BTU: Please Vote Yes for Expanded Learning Time

 

As a parent of a child attending one of the Boston Public Schools that will benefit from the Expanded Learning Time proposal, I am respectfully asking that BTU members vote Yes to ratify this agreement on Wednesday, January 14^th.

The proposal designates that the Principal, Faculty and School Site Council design how this additional time will be incorporated into the school day, simultaneously allowing more time for arts, music and language instruction, while offering more autonomy for school stakeholders. As the children of BPS move into the higher grades, classroom time for the arts drops significantly due to increased academic rigor. This proposal will allow some of this enrichment to return to the school day.

Mayor Walsh has shown true leadership on this initiative. Voting Yes will further this collaboration and signal to the families of Boston that the Boston Teacher’s Union is committed to trying new approaches to close the achievement gap.

Reflections from the end of a school budget season

At a friend’s gathering this past weekend, I shamelessly eavesdropped on a conversation between a silver haired woman and a young mother. A two year old climbed all over the mother’s pregnant lap, joyfully oblivious that she was pouncing on the sibling she hasn’t yet met. The two women discussed schools in Boston, and the silver haired woman cautiously warned the young mother: “If you become a BPS parent, you are signing on for years of being an advocate for your child’s education.” I drank in these honest words like a glass of lemonade on a summer day. I kept silent and listened.

The young mother has not yet experienced the painful heartbreak or guilty relief of the BPS K1 lottery. She hasn’t visited a dozen schools; a grand exercise in futility to feel like we have some control over a process that is dictated by luck and sometimes by ineffective bureaucracy. She hasn’t said goodbye to friends, moving away because they just couldn’t make it all work. But she also hasn’t experienced the immense gratitude from knowing that by some miracle, her child’s school reflexively nurtures her daughter’s needs. She hasn’t seen the safety net that can be cast by a group of educators, parents and a community, collaborating to ensure that all children are given an opportunity to succeed.

After the conversation ended between the young mother and the older woman, I talked to the mother myself. Six months ago, I would have sounded like an evangelical zealot for BPS, begging her to give it a chance. After what I’ve learned during this last school budget season, I listened to her concerns, shared our own experiences, but ended with a more measured bit of advice instead of my usual upbeat recommendation: “You have to do what you think is right.”

As the parent of a second grader and a child not yet in BPS, I know my role as an advocate has only just begin. The unknown still looms largely, and this thought simultaneously exhausts and energizes me. My own mother tailored our education for us by carefully selecting towns with good schools, scaling back our lifestyle dramatically to serve this goal. By the time I finished high school in Wellesley, we lived in a tiny, cock roach infested apartment above a restaurant. Below my bedroom window, the smell of the restaurant’s dumpster was a near constant reminder of the price we paid for my excellent public education. I think of all the times my own family has had to compete with School Committee meetings, streaming City Council hearings, or me working on the laptop late into the evening. I hope they look back on this figurative “dumpster” of their childhood more fondly, and I hope our efforts serve more families than just my own.

To our State Senators, from a Boston parent:

Dear Senator,
As you prepare to debate and vote on Bill S2262, I ask you to consider the impact it will have on the children already attending public schools in the communities in the bottom 10%. You have heard from Marc Kenen and other paid lobbyists. Please consider the families; our only interest is to give our children the best possible education.

We cannot expand one tier of public schools by defunding the other. Before expanding charter school growth, you as legislator must establish an equitable, separate funding mechanism.

Imagine for a moment if this were a bill to expand a separate, privatized division of the Massachusetts State Police; operating WITHOUT accountability to voters, but publicly funded by siphoning money from the traditional police force (and THEN you asked the traditional police force to reduce crime with LESS resources). There would be outrage in the streets. Expanding charter schools hurts the school district you are intending to help.

My daughter is thriving in a Level 3 Boston Public School. Her school may appear to some as one of the “under-performing” schools that the authors of this bill are targeting, but the test scores alone do not reveal the reality parents see on the ground. Her school is becoming a full-inclusion model for children with special needs - AND - has a high concentration of children living in poverty (80% qualify for free or reduced lunch) - AND - educates English language learners. Her school is doing a wonderful job nurturing the kids who need the most help, in an inclusive environment. As a whole, they do not test well, but I urge you to come visit some of these Level 3 Boston Public Schools to understand all of the moving parts in this delicate machine. I am not looking for an escape route from her "under-performing" school, I'm asking our elected officials to SUPPORT her school. We don’t need more charter schools, we need programs that expand early education, support English language learners and fully fund SPED services.

As a parent, not as a paid lobbyist or a member of a special interest group, I am asking you to do what is right and vote NO on S2262.

Please: Let us stop fighting over schools that don’t exist and start defending the children in the schools that already DO exist.

Thank you so much for your public service and commitment to serve all of the children in the Commonwealth.

A Tale of Two Peisches

Parents make tremendous sacrifices for their children. My mother rented a small apartment in Wellesley in my freshman year of high school so we could attend a good public school. Our teeny home was filled with ill placed reminders of a middle class life; comically oversized Ethan Allen furniture created an awkward maze through our tiny two bedroom apartment. Piece by piece, my mother sold off the remnants of the life we had before my parents divorced. We learned lessons we will never forget, both from the amazing teachers at Wellesley High and from the School of Hard Knocks: a lower middle class teen from New Jersey will never fit into an affluent New England town.
 

