Education, Schools, and Youth
Creating 21st Century Schools in Boston
By Sam Yoon
When Mayor Menino first took office in the early 90s, he challenged Boston to judge him harshly if the schools did not improve.
Enough is enough.
Yes, there are a lot of buses crawling around Boston half-empty. Too many kids spend too much time on buses. We cannot ignore these issues.
But the five zone plan is bad for a whole host of reasons. It helps some children but leaves too many others behind. It over-promises and lacks clarity to the transportation savings that supposedly would be gained.
And it’s simply dishonest. We can avoid all teacher layoffs by implementing just half of the $74 million in reforms indentified by the Boston Finance Commission, but Mayor Menino has refused even to discuss them. And the Mayor has asked his direct hires for a 3% cut while he has slashed 8% from the schools.
The real problem is the lack of creativity and fresh thinking when it comes to education. Sixteen years have not produced any bold or innovative thinking around our schools.
Here are three ideas that we ought to talk about:
1. Create “Smart Caps” on charter schools. If we’re going to be innovative about education in Boston, we need to encourage the innovators who have a proven record of success. We have some of the country’s best model charter schools. Keeping a lid on them makes no sense. We should lift the cap for successful pilot and charter schools.
2. Enter into serious partnerships with colleges and universities. There is a reason Boston is known as the Athens of America. Our higher learning institutions train a quarter of the world’s leaders. No other city in the world has the intellectual resources that Boston does. But for the last sixteen years we have done virtually nothing to tap into these resources to create partnerships that can breathe new life into our schools. We have to seize this opportunity.
3. Revisit the governance of our schools. We’ve had sixteen years of an appointed school committee that is not working toward transformational change. But let’s not get rid of it. The Mayor needs to be accountable for the schools, and having some appointees makes sense. But because of the tight link between democracy and education, I would like to see some elected members included in a hybrid school committee – some elected, some appointed.
I appreciate the work that Dr. Carol Johnson, her team, and the School Committee are doing for Boston’s children. But the debate we are having now about busing does not move us forward; it threatens to move us back to a painful, divisive time in Boston’s history.
We should expect and insist that every child in our city have access to a quality education in his or her own neighborhood. Sixteen years later, it’s time to change the debate and change our expectations. Let’s work together to transform our public schools into the innovative centers of learning we know they can be.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam’s Record on Education
As a proud parent of two children in the Boston Public Schools and as a former city school teacher himself, Sam knows the challenges facing teachers and children in Boston’s schools. Every child deserves the chance to get a good education, and their future cannot be shortchanged in the budget process. Sam has worked hard to stay ahead of the budget cuts that the Boston Public Schools are facing. This is why he started a dialogue with parents, teachers and children to get their input on cutbacks that will affect all of us in Boston.
Sam co-sponsored successful legislation that brought back a civics curriculum to Boston Public Schools. He has worked to improve mental health and trauma counseling at city schools and has fought to re-establish the Youth Activities Commission, a body that examines how each city department’s programs and spending helps to develop young people.
Sam led the fight that restored funding to TAG (Talented and Gifted Latinos) - a program that not only works by reducing drop-out rates at Boston Public Schools among our most vulnerable students, but a program that makes our entire school system better.
Sam believes that all children deserve high-quality schools in their own neighborhood. He believes that this should be our goal and that we cannot back down from it. Sam knows that education is too important to leave to the bureaucrats. Great ideas come from parents, teachers, kids themselves and the community at large. That is why he wants to know what you think we should do to make Boston Public Schools the envy of our neighbors and of other cities.
No comments:
Post a Comment