Dear John

The Parent Imperfect isn’t breaking up with anyone. After last night’s meeting at the historic Roxbury Presbyterian Church, I feel the need to write a letter to Acting BPS Superintendent, John McDonough.

Dear John,

I hope you are going into work late today. You had a tough night last night, and probably need a little rest this morning. I estimate that about 275 people jammed themselves into Rev. Walker’s Daddy’s House last night. I’m sure that some of those present fully support your plan to tear down the Dearborn School, move its students to the Burke for three years, build a new STEM Academy on the Dearborn site and turn that educational gem into a charter school. There were supportive people there, but none of them took a microphone to express that support. That’s a problem, no?

By my count, 28 people did take a mike and either question the plan or express strong disagreements with it. Some people were downright pissed off.

It’s quite remarkable. The BPS has managed to unite numbers of students, parents, community members, and abutters to the Dearborn site against its plan. Every speaker last night (with one possible exception) appeared to support the idea of a STEM Academy for Roxbury, but they have serious questions about the way you are going about it.

The BPS had a chance to identify the real stakeholders in this project (the ones listed above) and actively involve them in developing it, but as you have courageously admitted, the ball was dropped, big time. Somebody was apparently consulted, but too many important people were not. You say that all of that is going to change, but there is too much dirty water under the bridge. You remember the old Carole King song…“It’s Too Late Baby, Now It’s Too Late.” 

You want people to swallow this plan out of fear of the looming spectre of state takeover of the school. No one wants the Commish to put the squeeze on the school, but they don’t share your sense that it’s the “Worst that Could Happen.” (remember Johnny Maestro?)

Is a state takeover worse than running the risk of losing (in the long run) SIFE, a program that has been important for the integration of Cabo Verde youth into Boston and the U.S.? It may be so for you, but the young people with the blue shirts didn’t seem to think so.

Is a state takeover worse than facing two years of neighborhood chaos, long-term uncertainty and the loss of a building that has been key element of the neighborhood’s architectural identity for over a century? It may be so for you, but the homeowners who live around the Dearborn didn’t seem to think so.

I could do a few more of those, but I think you get my drift. From where you sit, a state takeover of the Dearborn would be a humiliation that you (and the Mayor and the School Committee Chair) don’t wish to endure. You also quite legitimately fear what it might mean for the school community. No one is out to promote a state takeover, but there is a limit to what people are willing to endure to avoid that misfortune.

You were clear last night that you want the assignment of students to the eventual Dearborn STEM Academy to follow the same rules that apply to district schools. You know what? There is an easier way to do that than trying to try to change state law on this topic. Keep the school a district school! 

Last night, your BPS facilities man said something like, “This started as a project to create a STEM Academy on the Dearborn site, so, when it became clear that renovation wasn’t feasible, we moved to the plan to construct on this site. That’s why we didn’t consider other sites. This has always been a project for a STEM Academy on Greenville St.” As my middle school daughter would say, SERIOUSLY???

I’m not an architect and certainly not a city planner, but if my renovation idea for the Dearborn proved to be too costly, I wouldn’t automatically default to knocking down the building and constructing on that site. If I needed to build a new building, instead of renovate, I’d look around to make sure that the site of the old building was the very best place to build my new building, no? How can it be true that none of the seven options considered for the new Academy involved looking at any other site in the Roxbury neighborhood?

John, I know it can be hard to admit that we’re on the wrong road and turn around. I remember well one Sunday missing the turn-off on Interstate 95 for the Delaware Memorial Bridge and then, despite the pleas of my passengers, refusing to get off the highway and retrace my steps back to the bridge. I knew I’d eventually get back to 95 further north. I did, but we all ended up getting stuck for four hours behind a major pileup near the airport in Philadelphia. I so wished that I’d just admitted my mistake and gone back to the right road.

Obviously, the stakes here are much, much higher. In this case, there is real risk in taking the right road, but it is still the right road. You need to go back to the School Committee and say that you need more time to come to a final decision on the best way to create a STEM Academy in Roxbury. You need to put that ground you broke back where it belongs and keep the kids in the Dearborn building for another year (with their new principal), while you find out for sure that there is no better place to build the new academy. During that year, you need to do intensive work with both the Dearborn neighborhood and the Dearborn school community (students, parents and teachers) as you make the decision on the best way forward. One possibility is that the current site is the only viable place for the Academy and the current project is the only project that can work, but you don’t know that yet.

