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The shame of Boston Public Schools?
By adamg on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 11:37am
The Globe today has an interesting, sad look at the crappy condition of athletics at Boston public high schools and middle schools, at least, at the ones that don't require an exam to get into.
However, it's advertised as the first of a seven-part series. It's by a Globe sports writer, so I'm assuming the other six parts will also be about the sad state of sports in Boston secondary schools.
When will we see a seven-part series about the crappy condition of other scholastic affairs in Boston schools?
We just found out the kidlet's school is losing its drama teacher. So what? That means what is basically a middle school will have NO specialty teachers next year. No music, no art, nothing but the basics. And no gym whatsoever.
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Comments
Sports are very important
Sports are very important for health reasons, but the way the american school system handles it is flawed. Money should be put into gym class where everyone has an equal chance to work out and be fit. Its only because of the american obsession with sports that we throw money at 15 year old basketball and baseball players while their academically gifted peers are stuck with old books.
The american taxpayer should not be funding competitive sports. Major league teams that want youth talent should be funding programs, like you see in most countries.
I agree
This article betrays twisted priorities. Even at schools with well-funded sports, only a minority of kids are ever going to get involved in competitive interscholastic sports. Losing a school football team isn't going to have any health effects on the student population at large. The handful of kids involved are playing mostly to amuse their parents; let their parents pay for their entertainment.
Gym class is an entirely different matter. All kids should get exercise, and not just outside of school but during the school day. Recess with organized games, or gym class, helps student concentration in class afterward. Kids really can't just sit there all day; it's not good for their health and it's not good for their academic achievement either. Kickball is more important for student health than football.
Kickball
Here's the deal at the kidlet's school:
The boys play kickball. The girls mostly stand around trying to avoid getting hit in the head with the ball (sometimes, they jump rope). For the 10 or 15 minutes they get as part of their lunch break. The school's "playground" (basically, a parking lot) is too small to allow for much else.
both are important sock_puppet
Or can be if done the right way. And schools with well-funded sports have more than just a minority that play competitive interscholastic sports. Take the schools in Boston Latins league for example. A school like Lincoln Sudbury or even Weston will have 10-20% of the male populations playing football, and more playing another sport (more of a "significant" minority I would say). Kids in Boston do not get that chance.
Im guessing youve never played football. Nothing wrong with that but there are lessons that can be learned with an organized team that can help many of these kids.
Ever try to organize a kickball game in a city school gym class or recess? Not the most beneficial thing I could think of for kids.
The most beneficial thing
I can think of more beneficial things. Swimming pools, for one. Why don't more schools in Boston have swimming pools? The BPS should teach each every single kid to swim. That'd be more beneficial. But it's not going to happen, because we have priorities and a limited budget.
The two replies to my post are a great illustration of the skewed priorities expressed in the article. One poster wishes that more Future Flatfeet of America could have glory days to look back on. The other just wishes his daughter got some exercise at school beyond ten minutes stolen from lunch. It should be plain which expresses a more important concern for students' health and learning.
sock puppet....
Go to a week of phyisical education or health classes in the Boston Public schools (or Madison Park's swimming pool) and you get a gilmpse of what really goes on there and why things are easier said than done in terms of class management, budgeting, and the fact that there actually are a lot of kids that do benefit from the services offered by the Boston Public Schools. There are many free services (including swimming lessons) around Boston that people do and dont take advantage of.
Of course swimming pools and swimming programs are great ideas. So are math teams and SAT prep classes.
Towns like Newton and Wellesley have great swimming programs, math teams and SAT prep classes, cities like Boston don't.
Its easy to just look at the big picture and say "swimming pool!".
Yup, that's my point
It must have been subtle for you to agree with it.
Swimming pools are great and kids should all learn to swim. It would, however, be complicated and difficult to provide this service through the BPS.
It would not be complicated and difficult for all the kids in the BPS to have a gym class. That is why the BPS should focus on that first, before things like swimming pools and football teams.
I'm glad you're coming around.
I do agree except...
I have a feeling you have never seen, tried to teach, or been in a boston public school gym class. It is a little more complicated and difficult than you think.
Running them around
My sons had the same two teachers for their 4th and 5th grade years. These teachers don't teach to the test, have large classes, and consistently log some of the highest MCAS scores in the state with an economically and racially diverse group of students.
