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Boston Proper parents say they deserve their own public school
By adamg on Wed, 05/05/2010 - 5:13pm
Matt Conti reports on a group of North End, Beacon Hill, West End and downtown parents to get a new public elementary school to serve those neighborhoods. The Coalition for Public Education recently met with the mayor and school superintendent to press their case now that it no longer seems they'll get a school as part of the proposed mega-replacement for the Government Center garage. The Eliot School in the North End currently has a waiting list with as many names as it has seats.
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Comments
Neighborhood schools?
Neighborhood schools? Racists, no doubt.
They might want to rephrase that
I think downtown or the chi-chi part of Boston would be a great location for a new school. But this group isn't doing itself any favors by the way it explains its case.
Schools in Boston don't serve their immediate neighborhoods. They serve the city as a whole, through the zone they are in. Some seats are set aside for "walk zone" students, but no public school belongs exclusively to its neighborhood. This mission statement makes it seem like the goal of the Coalition is to capture an entire school and reserve it all for only their children.
This is the choice? Really? It's the Eliot or nothing? In fact, families in the North Zone have the choice to apply to any school in their zone, just like families in the other zones do. And surely the Eliot isn't the only school in the whole zone worth going to. This statement sounds an awful lot like 'If I can't get exactly what I want, I'm going to take my ball and go home.'
I think it would be great to site a new school in one of the areas they're talking about. It would be convenient for children from many neighborhoods in the North Zone, and would, as they say, encourage more parents in the area to choose Boston Public. But these folks may need a bit of help with they way they express themselves if they want to achieve their goals. Their statements make it sound less like they are interested in fortifying the Boston Public Schools by founding a smashing new school in a central neighborhood with an increasing juvenile population and more like they think the city owes them something special, just for themselves and their special progeny.
Is downtown a good location for a new school? Yes. Do Boston Proper parents deserve their own public school? No.
Coupla things
Elementary schools do have one-mile walk zones, and roughly 50% of the available seats are set aside for kids living in that zone (the exact number varies based on sibling priorities; the sibling of a kid already in the school gets higher priority even if they're not from the walk zone). So right off the bat a downtown school would have some number of seats set aside for local kids.
Court Street is slowly messing with the zone system, even aside from the repeated, and failed, efforts to change the zones. The new BTU pilot school is meant for Roslindale kids. And Roslindale is getting priority for spots at the (improving?) Irving Middle School, because none of the neighborhood's elementary schools go past fifth grade. So if Menino and Johnson somehow give in (anybody remember when a group of Back Bay parents offered to buy a building for a school, and Menino turned them down?), the precedent's been set for some zone tinkering.
Gotta learn to talk the talk
I remember when the city turned down parents buying a building. That sends a pretty bad message too. If you bought the building, what can you decide about it?
I know how the zones work, walk zones and what not. And a school in your walk zone is great. Parent involvement in schools is great. But it doesn't make much sense to start a negotiation talking about what's in it for you - especially if you exaggerate your potential upside (e.g. "a school for our kids"). These statements really make it seem like the parents have unreasonable and selfish expectations, like the school is going to be exclusive.
Sure, some people considered the BTU was "meant for" Roslindale kids - because there is not a single K-8 in Roslindale. But it's actually in Jamaica Plain, and the walk zone isn't even half Roslindale. Sure, there's a feeder now from some Roslindale elementaries to the police blotter regular Irving Middle. They're hoping it'll keep down the stabbings, maybe. And the reason these slightly fabulous things happen is because people talk about equity and can make a good case. The downtown people haven't.
I guess mostly I hate to see people shooting themselves in the foot. I sympathize with the parents wanting a local school, but the 'why can't I just buy one' approach is not going to work here. The school district is drowning in controversy already. A proposal to increase the controversy by building a fancy new school just for the rich kids is not likely to be received well. Maybe if they paired up with John Keith to show just how many kids in the South End projects would be within walking distance, or could explain the convenience of a downtown location for the large urban work force, then they might have a better shot at it.
