"Once all our schools are high-quality, the home-based plan delivers a neighborhood school for every child."

Quit lying to us and get real.

It is disingenuous to call this a bold new plan while protecting the old algorithm that includes a walk zone preference. The home-based model is a neighborhood school model, if schools are quality schools, and capacity issues are addressed. The political push for maintaining the current algorithm is an indication in the City’s own lack of faith in quality improvements. The unwillingness to discuss the capital plan indicates that resources will be allocated, not by need, but by influence.

The mayor should stand behind his claims of school improvement and demand the walk zone preference be removed as he unveils a long-term capital plan. 

Equity and "quality" should be measured by how much money is spent at a particular school per pupil. Oh, and Ms. Johnson, your English Language Learner populations should be served through Structured Immersion, and done well, before you start talking about Two-Way Bilingual and Transitional Bilingual Education classrooms. That's what got Boston in hot water with the feds to begin with on that topic. 

Go the the school closest to where you live.  If the school sucks, fix it. If where you live sucks, either fix that too, or move.

How many times hevae we heard the word "bold" used when it comes to school reform of any kind over the course of this mayor's tenure without nothing to show for it   I don't even pay attention to what Johnson has to say.  As a taxpayer it makes me crazy knowing she has control of over 1/3 of the city's budget.  

I live in Boston but so glad I did not go to public school here and if I had kids - I would leave. Most dysfucntional school system I have ever encountered in all parts of the country I've lived. Bussing several needless miles while clogging the streets? Where I grew up you went to the school closet to your house - end of story.

Unfortunately, it looks as if the EAC punted when it came time to make any kind of bold statement about Boston's commitment to equity and a quality education for all children in our city.  Much as everyone might try to spin the decisions, voting for a system that gives children in our higher income communities a three times better chance of getting into a quality school than a child living in a low income community is not groundbreaking transformation.  It is  just Boston's history repeating itself.  And as far as saving transportation dollars and shortening children's bus rides, it would not be surprising if these supposed gains disappeared once this system is actually in place.  The EAC never did get a capacity study from BPS or a Capitol plan.  In many places there are not enough seats for all the children.  In other neighborhoods there are more seats than kids.  No neighborhood plan is going to solve this problem.   Between this, charters, private schools and special education students who will still be bussed, don't expect yellow buses to stop crossing the city in this decade.  I hope the school committee focuses on "their mission to serve all families well," otherwise it is going to be clear that this was all just politically motivated and timed specifically for the next election.  When I voted to create an appointed school committee I was hoping to take the politics out of our education system.  At times like this I really wonder if I would vote that way again.

Dr. Johnson said, “We are challenged in this recommendation to reinvest where we have fallen short of quality and to give our parents access to the information that will help ensure equity, quality, and accountability.”

If this is the case, I have requested several times and would still like to see the traditional school students MCAS scores by neighborhood, and the charter school students scores by neighborhood, especially in the East Zone!  Now, just to clarify a few things, if there is a Boston Public School “achievement gap” Dr. Johnson and Mayor Menino are to blame.  Both allowed the influx of charter schools to saturated Boston and have created a two tiered system of haves and have not’s!  Faced with a charter school transportation bill expected to raise $20.4 million by 2014, there was an “urgent need” to stick traditional school kids in neighborhood schools so that busing cost could be reallocated to reduce the citywide charter busing costs.  Don’t think for one minute that anyone believed the Court Street spin that the “bus saving” were going to be used to improve underperforming schools!

The “legislature” that Dr. Johnson and Mayor Menino are proposing to will allow the state to apply “turnaround status” to all Level 3 schools IN THE STATE!  Get ready everyone to join the BPS “world of dysfunctional spinning” if this legislation should pass!  Even though teachers didn’t create the problems in a Level 3 school, fifty percent of teachers subjected to turnaround, will have to leave the school building; and teachers remaining will be subject to other debasing, unproven measures, just ugly in Boston.      

Boston Public Schools graduation rate is the "highest level it has ever been" because the BPS, finally, invested in online credit recovery five years ago, while other communities have had it for over a decade.  In a city dependent on low paid service sector workers, high school graduates were not a priority until “No Child Left Behind” when the state could come in and take over a school.      

There are not enough seats in the school system to absorb the influx of students should neighborhood school become a reality. Thousands of students attend private schools because their parents don't want them bussed across the city. Where are they going to go if all of a sudden they can go to their neighborhood school?