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Flaherty opposes return to neighborhood schools anytime soon

Michael Flaherty's education platform, released today, calls for more charter schools, greater parental school-assignment choice, and increased autonomy for school principals (Ed. note to Flaherty writers: Remember that a school principal is your PAL).

Meanwhile, Sam Yoon will unveil his own education position on Wednesday, focusing on increasing the number of seats in charter schools.

Flaherty said that while he supports the idea behind neighborhood schools, in the short run Boston just doesn't have the money to guarantee that all schools would provide quality education:

Michael has always supported the idea of neighborhood schools, the idea that families could walk their kids to school and be involved with their school community. He believes our schools become stronger when they become a real part of the neighborhood. But he also strongly advocates for equal educational opportunities and right now, a return to neighborhood schools will not achieve such equality. What we need to work towards is a school system where everyone's neighborhood school is their number one choice school. But that won't happen overnight and our success will certainly require bold leadership, collaboration among all parties and the incorporation of best practices working in other urban school districts across the country.

In exchange for greater autonomy, principals, especially in the 38% of Boston schools ranked as "underperforming" would be closely monitored to ensure they are actually working to increase educational performance.

He said he would make a priority of mainstreaming foreign-speaking students into English classes - and criticized the BPS's initial plan to restrict citywide access to the Hernandez School, which would effectively cut off students from parts of the city, such as East Boston, from English Learning programs.

While Flaherty calls for more charter schools, he does not advocate an increase in the number of city-funded pilot schools, which remain part of the BPS system, but which have been opposed by the Boston Teachers Union (which this fall, however, will open its own pilot school for Roslindale students).

Flaherty would also provide free SAT and financial-literacy classes to all Boston public-school students, find money to fund higher enrollment at city pre-K classes, increase the number of K-8 schools, particularly in poor neighborhoods, work toward greater involvement of local colleges in public-school programs.

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Comments

How much is enough - we spend between $21,000 and $22,000 on the school system (all in including capital funds, pensions and other retirement bennies-but excluding interest). Rather than say "we need more money" with no definition of "more" say this is how much we need and if we don't meet certain objectives we will go to Charters, METCO, vouchers and whatever else we need to get the job done. Now that would be accountability.

Kudos to Flaherty for the support of charters and recognizing that maybe neighborhood schools aren't enough - but anyone saying the city's education problems are due to a shortage of money should not be in charge of spending money on our behalf.

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They are part of a content-less reshuffling that ignores the basic issue. Each student takes a certain amount of money to educate. There is money and time over and above each student's budgeted amount, in most places made up by the parents. Full-day charter schools are simply making up the homework hours that parents should be doing, and doing it in an institutional setting that is going to be less efficient by definition. The BPS is out of money to make up the homework and extracurricular hours, and the parents are low income and so can't do it either.

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You state that the BPS isn't going to put in the hours to support the kids doing the homework, and the parents aren't either, but the charter school does. And this somehow demonstrates how charter schools aren't an answer? This doesn't seem like a very effective argument.

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The charter teachers are contracted to work longer hours for the year, they will use that year of experience to get into another system where they will get paid more for the hour.

The solution is to raise the incomes of the parents so that one of them can quit working at walmart and can keep an eye on the kids.

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A better solution might be a learning ray that can be aimed at the heads of children, which will immediate grant them sophos, logos, pathos, ethos, and one other musketeer whose name I've forgotten.

The first mayoral candidate who promises to make all parents' income go up will get my vote not get my vote, because he'll be bullshitting. That's as much within the mayor's power as inventing a learning ray.

Given that, what is a reasonable answer to the problem, from a mayoral perspective? More charter schools might not be perfect, but at least it's a plausible answer.

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Cute, but don't you see, the charter solution is more hours from one-year teachers. You can make it happen, yes, district-wide, if you get more money -- but there is no more money.

I happen to think it's better to put the money at the disposal of the parents, or let them use their time to help teach their kids. But either way, it takes more money or more time, which only comes from higher productivity among workers and higher incomes.

