Third time must work on school assignment fix
By
In his State of the City address on Tuesday night, Mayor Menino pledged to “radically” change the Boston Public Schools’ much-maligned school assignment plan by this time next year. This is welcome news to the ears of many thousands of Boston parents who continue to roll the dice— literally— with their kids’ education each year at this time.
To realize this goal, however, the mayor and his team need to first radically change the way they have attempted such reforms in the past, starting with a more open, inclusive, and representative task force charged with considering public comment and engineering a new plan.
Most of all, Menino himself must articulate what he wants to see in such a plan, outline his preferred alternative, and then seek comment from the larger community. Then, after appropriate public comment, he himself needs to sell the final plan to the larger community. This is not one of those issues that the mayor can simply delegate to an expert panel and appointees. It will take his own political will and talents to make it happen — or not.
Unfortunately, Menino and his administration face a considerable credibility gap on this issue. In 2004, hundreds of parents, eager for a change, participated in a series of long public meetings aimed at fixing the assignment plan. In the end, there were no substantive changes made aside from the creation of more K-8 schools. Again, in 2009, the sitting superintendent, Carol Johnson, rolled out a plan that would have re-structured the city into five zones — instead of the current three— and allowed for more walk-to options. Once again that year, citizens were disappointed when — after another round of public meetings— Johnson’s plan was shelved in the face of opposition from activists who claimed that the city’s students of color would be clustered into underperforming schools.
Since then, many more parents have grown disillusioned with the BPS over false starts and poorly thought-out changes, like the proposed closing of the Clap School in Dorchester and the scuttled relocation of Boston Latin Academy. In all of this, Mayor Menino has too often been absent from the forefront when important changes are in the offing, even though all of this is clearly done at his order and behest.
If Menino is sincere about his desire to finally get this done— and to do it within one year— the proof will be in the choices that he and Carol Johnson make in the coming days. We don’t need eight community charrettes to know what’s broken with the assignment plan before designing a fix. We’ve already had those meetings— two times over. Tom Menino and his staff know what’s wrong and they are equipped to design a new system now. The mayor should then take that model around— personally— to community forums across the city and get feedback. After that, he and Johnson should roll out a final plan for everyone to scrutinize and then sell it to communities one by one.
The stakes are high on this: If Menino does not deliver on this promise, it would mark the third time in ten years that he has failed to provide leadership in this critical area. We believe he is up to the challenge.
– Bill Forry
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Boston Parents and Teachers feel betrayed, and frankly, don’t trust Mayor Menino or the BPS School Committee. Why should they? The School Committee closed schools that had the strong support of parents and teachers, yet their voice was ignored at the many school committee meetings they attended. A School Committee member led the Emerson School Community to believe he was on their side. Parents and Teachers spent countless hours refuting erroneous information spun by the BPS, pleaded their case at school committee meetings, and gathered neighborhood signatures of support, yet, their school was closed! Dedicated, Emerson teachers were demonized in the press because they were in the excess pool, and Emerson students were dispersed to other schools in the city. Then a short time later, that same BPS School Committee member, as part of his non-profit community organization, submitted an application, which was later approved, to open a Horace Mann Charter School in the Emerson Building! What a conflict of interest and what a slap in the face to the Parents and Teachers of the Emerson School Community!
That said, and forever moving forward, I’m disappointed in several of these appointees; many represent the non-profit organizations that are not paying their fair share towards municipal services. Yet, Mayor Menino appointed them to this panel! If these non-profit organizations had been paying their fair share toward municipal services all along, all our public schools would be “quality” and we would not be having this discussion! It’s as if the Mayor has chosen people, who represent organizations who are already abusing the city, an opportunity to abuse us again! Non-profit does not mean charity; I can’t help but feel that the non-profit organization and businesses members, on this School Assignment Panel, are going to use this platform to further enhance their organizations bottom-line.
I would remind the committee, and Dr. Coleman, since he has only been in Boston since 2008, that there is a bigger picture here, the elephant in the closet, that needs to be addressed first, as the Boston Public Schools entertains the move away from busing, toward a more localized “quality” and hopefully, PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. What are we going to do with the 700+ bus drivers who will be without jobs? Over the years, they have seen our students get to school and home again safely. They are part of the BPS community; we have a moral responsibility to them. It is no easy task to keep 50+/- kids on a stop and go ride throughout the city, day-in and day-out. In the spirit of “transparency,” the agreements that the BPS has already signed, to provide transportation to charter, pilot, Horace Mann, and Innovation school students, needs to be published online. The cost to provide transportation to these students need to be part of the Assignment Panels discussion.
Given their management experience with our children, can we train and offer these, soon to be unemployed, bus drivers, BPS school support jobs as attendance officers, timeout room monitors, discipline deans, security paraprofessionals, teaching assistants and fresh food chefs in our schools? Years ago these positions were eliminated for lack of funds caused by busing, and schools spiraled down. The turnaround, English High School, is an example of a once good school that, without the essential in-house support, is still failing! Successful school systems have these school support positions, why not Boston?
Is this something that these bus drivers would be interested in doing? The Assignment Panel needs to use some of that $400,000 given to them by the Barr Foundation, to take a survey! If working directly in our schools is not something these bus drivers want to do, how can the City of Boston help these people make the transition to a similar line of work, perhaps on the MBTA, or another line of work with equal or better compensation that will be just as rewarding? This is what our “non-profit” Boston community groups should be working on! Instead of demonizing BPS teachers, and trying to privatize education, so they can open up schools under their “non-profits” name and rake in even more money!
So, who on the School Assignment Panel, will step up first? Mayor Menino will even give you up to 50% of “community service credit,” on the 25% municipal service fee you owe the taxpayers of Boston! What a deal! The Access Strategies Fund? Anna B. Stearns Charitable Foundation Inc? Ballet Theatre Of Boston Inc., located in Cambridge Ma? The Barr Foundation? Boston After School & Beyond Inc? Boston Rising Inc? Boston Employment Service Inc? Boston University School Of Education? Carney Hospital? Center For Collaborative Education Metro Boston, Inc? Chinatown Charitable Trust Inc? Edvestors? Jet Blue? Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority? Posse Foundation? Project D.E.E.P.? MIT? Northeastern University? School Leaders Network Inc? University Of Massachusetts, Boston? Suffolk University? Yawkey Club Of Roxbury?