One of their tricks: they take the kids out for extra recesses each day and run around with them. They rarely miss a day unless it is close to a white-out or below 10F. This busts up the day and runs the zoom out of them so they can sit, concentrate, and learn. This makes the instructional time more effective because it removes fidgeting distractions and mitigates discipline problems.
You don't need a formally organized gym class - you just need a teacher who understands that getting them moving in an informal way will make the rest of the day run much better for everyone. When my sons were younger, their teachers could tell what days they walked the 3/4 mile to school, and which days they did not by their behavior.
White people
When I was at Hyde Park High and was one of maybe a dozen white kids in the school, the hockey coach tried to recruit me three or four times. Just walking down the hallway, he'd stop me and ask "hey, want to play for the hockey team?"
"I don't play."
"Not even street hockey? We can teach you to skate."
"No."
It always bent me out of shape a little bit. Obviously it was a racist assumption: "hey look, a white kid, he must play hockey." I'm guessing the lonely black kids at Weston High probably get pressured to play basketball in the same way. He played it off one time by saying I looked like Cam Neely (I'm 5'8, 150 lbs.) and that made me laugh a bit, but still -- what kind of recruiting method is that?
white hockey
That's quite a story... my kids youth team is very white even though the neighborhood has a lot of minority kids. However I never saw anything from the coaches to suggest they were racists, I just don't think they know too many asian, black or hispanic kids.
It also takes a lot of time and extra money to do organized sports.
There's a difference between racism and being a racist
You're probably right that the coaches aren't racists, as in, people who actively avoid people of other races, actively do things to make them feel bad, etc.
But the figures you give definitely show that institutional racISM is at work here. Why doesn't the coach know many minority kids? Why don't minority kids feel welcome/comfortable joining the hockey team? Based on what you said, it probably isn't anything hostile anyone did, but more that people tend to segregate themselves. Not usually for any malicious reason, but rather that many people connect better with people of their own kind, and most people aren't making active efforts to make sure everyone is comfortable. There have been studies done showing that most white people hardly ever think about their race when making decisions of where to eat or what to do for fun, but that people of color very frequently consider their race in similar decisions. Part of it might be the cycle of how the team is all white, so people of color might not feel comfortable there, thus no one breaking the barrier. It could also be things like the brochures showing all white kids, the celebratory dinners being held at establishments with mostly white clientele, parents and coaches not having contacted neighborhood organizations of color to ask how they can be more welcoming and attract more diverse families, any number of things. It doesn't have to involve someone being malicious or against people of color per se.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
more on school sports
If your kid plays youth sports, you have to do all kinds of stuff, which involves extra hours and extra money for you. You have to be able to drive the kid all over (so you need money and a good car and time) or get rides (so you need friends among the other parents). This got worse in high school rather than better.
On the culture front, we have certain sports like hockey which have historically had more importance (really more than it deserves). I don't know if I was asian, would my kids have got into it? Maybe swimming instead from my anecdotal observation. It would be interesting to compare.
Lonely black kids
Dan R writes:
I'm not really in the loop for athletic matters at Weston, but I don't think this is so. Maybe I'm just unobservant.
I'm also not sure that the black kids are so lonely at Weston. At the Academy of Science and Health, which I suspect is part of the former Hyde Park High, the student body is 1.5% white; at Weston High School, the student body is 4.6% black. I know, I know, still not very diverse, but at least it's three times the percentage! (Weston High School, BTW, is only 78.1% white, which confounds everyone's stereotypes.)
Larry Davidson
now we have to beg for sports
Sports and arts are a social part of high school that kids should really learn to participate in, they both are part of extending yourself physically. Sports also gets the parents involved.
What kills me about this is as usual, here we are in Boston, expected to beg for this crumb. Sports and arts are valued as part of a system that is primed for achievement. They're not going to make up for an economy which does not serve the residents of the city.
goodbye to enrichment, while teaching to the test
The general trend is a huge educational tragedy in the making.
We are jettisoning activities that help many kids to find themselves, such as sports, music, arts, what have you.
In the meantime, we're turning classrooms into giant MCAS test prep centers.
This is deeply screwed up.
The MCAS test looks for
The MCAS test looks for basic academic skills. So you think it's screwed up that schools are giant basic academic skills prep centers? They're not testing Mandarin vocabulary or tropical bird calls.