As for the mayor, he has to make it clear to the state that the only thing that will turn urban Massachusetts from a money suck to a productive sector is a better state economy. I'm sure all the teachers and the students in Boston are sick of hearing that they have to implement a secret learning spell that comes down from the Board of Ed. The only thing that consistently correlates to high achievement in school is the educational level and income of the parents.

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There's no secret to learning - while we all learn at different rates - it still takes time. Some kids do just fine in the usual amount of school and some will need more time after school, weekends and into the summer. There is no more money to be had - and the teacher's unions, like it or not, have two choices - a) they can work more hours for the same pay until we get the job done or b) they can watch their jobs disappear to charters, vouchers, METCO and other creative solutions like the autoworkers are doing now.

Don't get me wrong - I have a tremendous respect for teachers - but there's only so much money and if you don't want to work for that kind of money choose another career. A poster on another blog mentioned that BPS turns away 9000-10,000 applicants annually. There's no shortage of skilled talent - especially in these times. With BPS offering the highest average salaries in the state, they can't argue with the pay at least relative to their peers either.

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We're talking about schools here, and what can actually be done. You're up on a soapbox talking about your pet political theories. Maybe you got lost on the way to Free Republic or something?

Hey, it's super great that you think more betterer capitalism will make everybody rich in the future. But it's also utterly irrelevant to the people who happen to be parents now. In Boston, most of those people are poor, and setting the treasury to compete in the tax bribes race to get companies to relocate here won't change that fact. You might get a better return on your investment if tax money is taken from roads or cops and schools and given to your favorite corporation, but when you go out to eat, the person washing your dishes will still be poor, and will still have kids in school in Boston. And those kids will still need better education, which you have yet to talk about in any fashion.

And if you hate Massachusetts so much, then please, do us a favor and leave. In reality (which you appear never to have visited) Massachusetts, and in particular, Boston, is doing great in comparison to most other states. Move to California whydoncha?

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Maybe it sounds that way, but I am speaking from experience, my kids are in BPS for some reason. I see what works and what doesn't. The schools and teachers are jerked from one corporate idea to another, like there is a strategy, approach, mindset or testing campaign that can educate the kids. I am the opposite of you, if a mayor told me he could better educate the kids I would vote against. It's just one technocratic top-down campaign after another.

What these technocrats forget is that learning is a personal experience that really resists standardization, for good reason.

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That's better; at least we're talking about the same thing now.

If you don't believe in a single magical Method for guaranteed learning, then the logical alternative is schools that offer a variety of methods. Different children will learn differently, as you point out, and with a variety of schools offering different systems, more children are likely to be well-served. This variety is something charter schools can help provide.

You are absolutely right, IMHO, that there is no magic learning formula that works with all kids. If there were, all schools would be doing that instead of a dozen different things. You're also right that your kids are likely to learn much more from you than they do at school. My primary education was largely in spite of school rather than because it.

However, these two things you're right about are in some degree of conflict with each other. Here's how: other children will not learn the same things at home that you and I did, and that your children will. Many children will need to learn things at school that your children already know, or can learn from you. This is one of the main things that charter schools, with their longer days and years, can offer: intellectual enrichment for children who grow up in an intellectually impoverished environment.

Sure, drills and extra homework might not sound intellectually stimulating to you. What you have to offer your children is undoubtedly greater. You talk about a personal learning experience, and I'm sure you can provide that for your children. You have the resources to help your children succeed, and more power to you!. Others don't. Compared to being ignored and watching TV all day, drills and extra homework are intellectually stimulating. What kind of personal learning experience is watching your mom get beat up by her drug dealer? (One of the worse stories my Little Brother told me)

Recent research into the matter has been fascinating. A 2003 study showed that poor children hear 30 million fewer words than middle-class children by the time they are three. Almost all the words children know when they arrive in Kindergarten come from their parents. Without remediation, these language gaps will persist throughout elementary school and turn into cognitive gaps. The effect of growing up in intellectual impoverishment is visible in brain scans as less activity in the prefrontal cortex - similar to the effect of brain damage in an adult. Is that a personal learning experience? I'd call it a public problem instead.