Neighborhood Schools
"Do Boston Proper parents deserve their own public school? No."
I actually don't think its too much to ask (and I don't live downtown). Because of our Alabama of the North, School Bussing Crisis, Rock Throwing episodes of 30 years past, people in this City immediately equate neighborhood schools with privilege, if not outright racism. But its not privilege and, as I see it, its not about race anymore either (it certainly once was). People simply want to be able to send their children to schools close to where they live so that: (1) their 5 years olds don't get put on a bus and to get shipped half way accross town; and (2) so that they can have an active involvement as parents in the school. There are, to be sure, some schools in the City that are poor schools and those schools need to be re-vamped, whether through infrastructure, faculty, administration, or funding. However, those issues aren't about privilege and they are about race. Its time to stop bussing and give people ownership over their kids' schools.
Ownership
This sense of ownership is the problem with the Coalition's suggestion. I think it would be great if we had more smaller schools in Boston, and better schools in every neighborhood. But the idea that a group of parents in a particular neighborhood should own the school (literally or figuratively) should rightly be equated with privilege, if not outright racism.
It's one thing to say that a new school in a particular area would provide better service to all the residents of Boston. It's another to say the kids in a particular neighborhood deserve their own school. They don't, any more than the kids in another neighborhood should be forbidden to attend that school. Which is really two ways to say the same thing.
But if you're still sure that giving people ownership of schools is the only way to go, I propose you own Orchard Gardens.
yea but sock_puppet...
In theory, don't the people on the other side of the VFW in Newton basically "own" their schools, while people on the Boston side "owns" theirs? City, town or neighborhood boundries all could mean the same thing right? The houses in Newton cost more than the houses in West Roxbury and the houses in West Roxbury cost more than the houses in Mattapan. And the tax rate goes right down the line as well.
Would you call the people who want to live on the other side of the parkway (Newton) racist becasue they don't allow Boston residents in their schools?
One could make that argument
But it would be a bit of a strawman argument since Newton is part of Metco and would ignore 350 years of home-rule tradition that has nothing to do with racism.
In any case, one could make the argument that one of the reason busing failed is that, unlike what was done in other metro areas, a federal judge from Wellesley limited his ruling to the city of Boston, rather than including suburban towns.
Interesting question
Would you say it's inconceivable that someone might move to Newton because they don't want their child going to school with so many black people?
Ah, never mind. I'm sure it's never happened. People move to Newton because the schools are better, not whiter. I sincerely think that most people who are afraid of the public school system in Boston would be completely happy to have their kids rub elbows with the children of black doctors and lawyers. It's a class issue perhaps more than a race issue.
As for who owns the schools, quite right - the people in Newton own Newton schools, just like the people in Boston own Boston schools. Having a district's boundaries coincide with a city's boundaries is a logical administrative division replicated across the country. So the not allowing part doesn't really make much sense as a serious question.
Also, the boundaries of a city are (by and large) historical accidents rather than conscious demographic divisions, so it's not like you can say there's a different Newton vs. Boston school district because a bunch of racists came up with the idea.
In this day and age, however, it would much more difficult to say we're going to divide Boston into separate districts and do that fairly and in a way that doesn't institutionalize racism. Probably the least fair way to do it would be by neighborhood, especially if you bring local funding into it. Like it or not, Mattapan and West Roxbury are in the same city and the same school district currently (though not the same zone), and it's too late to turn back the clock to a division on the basis of a historical accident. It's all intentional from here out, and a solution is not simple.
I do think there are better ways to do things, and that the system we have now is something of a Rube Goldberg. But I also think it is important not to deploy public funds in a such a way as to create unequal opportunities from the start of a child's life. Or at least try, because it's not like we're there yet.
What kind of privilege are you talking about?