MCAS
If it were just that, but no: It pervades everything, and kids spend a LOT of time preparing for MCAS rather than, say, learning new stuff. You don't see kids spending tons of time getting ready for, oh, the Stanford 9.
And because, at its heart, MCAS is designed to rate schools, not individual students, it leads to stupid internecine wars between schools and between principals and downtown when it comes to kids who are doing well.
Not exactly the problem
One question David - do you have kids? If not, you might have accepted the propaganda and not been acquainted with the reality of education in many cities and towns pre-MCAS.
In some school systems, the MCAS woke up a bunch of loser School Committee members who thought their job was to screw as much and many resources out of the school system as possible while sending their own kids to private schools. "you can't expect the taxpayers to provide a real education". Yep, that's a Mefuh school committee member quote, pre-MCAS. Lovely, huh? Of course, fully funded sports programs were their priority, screw those academics. Town Pride!
So while the affluent districts moan and groan about curriculum and enrichment and generate memes like David's here, the reality in places like Boston and elsewhere is that MCAS means that they have to place a priority on things which are tested by MCAS. Before MCAS, they would fund the sports and cram 35 to 40 kids in a 5th grade classroom and cancel all book orders for the library and cut out all librarians and cancel any/all language and art classes so long as they could save the football program. You don't need frills like that! Go team! They can't get away with screwing academic subjects like that anymore , so sports goes on the block. Unfortunately, so does arts - but that would have been killed even sooner before accountability emerged for academics - if it existed at all. Before the state rebuilt a lot of schools, many districts had no space or funding for arts whatsoever anyway.
So while the affluent families and districts make it sound like all creativity has been drained because of MCAS, the reality is that the increased focus on academics in mid and low income districts has protected the core subjects from attack where they would have been cut back more severely in past years. One could even say that laments of the Lexingtons and the Westons are fueled by the increased academic focus at the low end, which is removing some of special advantages of buying in the affluent districts.
high stakes testing
No, I don't have kids, but since you've pulled that card, I'll simply say that it doesn't preclude me from having a valid opinion on matters relating to education. Nor am I approaching this from a "meme" of privilege and elitism. I attended public schools in a working class/lower middle class school district in NW Indiana (and grew up in a family whose income matched the surroundings), so I know little of the Lexingtons and Westons to which you refer.
However, I've seen and experienced what mediocre-to-poor public education is all about, and I don't regard high-stakes multiple-choice testing as the solution to a serious problem. I won't rehash that whole debate here, but suffice it to say that I'm hardly alone in that sentiment.
That said, and going back to the original post, the elimination of enrichment activities -- in poor, middle-class, and affluent school districts alike -- is impoverishing these kids. Complain all you want about football (and yes, I wholly agree that we overdo the sports worship in high schools), but it keeps kids off the streets and builds teamwork skills that will benefit them later in life. Same for being in a chorus or school play or student council.
Well, and it adds to the haves and have-nots situation
Middle- and upper-class families are going to find sports and arts and social activities for their kids outside of schools regardless. Families with fewer resources aren't able to do so much of that.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
I think you're both right
SwirlyGrrl is right that the MCAS has increased accountability for teaching basic academic skills in school districts where not much of this was happening before. But David is also right that other crucial services have been cut because of MCAS.
I see many children in my practice who are between the ages of 10 and 15, most of whom attend public schools in moderate-income or low-income areas. Most of the children I see are working close to grade level academically, but have the types of disabilities that affect their ability to have conversations, accept and give feedback appropriately, deal with disappointments, make friends, keep their bodies safe, follow social norms, etc. Most of my clients have diagnoses along the lines of high-functioning autism, pervasive developmental disorder, Asperger's syndrome, nonverbal learning disorder, etc.
The schools are so focused on MCAS, since special ed students are included in the MCAS figures (including kids with profound disabilities whose development is at an infant level, who are being counted as having failed MCAS, but that's a separate rant). The kids I see all have an IEP (individualized education plan), but the IEPS are increasingly focused only on the types of academic skills that get tested on MCAS, no matter how many reports I write and how much the parents reject the IEP. These kids are receiving no support in skills like what a stranger is and how much personal information you share with them, how to take turns in a conversation, how to disagree with someone without having a screaming meltdown, how to not go up to a peer and say something sexually inappropriate just because another peer told you to and you don't understand what the phrase means and you think that you have to do everything people tell you.
