Last modified: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 12:48 AM EDT City schools on right track BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF ATTLEBORO - City schools have taken positive steps toward an "ambitious agenda" for improving local education, but face numerous challenges and need to maintain a steady course in order to bring about system-wide change. That was the assessment Monday from retired Boston schools Superintendent and former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Thomas Payzant, based on various meetings with staff and parents, conferences and visits to schools over the past year. Payzant was hired by the school committee last year to provide an outside observer's perspective during a critical transition to a new administration under Superintendent Pia Durkin. Payzant also provided a sounding board and coaching for the new superintendent, who had once worked for Payzant in the Boston school system. Payzant appeared at a meeting of the school committee Monday and praised the new superintendent and school committee for taking bold steps and improving working relationships with the mayor, parents and other elements of city government. But he urged both to maintain a "laser-like" focus on teaching and instruction and warned that some school staff members may have not yet grasped the urgency for change. "The school committee, superintendent, educators and other staff in the schools have established an ambitious agenda for Attleboro Public Schools," Payzant said. "The Mayor and community have been supportive and the media have acknowledged your good work. The years that follow will require you to resist the temptation to add new goals and begin new initiatives. Beware of doing so except where you have evidence that some modifications should be made." The long-time Boston superintendent said well-planned reforms need to be given time to work and that too many intermediate course corrections would prove confusing and counterproductive to teachers and students. Durkin, backed by the school committee, implemented a number of educational initiatives in her first year aimed at improving overall performance including adding reading specialists and counselors, reviving middle school foreign language and music programs and beginning the transition to a full-time kindergarten. At the same time, Payzant said, school leaders succeeded in directly linking budget initiatives with educational goals and improving "transparency" and trust between the schools and other city agencies and parents. Payzant credited the schools with a "breakthrough" in improved support for education with an increase in funds earmarked for education in Mayor Kevin Dumas's proposed budget. Payzant also urged school officials to keep their eyes on the prize: improved education for all students across all grades, not just in a few showpiece classrooms. The former superintendent said that with the advent of standards-based education reform came the revolutionary idea that achievement needed to be increased in every classroom and in every corner of the school establishment. Because of increased globalization and competition with students on every continent, he said, the need to prepare every student for post-high school education had grown from an option to an imperative. "You've got to got to do it systematically so that every child in every family will have an opportunity to succeed," said Payzant. "We don't need a few more good schools in Attleboro, we need a whole system of schools to be better." Currently, five schools in Attleboro have been placed on a federal watch list because of their failure to attain annual yearly progress goals. And the school system's dropout rate rose to 5.5 percent last year from 4.7 percent in 2004. Payzant listed a number of priorities in moving forward for the future, including buttressing classroom instruction and leadership, effective use of assessments, teacher training, keeping school budgets aligned with educational objectives and maintaining strong connections with families and community. The former Boston schools boss counseled patience and persistence, saying it may take some time for everyone in the school community to adapt to the new priorities of a school system determined to move forward. "It takes time for those doing the work in schools to fully understand what is expected and how they are going to meet the expectations," he said. Some may not be convinced of the urgency of the task, he said, while others may be motivated but need help to know how best to respond. "There are no quick fixes and your plan's integrity is build on the premise that good work is hard work and must be sustained and championed by many over the long haul," he said. Payzant's five pages of observations and recommendations were the result of four visits to the local school system along with a number of conferences, telephone conversations and teleconferences that took place after Durkin moved into the Attleboro job last July. Durkin formally worked as director of special education under Payzant in the Boston school system.