The announcement was made after Patrick toured Malden’s Linden School, where he read to kindergartners and visited a music therapy class.
Innovation schools were authorized by the 2010 education law and seek to give schools advantages enjoyed by charter schools to shape curriculum. The grants, mostly for $10,000 per school, will help fund the time-consuming planning process districts must undertake before the state approves an innovation school.
Nearly 50 schools in the state have adopted the innovation school model or are exploring how to do so, said state Education Secretary Paul Reville.
“We need a 21st-century school system, not one inherited from the last century,’’ Reville said.
Patrick said the model will spur local educators to tailor learning for students who have traditionally struggled in older education systems.
If approved by state education officials, the Linden School could become STEAM Academy, adding a focus on the arts to the core subjects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
“Nine of these schools are in gateway cities, just like Malden, where the need to close the achievement gap is especially pressing,’’ Patrick said.
According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, more than two-thirds of Malden students are non-white. Dozens of languages are spoken in Malden school hallways, and overall the city is the second most diverse in the state, said Mayor Gary Christenson.
The governor also thanked Malden teachers, saying that educators are getting a bad rap across the nation. The innovation approach offers them new possibilities, Patrick said, making their work more important as schools convert to the new model.
“So much of the discussion, nationally, about education reform makes it sound like teachers are the problem,’’ Patrick said. “You are not the problem. Poverty is the problem.’’