These kids' academic skills are usually already close to being on par, and their real deficit is real-world skills. But the schools won't address those skills. Instead, I'm trying to help kids and families address them in one hour per week that's in a therapy setting rather than a real-life setting. Which can only be so effective, because these kids don't generalize skills and don't accurately perceive and report what goes on at school. A few districts *ahem*Cambridge*ahem* are even going so far as to pay for an "evaluation" (short paper-and-pencil testing without any observation or really interacting with the kid) that takes away a kid's diagnosis of having Asperger's or high-functioning autism and reports that the kid only has mild academic-type learning disabilities. You know, so the school can focus on making the kids' not-really-that-bad academic skills be perfect, while ignoring the real issues (that the MCAS doesn't test).
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Exam Schools have Weak Sports too
Went to BLS for 5 years, our football team didn't have its own field. All freshman and JV games were away, and senior homes were at White Stadium where all the other BPS schools play home games (except English, which does have its own field but still plays at White stadium sometimes...I think).
Until the school building was extended, the seniors used to practice in a dirt lot next to the building with glass and rocks and other junk strewn about.
Our freshman football team practiced in the little triangle park between Park Drive and Fenway (link to google maps http://bit.ly/DZ2UR).
So, all was not rosy with the sports programs at the exam schools, I'm sure they were slightly (emphasis on slightly) better than the other BPS programs because of donations from alumni, but most of that goes to academics.
But...
A parent of one of my clients, who has older kids who go to BLS, told me she was at a BLS vs. English High football game, and the BLS side of the bleachers was completely packed with parents and students and a pep band and cheerleaders. The English side had a couple of kids and a couple of parents.
This parent said she felt really embarrassed and guilty at the privilege that her family has, and felt horrible that the kids whose families didn't have the resources her family has were having to miss out on experiences like having parents and peers with the free time to pack the stadium, and peers with the time and talent to be enthusiastic band members. She said it made her feel conflicted about exam schools, and that ideally, her kids would be getting the same kind of excellent college-prep education in a regular old public high school, so that privileged people like her family and her kids could be wildly cheering on both sides.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
what was the score
Need more information before I can feel guilty.
You get what you deserve
This is what happens when you keep re-electing the same kleptocrats that worry more about giving hack jobs to their unemployed neighbors, family and friends than actually providing real government services.
When will people realize that it's not the city that is the problem, but rather the voters?
This article
is case study #1 for why public schools don't work. I'm going to ignore the economics and social issues touched upon in the story, and suggest that we close the public schools in Boston, let the free market educate the kids...then after 3 PM, form a sports league of 15-18 year olds who play school teams from cities/towns where public schools haven't failed.
BPS sports.
As someone that has coached in the BPS system and now coaches in the collegiate ranks, I always had a few suggestions for the way school sports were run in Boston.
Every Boston high school does not need a football, baseball, track, or hockey team (all of them don't I know but there are still too many). There should be some sort of school choice when it comes to these sports. There are enough kids serious about track, baseball and football to have kids choose what school they want to play at. So instead of each high school paying 12K a year for a football coach and no assistants, you can have 3 boston public football teams with a 15-25K staff at each school. Coaches that are serious about football will generate kids that are serious about football.
Anyone ever see the Boston Pop Warner leagues? Although the funds from the parents aren't there, the interest among players, coaches and parents is there. There are thousands of people at these games and I think the football coaches do a hell of a job and actually know what they are doing. There needs to be some motivated people with some decent salary to get these programs moving at the next level as well. There are more obsticles to be sure (eligibility, attendence, dicipline, the MIAA), but I think a smaller concentration of coaches at less schools will make a difference.
As far as the facilities are concerened, the less teams you have, the less facilities you will need.
There are still a lot of coaching duds in the BPS that have been around for a long time and really don't know what they are doing. The BPS should recruit teachers with coaching and atlhetic backgrounds to supplement their salaries with these coaching jobs.
Ive always been firm believer that after school athletics can be an invaluble lesson to school age kids. The things that these kids aren't learning in school can be learned on the field after school.
And lets not kid ourselves....
Boston Latin really has nothing to do with the Boston Public School system.
