where public school accountability initiatives have led to government takeovers of school districts. New York state has a similar process for receivership, in comparison to Massachusetts. In New York, a school district enters into receivership when it has been deemed “persistently struggling” for ten consecutive school years (Sokol 2015). Massachusetts’ website does not deeply elaborate on the role of the receiver, simply explaining that the receiver is permitted “the authority of the superintendent and school committee,” and “the law permits the receiver to make changes in district policies and practices through the turnaround plan” (“Chronically Underperforming Districts: Frequently Asked Questions,” n.d.). This explanation is vague and does not present the power of receivers in an accessible way. In comparison, New York’s School Boards Association goes into much greater detail. According to the state board, the receiver has wide-ranging authority after setting a school-improvement plan, from “supersed[ing] any decision, policy or regulation… that, in the receiver's sole judgment conflicts with the school plan being implemented by the receiver” to making the school a charter school, eliminating teacher positions, and changing the number of school days per hours (Sokol 2015). In essence, the receiver has the power to change nearly every aspect of the school, except for the students that attend it. With great power comes great responsibility. A receiver is tasked with getting to know a school district within a short time, and then has immense power to make the changes they see fit. And oftentimes, the receiver is not native to the area that the school district they receive is located. This means that receivers may not be the best suited to know what will benefit the students. Because schools are community hubs, a receiver’s choice does not stay within school walls, but rather it reverberates outward and affects entire communities. Nelson (2018) explains the implications of receivership within New Orleans and Detroit when expressing concern for receiver-community dynamics, saying “states participating in the takeover of locally governed schools and school districts generally allow new operators of schools… to replace community norms and replace those norms with new norms. The exchange of norms does not typically involve input from the affected community.” In New Orleans and Detroit, the urban public school districts

are highly segregated and contain mainly Black students. Receivership in this area has seen norms important to the Black community replaced with hegemonic White norms (Nelson 2018). In this way, receivers can alter the norms within a school if they see these norms as non-beneficial for student performance, regardless of the value that these norms hold within the community. The process of receivership is also undemocratic because members of the community: (1) do not have a say as to whether a school district is under receivership, (2) do not get to select the receiver, and (3) may have any of their decisions vetoed by the receiver. If the majority of schools in the US entering into receivership are hubs for communities of color, is this form of accountability stripping democracy from these communities? Receivers making significant changes often replace elected, local school boards with private school boards to try and improve test scores. The community is not able to vote for the positions on these private boards, nor hold them politically accountable (Nelson, 2018). Recent political debates have focused on voter suppression within national elections, but might receivership be community suppression from local political participation? In assessing the role that receivership has played within HPS, I felt it important to reach out to educators currently teaching within HPS. Mary is a middle school math teacher within the HPS district and has felt a great deal of pressure under receivership. According to Mary, “Our students are put under a lot more stress to achieve higher scores on district and state tests in order for the school to meet the goals that they have set… those goals are placed on the teachers and the students.” Because students feel this increased pressure, the idea of receivership affects the classroom dynamic. She also explained how receivership has hurt teachers, that “curriculums are constantly changing because they are trying to find the best solution” to bring up test scores. This constantly shifting curriculum is “not allowing even the greatest teachers to be able to teach the lesson” because once they adapt to a lesson they are forced to test out a different curriculum. Aside from the broader implications of receivership, this policy has been felt directly within Holyoke classrooms. In this policy review, I have listed several potential concerns with school receivership, including bringing market techniques into public services, the use of test-based accountability, unchecked power, receiver-community dynamics, and lack of political participation in the receivership process. Although in Holyoke, receivership has led to increased test scores, I argue that it is crucial we look beyond the numerical assessments of the school district and instead consider the broader implications of this process. Although Dr. Stephen Zrike may have good intentions with HPS, receivers as a position have a great deal of power over fragile community spaces. My concerns may naturally lead to the following question: if not receivership, then what? Although there is no perfect solution to address the inequalities plaguing US schools, there are policies that could be implemented on the local and national level to mitigate the potential negative consequences of school takeovers. On the local level, if it is necessary to work within the confines of the current receivership system, it is also important to ensure that democratic practices are in place. This means that if a receiver tries to veto a decision, the community should be able to block the veto with majority consensus or appeal it to the Massachusetts Board of

Education. Additionally, there should be ways that the community can hold the receiver accountable. In the U.S., citizens do not get to decide whether there is a U.S. president. However, citizens are able (to an extent) to vote for who this president is, and there are systems in place to remove and replace that president if they are not meeting citizens’ expectations. I argue that a similar system of democratic accountability must exist within the context of receivership. It is also important to look into what might be lowering test score performance on a deeper level. According to HPS educator Mary, “There’s a lot that needs to be worked on besides just being in receivership.” Mary then went on to explain how although the majority of students in the district are Hispanic, the majority of the teachers at HPS are White non-Hispanic, which she believes deeply harms student achievement, saying, “when students are not seeing teachers who look like them, who know their truth, and know where they come from, and know their struggles, they really aren’t as motivated to hear what you have to say, whether it’s about school or whether it’s not about school.” A study by the National Education Association (NEA) supports Mary’s claims, saying, “a teaching force that represents the nation’s racial, ethnic, and linguistic cultures and effectively incorporates this background and knowledge to enhance students’ academic achievement is advantageous to the academic performance of students of all backgrounds, and for students of color specifically,” (Graham 2014). Hiring a more diverse teacher pool is crucial to increasing student achievement and strengthening school-community interactions. Nationally, the US must reassess how receivership is determined. School performance should not just be determined on test scores and other statistics because it may consequently incentivize the receiver and school administration to meet the score goals, rather than improve the environment of the school. Additionally, the US must reassess how schools are funded. Current inequalities within the US school system can be traced to racism, red-lining, and property taxes funding schools. If funds were distributed more equitably, perhaps there would not be the performance disparities seen in cities like Holyoke. Rather than allowing for these inequalities to exist, and then bringing in a non-democratic actor for the schools to “catch up,” it is better to instead ensure that the schools are on a more equitable playing field to begin with. Finally, state takeovers nationally have not shown significant improvements within school districts (Nelson 2018). This begs the ultimate question regarding receivership: in reviewing all of the potential harm that the receivership process can do to a community, combined with the lack of significant positive results, is this practice even “worth” it?

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