If the parents were talking about literally owning the school - as in fee simple ownership of the real estate - then that would be a private school not a public school, and would evoke some kind of economic privielge (however, it didn't sound to me like that is what is being considered). Clearly neighborhood schools should be equally, and sufficiently, funded based on their enrollment. Furthermore, neighborhood schools should not be "closed" to people from other neighborhoods if there are vacant spaces that people from the surrounding neighborhood don't want to take. However, saying that it is a privilege for tax paying citizen's of the City to have a good school close to their house is just nonsense - it should be a right. Whether you are poor or rich, or live downtown or in Hyde Park, you should be able to have a good school close to home where you can send your kids. However, from what you are saying, it sounds like you are really referring to economic privilege and suggesting that people who are economically privileged - i.e. wealthy - just shouldn't be allowed to send their kids to school close to where they live (and that doing so would somehow be racist). Am I missing something about your view?
Yes, the approach is all
Yes, the approach is all wrong. They should look at what parents in Roslindale did in order to get BPS to establish a direct K-8 pathway system with feeder elementary schools. We worked behind the scenes with the superintendent's office to find out how it might be done, what would be required to justify acting, and demonstrating the data to back up the request. There is no need to be confrontational from the very beginning.
Although to be fair to them
They were led to believe they would be getting a new school, as part of the Government Center project. Once you've seen paradise, you can't go back, or something.
Two swaths with no elementary or middle schools
One is Logan Airport. The other is bordered by the Charles River from Allston to the Eliot and inland about half a mile. Curiously a fair number of high schools.
Map here:
http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/files/Schools%2...
the more i learn about the
the more i learn about the bps system the more i'm dismayed by it-- as we look ahead to parenthood my wife and i have learned more and while i understand the roots of the non-neighborhood system it may end up forcing us to move. The primary reason I moved to Boston way back when 7 years ago was for the decidedly non-car oriented life it affords. I love biking and walking to work, and I don't want my hypothetical child becoming a car/bus commuter with a 45 minute droning ride to school from day 1-- if my he/she does not get a "walk-zone" seat to the one school within walking distance of us I will seriously consider relocating beyond city (or even state) boundaries--
As a new parent in the BPS, I
As a new parent in the BPS, I share some of your frustrations, but it's far from a slam dunk that you'd have a short bus ride in the suburbs either. I certainly understand not wanting to bus your kid across town, but on the other hand stating that if you can't send your kid to a school you can walk to you might move seems a bit over the top. In Roslindale for example, there are five elementary schools, so while not all of them are walk zone, it's certainly not some extreme bus ride you're looking at in this neighborhood.
Roslindale's a bit of an exception, though
Because even if you don't get into a local school, the worst you'll get (in terms of travel time) is a school in West Roxbury or JP. Somebody in Hyde Park could be dealing with a trip all the way to South Boston.
I think Boston spends about
I think Boston spends about $40 Million busing students without special needs. Neighborhood schools would allow that money to be spent elsewhere in the school system. Plus the air would be cleaner and the streets a little less congested and kids could get a little more exercise.... maybe $3.5 Million of the savings could be given to the library system...
yes but I'm not looking for a
yes but I'm not looking for a bus ride, but a walk. Call me crazy, but it is really that important to me that my children use their feet to get to school and not take a bus, 5 minutes or 50 minutes. Outside of Lake Wobegon it does not really seem to be possible anymore. City, suburb, or countryside it seems a fact of modern american life that they will be sitting on their duff on the way to school.
The walk
This problem is distinct. Even if your kid gets into the closest school to your house, he will probably still be taking the bus. There just aren't as many schools as there used to be. Boston is littered with closed schools. You can probably walk to a closed school faster than you can to an open school.
The fact of modern American life causing this is the wave of school centralization that hit in the seventies (?). It didn't just affect Boston. Districts saw an economy of scale in larger schools, and even kids in very small towns ended up being bused longer distances so they could go to 1000+ student schools.
If you want your kid to walk to school, you first have to live close to an actual open school. Most people in Boston don't. I'm in the walk zone for several schools, but the walk would be a bit inconvenient, as they're all almost a mile away as the crow flies. So my kid gets on a bus in front of a building that would have been our school decades ago.
Kids don't walk today anyway.