I'll keep that in mind
When the kidlet grumbles every single morning I have to drive her there for an ISEE prep course there next month.
schools
This is where the reality hits the rhetoric. Do you want to squawk about taxes, or do you want programs that benefit your kids? Look at this carefully. Is this program legit, with reasonable wages and expenses? Do kids in the program love it and learn from it? Or is it a cushy job for a bozo with no skills, maybe screaming orders at kids who are totally turned off?
Pay attention. If govt. is doing a good job, then your taxes are well-spent.
Beware of stripping everything from education except the three R's. Programs such as phys ed, art, music, etc. keep kids involved in school.
You may not have kids in school, but education is an investment in a civil society.
at the ones that don't require an exam to get into
The graph attached to the article is misleading, at least in my experience at BLS, which for some incomprehensible reason participates in the Dual County League, playing teams from Weston and Concord-Carlisle, etc., meaning just the commute to and from games can be hours. Certain sports at Latin are funded, others are not. The sailing team works with and is coached by Courageous Sailing; most of the kids on the team have come up through the ranks of the FREE program offered by Courageous. The girls’ crew team was organized and funded by parent initiatives—that is the only reason it exists.
My older son played soccer and in six years had four coaches. In his early days they practiced at horribly maintained fields in far flung locations like Cleveland Circle, JP off the Arborway, and Daisy Field in Brookline (ok, this one was well-manicured, I think because it was also a dog park). The first pass at making the team was finding, and getting to, the field. Then Millennium Field in West Roxbury (almost Dedham) became the home field for the boys and girls teams. Taking public transportation on a good day took an hour. But depending on where you live, it could be hours to get home (I once drove some kids home to East Boston, there is no short cut for that haul). Home games meant the players often got to the field long after the visiting team had arrived and practiced for a good while. The BLS players would amble from the bus stop on the Parkway to the field, gear over shoulder, while the opposing team traveled door-to-door by bus with ‘booster’ volunteers supplying food and refreshments. Finally, parents raised money for a bus to get the kids back and forth from school. In my son's senior year, the team won its first game since joining the Dual County League (I believe it had been 15 years). It amazed me that these kids kept with it, given the weekly grind of playing (and losing to) teams from suburbs that invested huge resources in athletics (and this disparity was not lost on the players).
I found the comparative budget % of dollars spent on athletics among cities (Cambridge, Somerville, and yes I know they are ‘smaller’) striking. It is hard to discuss the underfunding of sports in a system that does such a dismal job of educating all of its students. But if a kid enjoys playing, participation in sports can enhance their schoolwork. The City should value athletics, and coordinate available resources for the all schools(and BLS should be back in the City League). A mayor truly committed to kids would have done more in 16 years than turn the lights on at White Stadium for a couple of nights during football season. As parents, or as coaches, we slog along, and don’t have the energy to fight the system, or the budget, or individual athletic directors, but just try to create opportunities for the kids to play.
Adding to other comments, the BLS football team practices on Clemente Field in the Fenway; take a walk-around on any given day and get a sense of what 4-6 hours of pre-season training might be like in the heat of August. And the Latin/English game is played at Harvard Stadium on Thanksgiving morning, a big ‘culture’ day historically for Latin. When we go, we choose to sit over on the English side.
one more thing..
or a few small things actually.
-Daisy field is actually in Jamaica Plain
-Boston Latin is in the Dual County League because of its size and competitiveness within the league. Despite not being great at that many sports and having to travel, Boston Latin still ranks right in the middle of that league (and actually is in the large school section of that league).
But I did notice in the seoncd part of the series today where the Boston AD (and Boston resident) sends his kid to the Newton Public Schools through Metco. I guess I can't blame him, but theres something to be said about running a Boston School Department organization and then sending your kid to a totally different school system. I guess its just a job when you look at it.
thanks for clarifying
the Dual County League issue, although it still seems a waste of resources and student time to have them go so far, but rankings and distribution criteria are admittedly lost on me.
And the field in Brookline was across Brookline Ave heading into the Village, so I am guessing it was not Daisy Field.
The comments here re: collective use of resources are on point, and I wonder if there are other cities that have had success in this area. To some degree it happens already (golf and cross country at Franklin Park, swim teams at the Murphy school) but maybe only on a school or sport basis, rather than a comprehensive approach.