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Rats in hallways, no headmaster and no textbooks in some classes

Madison Park, the city's only vocational high school, hasn't gotten the improvements the mayor and the school superintendent promised, the Globe reports.

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There's always the military, which is probably the largest voke in the world right now. Isn't that funny?

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I was asking a city councilor when we could get a school like the Stuyvesant in NYC and he replied that we have Madison Park.

World Class City!

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I always thought that was like Boston Latin, although I suppose Brooklyn Latin is more like Boston Latin, given that it's modeled after it.

And every February, the students of The Brooklyn Latin School brave the blistering New England cold and venture to Avenue Louis Pasteur in Boston. Sitting in the Boston Latin auditorium, surrounded by portraits of the great men and women who’ve walked its hallways, they are reminded that though their own school may be new, they are in fact part of a tradition that is nearly 400 years old.

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As usual Adam, you are correct.

What I have felt is needed and have been pushing for years is a top flight science and math school (and/or trade school) along the lines of Bronx Science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_High_School_of_...

Boston Latin, of course, is a fantastic liberal arts type of school. But, with MIT a short potato gun shot away from Boston it is almost criminal that we don't have a school to feed into that. Madison isn't a very well organized technical school for the trades, let alone a 'world class' science and technology school.

If Boston wants to continue to be a leader in science and technology it should teach its public school students those topics and let everyone know how much we value those subjects.

My belief is that if we would have a dedicated science and technology exam school of about the same enrollment as Latin, with the type of academic rigor as Bronx science that it would be a big hit with BPS parents and students, and that it would be a great feeder into MIT, BU, Wentworth, and the other schools with strong science and technical merits in the area.

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There are three exam high schools in Boston:

1) Boston Latin
2) Latin Academy
3) John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & Science (formerly known as Boston Tech)

Madison Park is voc/tech. It is not college prep.

Part of the O'Bryant's problem is that it shares a building with Madison Park whose kids can be punks. The other problem is that the smart kids in Math and Science do go to Boston Latin. The overflow goes to O'Byrant. However, plenty of kids from O'Bryant go to MIT and other top technical schools.

I know because my Dad taught there for many years.

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Please note that Madison's acting headmaster was removed only after the Justice department began an investigation into credit fraud. He had passed BPS screening even though he had domestic and drug trafficking charges. The not-so-funny irony is that the cocaine he was transporting from Huston turned out to be fake. All around bad job.

Nancy is right about OB, and there is lots of conversation around the direction the school will take. While it is characterized as a Math and Science exam school, students are not solely selected on the basis of proficiency in those areas. More importantly, the majority of students do not select OB on the basis of wanting to enter STEM professions.

Remember that it has been one year since UHub broke the story of a around OB's headmaster, Dr. Rodney Peterson. In the time since Dr. Peterson resigned, there has not been a replacement headmaster for O'Bryant.

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Boston students who are not going to be lawyers, doctors or thieves have no school to attend where they can learn a trade. Where do you go if you want to become a carpenter, plumber, sheet-metal worker, electrician, or mason? Somebody needs to step up and become the next trade-person to work on all these luxury condos.
It's no wonder at all the construction sites around Boston, all you see are vehicles with NH and Me license plates.

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Who would anyone want to work a trade these days when you can get a shitty degree from a mediocre university [heavily subsidized by the federal government, i.e. The Taxpayers], and spend your life working in the 'service' industry, with flat or declining real wages? You get to dress up, where a tie, look important and 'professional'! People will respect you! 'Trades' are lower class jobs, sir. You run the possibility of getting your hands dirty [clutch the pearls!], and your kids will be embarrassed to tell their friends what their mom/dad do for a living:

Little Josh: Hey Jake, my dad has a college degree and works as a professional in the service industry. He makes $75,000./year. So what does your dad do?

Little Jake: My dad is a plumber,Josh. He makes over $150,000/year.

Little Josh: Oh. That's OK, I guess. But my dad says guys without college degrees are losers.

Sarcasm off.

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Boston has been killing off its trade schools since the 1960s and unions don't want more qualified tradespeople out there, particularly if they aren't union members, because it leads to competition in wages. Even with all of that there is still a shortage of skilled tradespeople. The skills and work ethic today is no where near what it was prior the 1950s. What used to be considered a fully competent skill set is now often reserved to the guys which have a good 30 years under their belts. Kids these days don't gain the skills in school, from their days, and from their hobbies like they used to to accumulate the muscle memory, discipline, and overall thought process of being a true craftsmen when it comes to work in the trades.

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When I went there nobody went to class, we all just walked the hallways all day.

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