And, yes, you need to go to the Commissioner, with a community united behind you, in the quest for a STEM Academy in Roxbury. Enlist the young man who spoke so eloquently in a language not his first one about “shuffling people around.” Enlist Chantal, the proud and impressive young Burke grad who pushed you on the real future of the SIFE program. Enlist Ms. Miller, the former teacher and school leader at the Dearborn who said, “Give us one more year to build and see where we can go.” Enlist the woman who worried aloud about youth from the Dearborn crossing lines that matter to get to the Burke. And enlist the homeowner who raised her voice in frustration to say, “WE WEREN’T THERE!”

Enlist all of the people at church last night to highlight the improvements being made at the Dearborn, and to support the development of a community plan to create a Dearborn STEM Academy. Awaken the Mayor from his silent slumber and get him solidly behind your change of course. And then make clear to the Commissioner what a tragedy it would be to break the momentum behind a STEM Academy at this critical moment by subjecting the Dearborn to state takeover. Dare to win this historic struggle for public education in Roxbury and all of Boston, rather than make bad decisions for fear of losing.

Yes, despite doing everything right, you might lose that discussion and, therefore, lose control of the Dearborn. But, in losing the right way, you would have helped create a momentum for a STEM Academy in Roxbury that might just overcome even state receivership. In this case, losing by doing the right thing would be a better, more courageous path than winning a STEM Academy in the wrong way and building this project, despite wide community opposition to it. The right choice is not easy, but it is in your power to make it.

I wish you luck…

The Parent Imperfect

 

 

 

 

Boston’s Budget Blues

The Parent Imperfect joined about 65 other hearty souls at last night’s public school budget hearing at the Hyde Park Educational Complex. BPS proposes filling a “sixty million dollar hole” in the school budget with 89 teachers, 109 paras, 26 administrators, a whole adult ed program and lots of yellow school buses. Sixty million makes for a big hole. No one who dragged themselves out of the house last night did so to express their support for the cuts.

School Committee Chair, Michael O’Neill made a valiant effort to lighten things up a bit in his welcoming remarks, but few attendees were in that kind of mood. A senior financial officer of the BPS went through the now familiar slides. Only through a combination of pink slips, program cuts and transportation service changes could the District balance this year’s budget. If the draft budget presented last night became a reality today, 223 people would lose their jobs, Boston’s unique adult education program would all but disappear and middle school students eligible for transportation would be on MBTA buses, instead of yellow school buses.

All of these cuts would be necessary, despite a decision by Mayor Walsh to increase City government outlays for the School Department by 3.8%, while asking all other departments to take a 1% cut. The combination of ordinary cost increases, drastic declines in State and Federal support and contract-mandated salary increases had created a budget hole much deeper than what the City could fill.

Upon hearing the news, sixteen members of the audience paraded to the microphones to say, “don’t do it!” They included parents from the BTU School, the Roosevelt, the Philbrick, the Mendell, the Curley and the Lyndon, all schools facing the loss of teachers and valuable programs. Teachers and students of the Adult Education Center spoke eloquently of its importance in their lives, and the members of one class came to the meeting together for a “lesson in democracy.” A leader of Boston’s Special Education Parents’ Advisory Council spoke, as did Tim McCarthy, the City Councillor from Hyde Park who committed himself to fight on the floor of the City Council to avoid cuts to schools now moving in the right direction. Most in the room stood as others spoke, showing that they weren’t there just to speak for their issue.

One parent from West Roxbury cut to the chase quite nicely. “In two weeks of looking at this, I’ve discovered that the real solutions are two: Chapter 70 allocations and charter reimbursements. If I have figured this out in two weeks, you certainly can, too.”

She was pointing to the real fact that the current State budget limits spending on public education through Chapter 70 and that the formula for allocation this money has been changed in ways that work for some smaller cities, but definitely work against Boston. She was also pointing to the fact the $85 million in Chapter 70 money goes directly to charter schools. The Legislature is supposed to reimburse part of this through a separate appropriation, but they’ve been hedging on that in recent years, and not even this inadequate reimbursement has happened yet this year.

She’s right on about the immediate pressure points, but I hope we can effectively advocate with State officials without losing our conversation about how the BPS is making decisions about the money that is in the pot now.

As the meeting ground to a close, the Chair spoke directly about his own resistance to cutting an Adult Education program that has existed for over 100 years. He also said that he was ready to “join forces” with parent groups and other advocates to go to the State House to ask for more money.

