And she has gotten results.

In 1997, 64 percent of third-graders tested as "proficient" or "advanced" readers on the Iowa tests, a national standardized exam. Just two years later, that number was 75 percent--and the number of students testing as "basic" or "pre-readers" has declined steadily.

The drastic improvement in reading scores has not come easily: more than three dozen separate initiatives address reading, far more programs than currently address any one of the other 10 goals.

Nor has it come cheaply. The Literacy Collaborative, a nationally-used reading curriculum is the district's major reading program, but training just one teacher to be a single elementary school's coordinator for the Literacy Collaborative costs $17,000.

And next year's budget includes nearly $150,000 to expand reading and writing programs in the elementary schools.

Technically Speaking

As committee members and district administrators focus on reading and other goals, they will also chart the now-uncertain future of vocational education in Cambridge.

Thomas Lividoti, who coordinates vocational education in the district, sits in his office in the Rindge School of Technical Arts (RSTA), one of the five "houses" that make up CRLS.

"I wish I could tell you about the future," he says.

This year is not the first time RSTA has merged: in 1977, the Rindge and Latin schools combined to make the current CRLS, joining the vocational school with the traditional, academic school.

As part of the present reform, RSTA will be disbanded and, instead of being affiliated with one house, its teachers will be spread out among the five new schools being formed as part of the restructuring.

According to Lividoti, students will still be able to take courses in the nine fields RSTA currently offers, from carpentry and computers to electrical and auto mechanics.

School committee members are rallying to RSTA's support, fearing the restructuring will harm the program before they have time to rethink and revitalize vocational education.

"I plan to be very protective of spaces that are currently in RSTA," Grassi says.

Lividoti says an essential part of the long-term plan is getting more students interested in the technical arts--and earlier. He wants to expose students to the technical arts in elementary school, just as they are exposed to music and the visual arts.

"It's a numbers game," he says. "We've got to get our numbers up."

Students need to be actively recruited in eighth grade, Lividoti says.