Something happened over the last 20 years that made parents drive their kids to school. At least where I lived, 80% of the kids walked and maybe 20% got rides. Now its probably 90% rides 10% walk for the same schools.
Let me top that off for you
Kids don't even walk to the bus stop any more, let alone the school. Every day I see another parent drive five blocks down to the bus stop to pick up her kids and drive them back to her house.
True.
And I never took a 'school bus', but it seemed these buses stopped in front of every house back in the day as well, and not just random stops.
Don't get me started on that
Man, you said it. When I go for noon bike rides out here in MetroWestLand, it absolutely irks me when I see the cars lined up at a bus stop to pick up their kids so that they don't have to walk the 1/4 mile or less to get home. It may be a gorgeous sunny day, mid-70's out, and your kid can't even walk home?
My Kids Did Walk
Yet I would, time and again, run up against "but you can't have them walk because ..." policies by the schools. They would call me to pick up my kids because they couldn't let them cross the g-d street by themselves, even though I sent a CYA note saying that MY KID WILL WALK HOME ON HIS OWN THANK YOU, or because they weren't in 5th grade, etc.
Hello? I'm the parent here? I think I should be deciding how my kids get to and from school? They were taking the friggin' T buses to Davis and downtown to my office and some principal says they can't cross the street? At a crosswalk? In a school zone?
Then there was that total piece of work Principal Idiot at the Bracket School in Arlington, which is right next to the bike path, telling parents that he would not allow any students to bike to school, period.
This, and completely statistically-challenged parents with their tabloid-addled fantasies and self-inflating beliefs in superhero powers of protecting kids in a car against those evile kidsnatchers who are simply everywhere (and must just be in special hiding caves and not properly counted when you cite those fearsome and doubtful statistics and data!). We walked all through my boys' grade school years, 2/3 of a mile, in most weather. We were very suddenly joined by the entire neighborhood and their dogs when gas hit $3 a gallon - and most of those people still walk their kids on most days now that they know how much nicer it is! My older son can't wait to walk again when he hits high school next year. (the middle school is 3 miles away)
same boat
this convoluted and overly politicised school system will be exactly the reason why i will likely leave my beloved Brighton...I was always a huge proponent of public education until I moved to Boston, where paradoxically, a forcefully equitable BPS system is responsible for growing economic and racial divisions.
Of course, Coalition members
Of course, Coalition members believe that any school set aside for their children will be, by definition, 'good.'
This is why nobody wants to live here
Why am I the only person who gets this? No kid should have to get a ride to school. I walked/biked to every school I ever attended in Burlington, VT. If my pisswater hometown can handle this, then "world-class" Boston should handle it too.
And what about the all-city schools?
Should a kid from West Roxbury walk all the way to BLS every morning? Should a kid from Allston bike all the way to BAA?
Nobody wants to live here
Your pisswater hometown is so much nicer. The school district management is so good that its almost 3600 school children almost never have to get bussed to another neighborhood. (Of course, the whole city is the size of one of Boston's neighborhoods, so where would they go anyway?) They're so accomplished in Burlington that they've achieved integration without bussing - all the schools are 92.3% white. With such great school system management in Burlington, it's no wonder nobody wants to live in Boston. It's really bad. Awful, terrible. I don't know how I can stand it. You should definitely keep moving.
My neighborhood bought schools in Boston..
They were called Holy Name, St. Thereseas and Catholic Memorial. Fantastic neighborhood schools that covered the whole area and all ages..........Ok, except for the females after 8th grade....
Just to add a little to the discussion
A new public school was part of the proposal to replace the government center garage.
If that project can get back online (doubtful) then a school is planned to be part of the community mitigation.
Non-Boston resident's observation
Non-Boston resident's observation:
Every time a story like this is posted on UHub, it generates a very long comment trail. The fact that folks have clearly spent so much time thinking about this is troublesome for me, because it suggests that BPS personnel spend at least as much time thinking about it. I would prefer they focus their resources on the educational aspect of the operation.