Parent groups in the room seemed ready to join forces with the School Committee to advocate for additional State funds, but they also seemed unhappy with a lack of transparency in how budget decisions are being made in the District as well as with the content of many of the decisions concerning the allocation of existing funds. Joining forces will only work if all are interested in an open partnership, and I still have questions about the District’s openness about its decisions.

Meanwhile, the clock ticks. The School Committee must pass a balanced budget in three weeks, or the scene shifts to the City Council, where a knock down, drag out awaits a very new Council. Very soon, something has to give.

Dear Marty

Between now and next Tuesday, the Parent Imperfect will have to come up with an answer to the question, “What are you going to do?”. It should be a “no brainer,” Marty: My vote is there for the taking. The vast majority of my friends are voting for you, and more than a few are working on your campaign. At a recent meeting of Quest, a BPS parent group, one member said only half-jokingly that it was time to “do an intervention with the PI” because of my continuing inability to see the light (Quest has not endorsed a candidate) All of the three candidates that I seriously considered supporting in the primary (including the one I voted for) have endorsed you and are more or less actively supporting your campaign. Your life has followed a path familiar to me (all except for the success part). You are the working class guy who has risen above problems with alcohol to become a successful union leader and state politician. Now, the Globe has endorsed your opponent, which should be a crystal clear signal to me to move the other way.

The job of getting my vote is more trouble than it’s worth. The dirty secret is that the last time I voted in a final mayoral election, you had just turned 16. I can’t help but wonder what you thought about the Flynn-King election at age 16. Probably not much….Maybe it makes me part of the problem, but I have this strange idea that I should only vote for candidates who hold views that are consistent with my own on issues that really matter to me.

In 1983, I certainly supported public education as an idea (I had tumbled out of UMass just a few years before), but I didn’t know or care much about the Boston public schools. Since Vince and then Connie entered the BPS, however, it has become clearer to me how much the condition of our public schools is creating the future of our city before our very eyes. There are many things that affect our city that the mayor can’t really change, but s/he does have a lot of influence over our schools.  I want to vote for a mayor who I believe will really address the challenges facing public education in the city. Up until now, Marty, you haven’t convinced me that you’ll do that.

Both you and your opponent are part of what I call the “Post-Busing Generation” of kids who grew up in Boston. That’s a diverse and fascinating generation that will soon encompass nearly all of the City’s political class. You were just getting started in school when Judge Garrity’s order came down, and John was taking his very first steps when the buses began to roll. That was the time when a certain demographic in the city completely lost faith in the Boston Public Schools as a way to educate their kids. Many of those folks left the city for Dedham and Weymouth and Stoughton. Many of those who stayed found some other place (parochial schools, in many cases) to school their kids. I have no idea what either of your families thought about the BPS, but, as nearly as I can tell, neither of you ever spent a day as a Boston Public School student (if you did, you didn’t choose to highlight that experience on your website). Somebody will tell me if I’m wrong, but I bet this is the first Boston mayoral election in a very long time in which neither candidate ever attended public school in the city.

This, of course, says nothing about the kind of person you are, the type of mayor you’ll make or even what you think about the BPS. But when you grew up (I remember that time) and where you went to school will make me listen closely to what you say about the BPS. Support for public education is not automatically among your core values.

I have now had the chance to ask you personally (and to listen to others ask you) a few times what you think about education policy in the city. Every time, you lead with the important fact that you have served for many years on the Board of the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester. That’s great. All that I know about NHCS suggests that it is a great school, but your service on that Board says very little to me about how you’ll be as the boss of the Superintendent of an urban school system with over 50,000 kids in it. You’ve also been clear about your position that the Legislature should remove the current cap on the expansion of in-district charter schools in the Commonwealth. I don’t agree with that, but it is a perfectly reasonable posture for a charter school board member.  That view, however, begs some explanation of how charter school expansion is compatible with a commitment to provide quality education to all Boston’s children by strengthening the weakest of the City’s traditional public schools. Finally, you’re clear that, as a union leader, you’ll be able to “sit down and work with the BTU” rather than declare war on the Union. That’s clear and probably true, but what views about the future of public education will you take with you when you sit down? Speak to me.

