Yvonne Abraham’s column “Sounds a bit like progress” (Metro, Jan. 20) highlights the role of reinvigorating arts education at English High School as a part of the school’s turnaround strategy. While the arts are just one element of the school’s aggressive improvement plan, English High and a number of other schools in Boston have discovered that the arts can play a key role in engaging students and improving school climate.
Headmaster Ligia Noriega-Murphy, music teacher Eytan Wurman, and the students are on the right track. Boston public schools such as English High have benefited from the districtwide focus on increasing arts through the BPS Arts Expansion Initiative, which launched in 2009 with leadership and support from Superintendent Carol Johnson, Mayor Thomas Menino, and private funders as well as principals, teachers, and arts and cultural partners around the city.
Comments
50+ students at The English High School is not a music class it is a dumping ground that my child would not be sitting in. The high school class size maximum in the Boston Public Schools is 31. Boston Public School UNION Teachers negotiated class size in our MUTUAL BPS/BTU contract. BTU Leadership conferred with teachers who readily agreed to take a raise reduction so this warehousing of kids would not happen! It is not educationally sound and not in the best interest of our students! BPS budgets schools for the exact number of teachers required to cover classes, if Eytan Wurman has 50+ students, whose students are dumped into his class?
The EHS has always had certified music, visual arts, dance, theater, and music teachers. Certified means that staff were not only artists, but they were qualified to teach their artistic discipline by the MADOE. Under the former headmaster, Sito Narcisse's "turnaround," the qualified arts teachers were replaced by the Hyde Square Task Force (HSTF) who was paid $100,000+, out of school funds, to provide "electives" during the school day that awarded high school credit! There was a "choreography" course, a "mural" course, and courses in "leadership." 2 of the "facilitators" were, allegedly, still in college! Even though they were not BPS employees, these "partners" were given BPS email addresses. Making it appear to parents that they were BPS teachers! These classes were out of control and, for many students, unproductive! When the "muralist" didn't get his check fast enough, he stopped coming to school, leaving students stranded for weeks with a substitute teacher, until they, finally, were dispersed to other electives that had been in progress for months!
Boston School Committee Member Hector Martinez is the Executive Director of the HSTF. I find it troubling, and a conflict of interest, that HSTF "Learn thru Dance" is still at The EHS. Is HSTF staff teaching courses during the school day or is this an after-school program? Are the people working with students certified dance teachers? Do they have degrees? Are they awarding high school credit? Have they been CORI checked! How much money is being paid to the HSTF for Learn thru Dance and out of what BPS budget is it coming?
Just because a person is an artist, dancer or actor doesn't mean that they can teach these skills to a room full of students. What Edvestors Executive Director, Ms. Perille, fails to mention, and what everyone needs to understand is that these are "paid partnerships" between non-profit arts organizations and BPS. These organizations are "vendors" not volunteers. They are falling over each other to leech funds from public school budgets and grants, which could and should be used to hire certified arts teachers. When a school invests in a certified art teacher, the student has the art experience, and is not just a conscripted member of the audience so the adult artist can pick-up a check!
http://www.hydesquare.org/programs/education.html#SBP