It’s time to dump the "portfolio" model and go to a Unified School District model!  As I mentioned in an earlier post, in the quest for "quality schools" for all Boston students, the EAC killed a lot of trees and presented a lot of data in numerous scenarios, now we have 3 more to add to the pile and it is fuming! 

It doesn't matter if you label a school Tier 1, 2, 3, or 4.  With the movement of students ALL schools will change overnight! Parents need to see the neighborhood MCAS scores.  In the East Zone especially, Parents need to see the MCAS test scores of students living in those neighborhoods who are assigned to charter schools. The students are the data!  The MCAS test scores of BPS students by neighborhood will determine the "quality" of a neighborhood school.

Just a few questions, I’ll have more:

How many open seats are you talking about in the Roslindale K-8 Pathway? - "The second 50% of seats are open to students throughout the West Zone who had not attended one of the six schools."

It's a little late but what schools are you "exploring" for K-8? Did you ever entertain the idea of stopping and doing something well before you go off on another tangent?  - "we are exploring the feasibility of potential K-8 conversions."

Breakdown of how many students expected to be placed in each of the zones.

Breakdown of how many students and siblings that may remain in current schools (speculative figure)

Finally, a diamond shape icon for the charter schools!  Charter's are getting  $3,146 more to service a regular ed kid, and better transportation, than our traditional schools!  I think a $$$ sign would have been more appropriate icon. Moreover, a "diamond" is insensitive and a slap in the face to those families who end up at a Tier 4 school!  

Time to move to an ELECTED Boston School Committee so this mess doesn't happen again!

After months of exhaustive analysis and discussion on the part of EAC members and the community as a whole, the fact that we have reduced average travel  time of non-special education students about one half a mile as the only outcome from this incredibly labor intensive process is suspect at best.  So many issues around equal access to quality education and diversity in the City of Boston and its school system have been brought to light during these discussions that we are not dealing with in any constructive way.  Clearly the independent reports that have come out on who gets into quality schools in Boston, showing a clear divide between families that have and families that have not is irrelevant so long as we can say we got them all "closer to home."  

The discrepancy between what we really do in this country as opposed to what we preach at inaugurations and through the Democratic party platform is disturbing .  Evidently the best news to come out of this process is that BPS will commit significant resources to creating a neighborhood elementary school in Beacon Hill and the Back Bay.  If these really are the results of such an agonizing process, can anyone really wonder at my skepticism?  When this all began I was very worried that we were slowly solidifying the stark inequities that clearly exist in Boston's educational systems.  Then as the conversation shifted to balance fair access to quality education with neighborhood schools I was hopeful that we might end up with something that could actually give some disadvantage children a chance at the same time that it spoke to the Democratic value system that I still believe in.  

Now I see a ten zone model (more zones than BPS staff ever proposed before) on the table as a final option with a strong walk zone preference and my hope is wavering.  All the research clearly shows that the more zones there are the less fair access there is along social and economic demographics.  And bonus walk to schools favor children who live closest to quality schools. For the most part, quality schools are found in higher income neighborhoods.  

BPS is making many unfunded commitments to improving very poorly performing schools found mostly in low income, minority neighborhoods.  As a parent who has had children educated in the BPS for the last twenty years, I have quite a bit of experience in watching those promises evaporate.  It would not be at all suprising if at the end of the day, the only commitment they follow through on is the one that provides the highest income residential community we have in the city with its own school, while everything else becomes too hard, too expensive or just loses political will.

If the EAC is not very careful now about what it promotes in this process the legacy they may be leaving us with will really just consist of circles of unmet promises in some places and circles of entitlement in others.  And if Mayor Menino is not careful the legacy he may be leaving for Boston will end up back in a court room.  It would be unfortunate if he could not translate all that soaring rhetoric of access to opportunity from this years election into something concrete for us to build on in the next decade. He has been able to do so much for Boston in his tenure.  I would hate to see him remembered for exacerbating huge inequities in our public school system in an effort to pander to a few who are already entitled.  

Wonderful, 4 decades after forced busing the Boston Schools are aware of the benefits of local, neighborhood schools.