I’m not a one-trick pony. I care what you say about creating jobs, public safety in the City, addiction treatment programs, economic opportunities for our youth, affordable housing and many other issues. I like your views on some of those issues, and believe that you are committed to making a difference. I have, however, been waiting to be inspired around the issue that I think holds the key to changing the future of the city. 

Your campaign has knocked on my door four times since the primary. Those knocks gave me the opportunity to speak with a retired police officer from Dorchester, a young mother making some extra money as a canvasser, an activist from Local 26 and another from the CWA. To my surprise, no one from your opponent’s campaign has bothered to knock, and this matters. The face of your campaign at my door says something about what you have done to bring different parts of the city together and each of your volunteers took the time to try to convince me that you are the candidate that best reflects my values. I, of course, gave them my education schpiel before they could politely get away to the next house. The two who didn’t think I was completely nuts to be canvassing the canvassers actually agreed with me and said, “I’ll be sure and bring that back to the campaign.” I hope they did and that in these last days of the campaign, you’ll find a way to cast yourself as leader, thoughtful critic, advocate, hard lover and promoter of the Boston Public Schools.

Stand Down

The Parent Imperfect is back in Roslindale after fleeing the city for three days to end the sixth decade of his life in the anonymity of a classic Route 6 hotel within biking distance of the National Seashore. While I was gone, the education reform organization, Stand for Children, continued to make headlines, at the expense of Boston and the parents and children who rely on its public schools.

STAND is a national organization that sounds very good on paper (full disclosure, I once gave a very compelling STAND organizer $25 to join), but they have clearly decided to cast their lot with the corporate school reform agenda.  Support for expansion of charter schools is only the beginning of that agenda.

Sadly, many of the mayoral candidates lined up to get STAND’s endorsement, which speaks to the sad state of the national debate on public education. The rush to the trough has made me look more closely at those candidates who didn’t get in line. In the end, John Connolly won the STAND endorsement. That’s one prize John may eventually regret winning.

The law doesn’t allow organizations like STAND to give $$$ directly to candidates, but STAND can do political ads highlighting a particular candidate’s position on a particular issue, like education reform. STAND could have done this very much on the sly, but decided that there was hay to be made by announcing very publicly that they were going to flood Boston with pro-Connolly ads focusing on the candidate’s ed reform credentials. This time, they seem to have overplayed their hand.

Connolly’s mother didn’t raise a fool. He sensed that allowing STAND to use his campaign to make statements about ed reform that, while popular with downtown interests (and probably in agreement with his own positions), might not play well with many voters. So, he stood down. In a week when there wasn’t a lot of news happening, he announced that he would ask STAND not to do any “independent” campaign in support of his candidacy.

Everyone from the Indignant Teacher to the Globe’s Larry Harmon have trashed Connolly for the way he’s handled all of this. I would have damned the candidate if he had allowed his campaign to become a vehicle for STAND’s message, so I hesitate to damn him for not doing so. My own critique of Connolly is for his position on education reform, rather than his failure to embrace the $$$ of a national reform organization that agrees with his position. Ironically, his actions may turn out to be the best and only way to keep STAND’s money (much of it from the corporate sector) out of the election. One can only hope…

The role of $$$ (regardless of the zip code it comes from) in elections is an important topic, and something need to be done to change the laws on campaign finance. I hope the conversation about STAND’s money doesn’t keep us from continuing to push all of the candidates to be very clear about how they intend to fix Boston’s schools.

Related articles

• Connolly: I Don’t Want Money From Outside Groups (wbur.org)
• Education Reform Group Backs Connolly For Mayor (wbur.org)
• Boston Mayor Race : the Schools Issue Gets Divisive (hereandsphere.com)
• Michelle Rhee Rebuffed By Boston (mikethemadbiologist.com)

To Cap or Not to Cap?

All those who were hoping that the Parent Imperfect had finally folded his tent and found something really useful to do with his time are in for a disappointment. I’m back! As our children get older, it becomes more difficult to figure out what one can really write about parenting them. This spring, we were in the particularly strange situation of (once more) reaching the end of our rope with one child’s experience at the nation’s oldest public school, even as our other child was preparing to follow in her big brother’s footsteps.

The crisis passed (sort of), school ended and we’ve managed to spend almost two full months without uttering the letters B-L-S in sequence. But sooner or later, even the most determined ostrich must lift his head from the sand and face the new year with the hope that springs eternal.

Over the summer, the attention of many parents has turned to the race for mayor of Boston, where 12 candidates are still out there trying to get someone’s attention. According to a recent poll, 40% of the voters have yet to make up their minds.

