If BPS has already decided how to rejigger school zones, why is it holding parent meetings?

By adamg on Sun, 04/15/2012 - 8:35am

Parent Imperfect attended one of those hearings BPS held to solicit parent input on school assignment, came away concluding BPS already has a basic plan in place (more and smaller zones), based on the questions the facilitators asked. He also discusses a similar, smaller session held by City Councilor and Maybe Possible Mayoral Candidate John Connolly, who raised the question of whether "empowered" (i.e., middle and upper middle class, mainly white) parents are better able to play the current assignment game.

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Comments

reduce choices and eliminate BPS lottery

By DaveA on Sun, 04/15/2012 - 11:07am.

Earlier this year, I wrote about my perspective here:
http://davewrites.com/boston-parents-prepare-for-l...
and critiqued one of the BPS meetings here:
http://davewrites.com/boston-school-assignment-pro...

I had many of the same reactions as Imperfect Parent and am organizing one of those meetings with John Connolly.

I think the fundamental problem in all of this is that BPS is attempting to give parents more choices while parents are really asking for better schools.

more choices / better schools

By anon on Sun, 04/15/2012 - 10:42pm.

the fundamental problem in all of this is that BPS is attempting to give parents more choices while parents are really asking for better schools.

Valid Points

By Stevil on Sun, 04/15/2012 - 11:08am.

I too would be worried if I were not one of the "empowered" parents. A couple of suggestions:

1) More zones for savings on transport and keeping the kids closer to home wouldn't be a bad idea.
2) Likewise I heard a lot of talk about 75% walk to zones during the last election cycle - this too would probably help - but definitely favor the empowered parents
3) To make up for this we probably need to concentrate a lot more resources in the schools that are struggling (i.e. - where the students disproportionately come from less affluent families)

This allows the city to save money, the parents who want to stay in the city may be more encouraged to do so, the less empowered parents still have options for their kids and the money that is saved - plus probably some more - can be focused where those resources are needed.

Let's be realistic - the Elliott, Kilmer, Hurley and a few others will continue to do fine whether it's 50% or 75% walk. They may need to get by with fewer resources - but they won't suffer. That said, if we start focusing resources - financial, better teachers, better administrators etc. - there needs to be more accountability - I'll leave that for the city and the union to work out.

Better solution

By anon on Sun, 04/15/2012 - 12:32pm.

Rather than assigning kids to schools, what we should do is assign families to homes, based on a complicated criteria of race, socioeconomic status, and educational attainment. That way, each part of the city will be guaranteed to have a diverse mix of students so no one school is "better" than the other, AND the kids can walk!

Problem solved.