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Madison Park can't catch a break: BPS puts director on leave
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Title confusion?
McCaskill's position is Executive Director, (the Headmaster position is apparently vacant?), and an Assistant Headmaster will be minding the store.
What a disaster.
I used to be on the civilian board of advisors for the carpentry program at Madison Park in the mid 2000's. Then I started asking questions and ran for City Council in 2005 wanting to actually get things done, bring honesty, transparency, statistical analysis, objectivity to schools and government and was promptly not asked to return.
We would have an annual meeting where the civilian advisors would have to 'sign off' on the programs. I believe this was for some sort of state accreditation. All the advisors would come into a large room and the organizer would just say "All in favor, please vote "eye"". No time for questions or discussions, no presenting of any facts or analysis or trends, it was all perfunctory. A real joke of a process. I am thankful for the insight on how these things work.
My experience was that there were good teachers who really wanted to serve and help their students but they were held back by a bureaucracy that wasn't fast to respond to ideas or flexible in their thinking. One carpentry teacher I worked with notably went above and beyond to help his kids get summer jobs with local firms.
The shame of this is that we are in the midst of a construction and economic boom. There are many, many jobs available for people that can just have the basic OSHA training, timeliness, and a modicum of understanding of what to do on job sites, kitchens, and other service industries. These are honorable, respectable, consistent jobs that lead to middle class (and even better) careers.
There should be a pipeline from Madison Park to the local Unions to get these Boston kids going right out of high school into internships and jobs. Most of these big projects have requirements for percentages of Boston workers, minorities and women which is what a huge percentage of Madison Park students are. It is a win/win situation. Why this isn't happening is beyond me. I have hope that with our Mayor with his background with Unions and the trades that this could get done.
I've called the school department and offered to help many times over the years, but why would they want a local contractor who lives close to the school, renovates and builds properties close to the school and has gone from being a 17 year old carpenters apprentice to a successful businessman by working in the trades to give them any help or advice?
So frustrating
Was this the guy whose family still lived in Georgia or something or was that the last guy? Why is this school in particular such a target for conmen and fraudsters? Why can't BPS recognize that everything about their hiring process for this job is broken and needs to be scrapped. As Pat says, why not involve local trades in this particular process?
Now you care about carpetbaggers
Liz Warren, Ed Markey (yes hes doesn't live with mommy) Michelle Wu, Ayanna Pressley.... The list is a mile long, at least this guy was was doing good without looking for a paycheck.
What have you done, seeing you seem so critical of others.
All the people you mention
With the possible exception of Markey, which is complicated, actually live in the state where they work. The issue with whichever headmaster it was at the time was that they somehow were living in Georgia while running a school in Boston.
My memories are fuzzy on the details, but this was an issue with some headmaster at some time.
Markey lives in MA
I don't know why this keeps coming up. He's here in his local offices and at his home (one block from me) on a regular basis. I see him all the time.
Nonsense
Wait, which guy was doing good?
Shackleford was under fire last year for repeatedly skipping school because he was traveling to Florida where his wife and children lived. You tell me - this guy is the best choice for a critical job? You must be rich BTW if you consider that he made $147k to be 'not looking for a paycheck'. You know who was looking for a paycheck? Previous administrator Queon Jackson who 'earned' $375k for literally doing nothing after the Feds declined to prosecute him.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/08/08/headmaster-boston-vocationa...
This school is very important and has been chronically underserved by both good people who aren't the right choice for the challenge and bad people looking to make some fat cash. Who cares where someone was born - we should only care about where they live while serving our communities.
We don't want good schools
I think you know the answer. Deep down we don't really want a good, challenging school because the kids aren't prepared to get through it.
You are smart and have answers but it doesn't count for beans in government. Good clown, good commenter, bad councilor. Look at the criticism coming at you for running. Like the most important thing for a city councilor to do is show up in a presentable way at a family's house when their kid was murdered in gang violence. Not stop the gang violence, just wear the right garments and speak the proper ritual words when the inevitable happens.
School is not primarily for education in trades here. It's primarily for employment of a middle class, and secondarily for making the kids somewhat able to relate. If you want to help somebody or develop a great tradesman, then government and school is not going to be the most effective place for you.
I don't accept this
Sure, the schools don't serve a lot of poor kids with difficult home situations well. That's a societal problem which the BPS can't and won't handle as the primary solution.
However, as laid out by Pat, this school of all the non-exam schools in BPS should a gem above the rest because it offers real, actionable concrete paths out of poverty- by working in the trades. Places like Germany do an excellent job with apprenticeships to give non-college bound workers a path to success. Here, not so much. The opportunity cost at a vocational school is higher than that of someplace like English which is why it is such a shame that this crap keeps happening over there.
Build baby build
Maybe if we built a new building it would help?
Self Government
The Clown gets it.
We ain't got no good schools cause we the people won't take the time to find out out how poorly our schools are run.
When we had an elected school board,less than twenty percent of eligible voters would turn out.
We Ain't Got No Good Schools.
So,look in the mirror...
We have lots of good schools
The problem is that we apparently can't see the value in vocational training and seem to think the single job path for all kids is STEM.
Lots of good schools
Yes, agreed, we have lots of good schools. I think one major issue with Madison Park however is that a majority of the students who go there are either brown, black or poor and the leaders of the city (business, political or otherwise) only care on the surface about these students. There isn't a lot of deep caring that brings about actual change.
Maybe not as serious as we think
I'm hearing, and this is only a rumor, that this person is being dismissed for putting their hands on a student in a way that violates the code of conduct. The rules on this are easy to break as corporal punishment could be something like using your hands to direct a student to get in line. In fact, just about any time a staff members hand touches a student it could be considered corporal punishment. Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's good that there are such strict rules for this and there really isn't any good reason to put your hands on a student anyway. However, depending on the situation, certain incidents may be less severe than others and people shouldn't necessarily lose their jobs each time an infraction occurs. This may be one of those times. Or maybe not, hard to know with a rumor.