As far as throwing money at the problem, I'm against it. I agree with Stevil that we probably already spend enough money per student, and that's not where the solution lies. It seems clear to me that we are spending the money poorly in many cases. Some possible changes don't actually require new public money, and lifting the cap on charter schools is one of them. Public officials who propose plausible measures that have a chance of success will win more support from me than officials who pontificate with no plan or throw up their hands and punt.

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I don't disagree with any of that. I still think the charters will collect the fraction of kids who are supported at home. If they were all charters things would probably be the same as they are now.

Here in A.B. we would come out way ahead in the 5 zone plan, and the blacker parts of the city be damned. I think neighborhood schools make sense, but I don't want to give up on the other neighborhoods.

The reason the black areas of the city would have terrible schools is that we have given up on them economically. We can try to hide it geographically with the 3 zone system, or hide it technocratically by putting charter schools in the black neighborhoods and shipping whites and asians in (this happens with the advanced work classes now). Or we can solve the problem.

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First - in confirmation to Sock Puppet's comments - the BPS third grade MCAS scores are ATROCIOUS - just about the worst in the state - even compared to other poor cities. While those who read my posts know that I slam wasteful spending, I have never once criticized the city for spending on early education! The status quo is damning these kids before they even have a fair shot - the parents are as much to blame or more than the schools - but that's not the fault of the children.

However, if all schools were charters I don't think things would be the same. Flaherty quotes a study (not saying it's authoritative - but one datapoint) that tracked kids that applied to charters and got in and kids that applied to charters but "lost" the lottery and went to BPS - presumably similar home situations. The kids in BPS significantly underperformed their charter classmates. I believe this test was performed under fairly rigorous academic control factors (funded by Boston Foundation I believe).

Bottom line - there are thousands of kids on the wait list for charters - they may not be for everyone, but we should at least give the parents and kids the choice by meeting the demand.

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What if all kids had individualized education plans? Not just those with documented disabilities - all kids?

My former teacher husband ran across some reports of school systems that actually do this (somewhere in Kentucky???) - instead of declaring most kids to be "factory grade", they evaluate each one for what they are good at, what they don't do well, how they learn best, etc. and try to build the competencies with some understanding of the input parameters for each kid.

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"Flaherty said that while he supports the idea behind neighborhood schools, in the short run Boston just doesn't have the money to guarantee that all schools would provide quality education"

In other words its ok to have a failing school or two in your neighborhood, just as long as you can lotto your kid out of it. Never mind the kids who end up filling the seats in those failing schools, the money isnt there to provide those kids a quality education. Flaherty is just winking to the active parents, the ones who have the time to go the meetings and take the school tours. The kids who will need the most help are the least likely to have active parents and they'll end in one of those failing schools.

If you kept the kids in their own neighborhoods you could better focus on the needs of the students and the community. It sounds like this guy is afraid to endorse what he knows needs to be done. There is no acceptable number of failing schools and the lotto system is a political fig leaf for that. Its like the students in the failing schools are just written off because there parents werent savvy enough to play the system.

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Flaherty is just winking to the active parents, the ones who have the time to go the meetings and take the school tours. The kids who will need the most help are the least likely to have active parents and they'll end in one of those failing schools.

Did you hear that? That was the sound of hammer hitting nail - on the head.

Flaherty, like all insiders, knows that if they went to neighborhood schools, it would be Roxbury and North Dorchester schools that would grade out at the bottom of the barrel. And since they would be in charge at the time, they would have to eat the racism card when it was thrown. Even black politicians are in the same position - they have no solutions either. Better to stay with the current system, which lets off enough pressure to keep ambitious parents off their backs.

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I'm waiting to see if Yoon will step in it.

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