Dozens of schools are slated for aggressive interventions over the next three years under a new, multistate effort that aims to clear hurdles that have hindered previous attempts to improve underperforming schools. Education officials in Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and New York have agreed to partner with Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, a Boston-based nonprofit group that has developed a set of strategies it says will reverse years of low achievement in schools. The effort will be fueled in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is channeling billions of extra dollars in federal aid into school improvement, a top priority of the Obama administration. The Partnership Zone Initiative, spearheaded by Mass Insight, is a $75 million effort that will tap into the $3.5 billion in new Title I school improvement aid that states will receive later this year, as well as private philanthropy. And if any of the six participating states wins some of the $4 billion in Race to the Top grants also being financed by the economic-stimulus law, a slice of that money could go to districts that elect to be part of the school turnaround project. Under the initiative, states and school districts will set up specialized units to oversee the work of local "lead" partners, which will be tapped to manage a cluster of three to five low-performing schools and to supervise the broad array of services that each will need to reverse its downward slide.