So it’s with great irony for me that the bill to raise the charter cap to help under-privileged children was authored by Representative Alice Peisch of Wellesley (previously Bill H4091, now H4108). She was kind enough to protect the children of her own district from the invasive tentacles of her bill; a population minimum will exempt Wellesley families from feeling the impact of this legislation. Why, then, does she have an interest in charter school expansion if it will not affect her own constituents?

Ms. Peisch’s daughter is a teacher at Boston Collegiate Charter School (BCCS) in Boston; surely this must be where the elder Peisch has formed such a positive opinion of charter schools. At first I was relieved to learn this surprising coincidence, I thought perhaps this gave them insight into the challenges of successfully educating a diverse urban population. However, the demographics of BCCS are quite different from Boston Public Schools’ (BPS) enrollment data, despite the BCCS claim that they are using a “random public lottery” for admittance. BPS has 35% African-American, 40% Hispanic, 13% White students and 12% other. BCCS has 26% African-American, 16% Hispanic, 54% White students and 6% other.

The BCCS website boasts:  “We currently have a waiting list of over 2,500 students.” Something must be going terribly wrong with the management of this enormous waitlist, because according to the DOE website, BSSC has vacancies after the 6th grade. They do not seem to be filling in their vacancies from this waitlist, but instead use the existence of the waitlist itself as proof of desirability of the school.

The BCCS website boasts: “For nine consecutive years, BCCS graduates have posted 100% college acceptance results.” What the website doesn’t mention is that while ~100 students enter in the 5th grade, by the end of 12th grade last year there were only 30 students left. For students entering BCCS, you have a 1 in 3 chance of making it through to the 12th grade at BCCS, and if you’re an African-American or Hispanic boy, your chances seem lower than that. In 2013, only 6 boys graduated from BCCS. What measures are they taking to maintain this 9 year 100% college acceptance streak?

The BCCS website boasts: “BCCS is the only public, non-exam school in the state in which 100% of students have passed the 10th grade Math MCAS for the past 11 years.” It’s interesting to note that as their enrollment declines, MCAS scores increase. Is this really closing the achievement gap, or merely purging the rolls of their most troubled students? Why is it that only extremely high-performing, high-testing students remain at BCCS by their senior year?

I bring all of this data to light not to attack the Peisch family or the performance of Boston Collegiate Charter School. I have children in Boston Public Schools and I understand some of the challenges to academic success in an urban environment. However, BCCS is not being transparent about how and why they are achieving their “success”, and at what cost to the children who did not succeed in this school. I’m finally starting to understand why Ms. Peisch and charter school lobbyists believed that the amendments to H4091 that would have prevented skimming and increase attrition rates were not conducive to the “success” of some of these charter schools.

All of the data cited here is from the BCCS website:

http://www.bostoncollegiate.org/aboutUs/ourResults.php

And the DOE website:

http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/grad/grad_report.aspx?orgcode=04490305&orgtypecode=6&).

A letter to our Senators from the House Gallery

Dear Senators,

On May 21st, I sat in the House Gallery and viewed with great interest the process we have come to know as our democracy. As the House considered H4091, An Act relative to improving student achievement [aka "The Charter Cap Bill"], I watched Representatives read and withdraw the amendments they had carefully written to ensure that charter schools would offer some level of accountability and basic civil rights for children. A group of parents sat stunned in the House Gallery, asking each other WHY so many of these amendments were being withdrawn without any debate or explanation.

Fortunately for us, a charter school lobbyist from the Brennan Group was in the House Gallery too, and she let us in on the little joke: “This bill will pass today, without these amendments. A deal has already been struck.” Michael Norton of the State House News Service reported, "House Democrats appear intent on using the back channels, as they did during recent budget debate, to settle the more than dozen amendments pending to the bill." I ask you: Why did a paid lobbyist know more than the voters, parents, or even some of the Representatives on the House floor?

As a parent, as a constituent, as a citizen, I am asking you to please start asking questions too.

• Why is there a rush to pass a bill, without any amendments, that does not take effect until 2017?
• Why are we raising the charter cap before Auditor Suzanne Bump has completed her audit of charter school finances in Massachusetts? Please review and consider the report of this audit before voting on H4108.
• Why is it that charter school promoters will accept no compromise, and consider amendments to ensure basic civil rights, teacher licensing, equity and fairness for our children a compromise for THEM? Why are charter school lobbyists calling the shots and being granted better access to our elected officials than their own constituents?
• Why isn’t there a separate and equitable state funding mechanism for charter schools that does not divert state aid from traditional public schools?

I ask our elected officials to start considering the same questions parents are asking about charter schools, BEFORE voting on bill H4108 or allowing them to expand under the current inequitable funding structure and without any basic measures of accountability.

Thank you for your time, your public service, and your consideration.

Sincerely,

Krissy Cabbage