Today at the State House, City Manager Lynch joined managers and mayors from around the state, including Boston, Somerville, Salem, Revere, Melrose, Revere and Brookline, to provide testimony to lawmakers in support of improved tools to address the out of control cost of health insurance for municipalities. In testimony (see below for complete text) to the chairs of the Joint Committee on Public Service, Manager Lynch describes the scope of the problem where health insurance costs for the City of Lowell have increased by $25 million in 10 years and where the cost of providing health insurance once represented 6% of total municipal spending but now exceeds 16%. This level of increase represents an unsustainable trend and will most certainly impede the ability to provide services at the same level if allowed to continue unchecked.

Over the last four years, the administration has taken a proactive approach to addressing the cost of health insurance by working with the unions and instituting such measures as the availability of an HMO for all employees including teachers, providing education around coverage options to reduce the number of employees on the costly Master Medical indemnity plan and requiring all eligible retirees to accept their Medicare benefits. These measures have provided savings and preserved jobs and yet the health insurance problem continues to loom large, particularly in a time where local aid continues to shrink. In addition to legislation, Manager Lynch has also convened the city’s unions to participate in coalition bargaining to address the health care issue.

With all due respect to teachers’ union president Paul Georges, negotiations with the superintendent ended six weeks ago at her request, and I, for one, will not be swayed from doing what is best for our students by his repeated attempts to intimidate.

By persisting in his backward focus, Mr. Georges distracts us from the important tasks at hand: overseeing the district, searching for a new superintendent, and planning for next year’s budget. His inability to move forward taints the superintendent selection process, and he should recuse himself from the Search Committee.

Mr. Georges would like us to think our school success is a recent event and not the result of many years of good work from a number of effective leaders and educators. What is recent is the growth model, which allows us to track individual student progress and compare it to an expected growth rate. The state implemented that model just two years ago. Before that, we only had MCAS scores to show student achievement, a faulty measure that usually landed urban districts low on the list. With the growth model, now we can prove Lowell students are learning well.

Our students are learning well not merely due to better collaboration as Mr. Georges would have us believe. While collaboration is important, without rigor, accountability and a direct connection to student achievement, it offers little. Good teachers and high-quality curriculum are the keys to student success, and these take years to develop with consistency.

Former Superintendent George Tsapatsaris, the mastermind behind all our new schools, integrated a bilingual-education model more than 12 years ago to give mainstream teachers strategies for instructing ESL students more effectively. Later, former Superintendent Karla Baehr expanded that model to the sheltered English instruction our teachers excel at today. The 2010 Department of Education report highlighted the success of these ongoing efforts when it recognized eight Lowell schools out of 36 statewide whose ESL students made above-average gains.

Also, in a collaborative effort with the teachers’ union, Dr. Baehr established the Lowell Teacher Academy to provide teachers with an affordable master’s degree program that focused on courses relevant to urban educators. This program, which includes a mentoring piece for new teachers, has been instrumental in Lowell’s exceptional teacher retention rates, as well as improving teacher knowledge.

Six years ago, all K-8 math teachers received training on a new standards-based math curriculum, and math coaches were established to provide school-based support. This major investment in curriculum and instruction resulted in significant growth in our math scores. Our sixth graders, in particular, surpassed all urban and many suburban districts in math growth.

Today’s growth scores are a direct result of a solid foundation developed over the years. Constant in all this is the hard work of our teachers and staff, and the support of the school committee — those of us elected to look after the best interests of students and taxpayers.

That support will continue to include effective collaboration as we must do more to improve student achievement amid unprecedented challenges in accountability, regulations and funding. We do that best by working together.

On behalf of the Lowell School Committee, I wanted to invite you and your readers to share your thoughts with the school committee regarding selection of a new superintendent. At our regularly scheduled school committee meeting on Wednesday, March 16, beginning at 7 p.m.,

Under the public participation portion of the meeting, you are invited to tell the committee what qualities you would like us to focus on in selecting a new superintendent.

Please join us if you are able and pass this invitation on to your network of parents, community members, and folks interested in our schools. You may also communicate with us is by email through the district’s website http://www.lowell.k12.ma.us/contact-info/contact-committee

Thanks and best wishes,