What to do about the city’s public education troubles has certainly been a big issue in the campaign. After leading the system through a bruising discussion of a new school assignment system, Dr. Carol Johnson has resigned her post and many other BPS leaders have also decided that it is time for a change. Not surprisingly, even as he departs Mayor Menino has determined the tone of the discussion with his proposal (and legislation) suggesting the removal of the current cap on charter schools. Given the range of feelings about charters in the city, this proposal has quickly become the center of the education discussion.

By focusing on charters, we are, once again, finding a way to avoid discussing the core challenges of improving the public schools. Charters proponents insist that they are outperforming the traditional public schools. Maybe, but those who are looking closely at these claims see reason to wonder about the truth of the matter. Even the most enthusiastic boosters of charters acknowledge that they don’t work for everyone, and, therefore, can’t be seen as the answer for a system that must, by definition, at least try to provide quality education to every child.

UPS and Fedex do a good job making certain kinds of deliveries (at a profit), but they have no interest in delivering every piece of mail to every address, every day (except Sunday). Part of the financial crisis of the USPS has resulted from “creaming” by UPS, Fedex, etc.  Sorry if that seems like a digression, but my twisted mind sees a connection. As charters schools grow and find those students able to function (and sometimes flourish) in their environment, the “traditional” public schools must continue to educate those children who don’t function as well in the charter environment, or aren’t invited to “Advanced Work.”

Personally, I’m not “against’ charters. I am troubled by the “chain schools” run by for-profit companies, but I know several very dedicated educators who have devoted their lives and careers to building charter schools. I’ve seen the striking limitations of the public schools and I’ve also seen that many families who felt completely screwed by the BPS have found an alternative in the charters that they are willing to fight for. For one group of families (mine, for example), the “AWC-Exam School Pipeline” has been that alternative (sort of). For others, the charters have played that role. Many other families have tried the charter route, only to find themselves among the “silent majority” of charter attendees who end up back in the public schools, or out of school, altogether.

In a meeting a couple of weeks ago, mayoral candidate John Barros defended his support for lifting the cap on charters. the majority of the candidates agree with him on this issue. He said that the fight to keep the cap is “the wrong battle at the wrong time.” For Barros, people have lost that fight in every city around the country, and will lose it in Boston, too. Their energy would be must better used in efforts to “level the playing field” and restore confidence in the traditional public schools by making them better serve the children now flocking to charters. I understand that among his current and potential supporters, Barros has many families who are frustrated with the BPS and can’t get their child into a strong charter school. Those families want more charters, even in the face of the evidence that over half of the kids that get into charter schools (especially boys of color) eventually get kicked back into the public system as students who couldn’t conform to the regimented culture of many of the top charters. I’d like to see a study of what happens to those children, over time. They too, are part of the charter experiment.

Faced with the same question about the cap, at-large City Council candidate (and BPS teacher), Annissa Essaibi had a different answer. “If they want that for their children and can’t get a charter seat in Boston, let them try a charter in Cambridge. There are open spots in charter schools in Cambridge. If charters get free rein to expand in Boston, it will take resources away from those children who have stuck with our public schools.” I was reminded of the impressive young woman from Roxbury who is working with my program at Northeastern this summer. She is on her way to college in Atlanta after graduating from a charter high school in Cambridge that she says turned her life around. She notes with sadness that only 32 students of her original class of 80 walked with her at graduation.

I don’t expect that charter schools in Cambridge are the answer for most families in Dorchester or Mattapan, but I share the fear about what happens to the traditional public schools if the charter cap is lifted. I also share John Barros’ wish to level the playing field, but how level will it be with resources and attention rushing to charters once the Legislature declares that it’s open season on those “private-like” schools? Why not let in-district charter schools expand to the extent that they meet certain benchmarks related to graduation rates or successful education of Special Needs Students or English Language Learners? The public schools live with all sorts of benchmarks…why not the charters?

Related articles

• Charter Schools: The Walmarts of Education (jaybsnyder.com)
• Gary Rubinstein: Dramatic Collapse of Charter School Test Scores (dianeravitch.net)
• Milwaukee teacher prep program opens K5 charter school as training lab (jsonline.com)
• Pathways In Education™, Premiere Alternative Charter School Gets Approved in Chicago, Expanding Options to Graduate for At-Risk Students (prweb.com)