This April, Governor A. Paul Cellucci happily joined in a rally at the State House calling to save New England's beloved Patriots.

He was not so generous two months later when 20,000 teachers dropped by his doorstep.

Cellucci's agenda of more extensive teacher testing has alienated teachers, who complain that the tests are poorly designed and too new.

Now, he has lost more teacher support as he tries to evaluate individual schools by standardized test scores--which teachers also say are relatively new and untested. Other states have taken similar measures, and the state Board of Education already announced that it would grade school districts, but that hasn't won Cellucci any friends among teachers.

Monty Neill, executive director of the Cambridge-based Fair Test, is a vocal opponent of Cellucci's program.

"You're essentially praising schools for being wealthy," he said, pointing to the wide discrepancy in scores between wealthy and poor communites.

Under Cellucci's plan, schools would be evaluated through aggregate score from their students annual standardized MCAS tests and their annual improvement. The grades won't be B pluses or C minuses, but simple terms like "good," "excellent" and "poor."

Ultimately, schools which consistently perform poorly would face takeovers by the Board of Education and good schools will receive additional kudos.

But Neill contended that test scores are just one part of the equation to evaluate schools, not the only element.