Six local schools on a state list of 22 low-performing schools seem to share a few common, yet troubling, traits.
There is dysfunction aplenty in the principal's office and in the classroom. There's a lack of knowledge and communication on student skills, a disconnect with parents and less-than-engaging teachers.
For years, the academic decline in these schools has become entrenched, assuring students and schools will fail. The lack of progress has been cultivated, sustained and perpetuated over a number of years.
Change needs to come.
The Indiana Department of Education hired Cambridge Education LLC, a consulting firm, to audit the state's 22 low-performing schools, which include Calumet, Gary Roosevelt, Hammond, Hammond Morton and East Chicago Central high schools, and Central Elementary School in Lake Station.
What they found is a disturbing pattern of boring, teacher-centered lectures and school leaders without a clue on how to use mounds of data from test scores and other information to improve learning.
For example, Cambridge reported students at Calumet High knew which teachers adhered to high standards and which ones accepted mediocrity. At Hammond High, Cambridge concluded the curriculum didn't line up with the standards state tests are based on.
At Roosevelt, school district officials have adopted a new reform model in an attempt to satisfy the state. Yet, many of the teachers aren't buying into it. The Cambridge report found no coherent approach to developing basic skills of Roosevelt students.
Hammond is taking the most drastic measure. It's firing half the teaching staff and the principal at Hammond High.
The issues and shortcomings are exposed now.
What's left is the massive job of fixing them and helping students succeed.