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Councilors want to crack down on out-of-town kids sneaking into Boston schools; deal with racism in the schools

Several city councilors say they're hearing of too many cases of suburban parents who have managed to sneak their kids into Boston public schools - and they want that to stop.

City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George (at large) today called for a hearing to begin work on the issue. Essaibi George, until very recently a BPS teacher, said Boston has a number of "great schools" and that BPS should ensure "city seats for city kids."

Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury) agreed. With several Boston schools now having waiting lists, only residents - whose property taxes make up the bulk of the $1-billion annual BPS budget - should get a shot. "If you don't put in then you should not be taking a seat," he said.

Separately, Jackson called for a hearing on what he sees as disparities in discipline in city schools. He pointed to a Globe interview today with the parents of the Boston Latin School student threatened with lynching by another student with an electrical cord. That student only had to write an apology while another student was suspended for calling somebody his "enemy."

Add to that the case of 3- and 4-year-olds at UP Academy getting suspended and Jackson said school officials have some explaining to do.

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Comments

So if you're a business owner in Boston paying a commercial tax rate who lives in the suburbs, could their kids enroll in Boston Public Schools?

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He was, I assume, referring to residential property taxes, but in any case was definitely referring to legal Boston residents.

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So renters and welfare dweller need not apply! Tito has some explaining to do!

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Renters pay property taxes through their rent. Nice try, though.

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The owner of the building pays property tax and income tax on the rents.

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Who never, never, never pass the cost of their property taxes onto their tenants.

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And we still live in a capitalistic society, thankfully.

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but I'm also sure that when he/she/they set your rent, they factored a portion of these taxes and other costs into it. Bad anon troll is bad.

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Sure they try to and in this current market it probably is not a problem. However markets change. Not all landlords make money and rents do not always cover costs. The landlord is the taxpayer.

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As a landlord I've had years where I made money and years where I lost money. But I can assure you that I am doing my best to pass along the taxes charged against the property to the tenant. I would be a fool not to.

Plus tenants can deduct their rent payments against their income taxes at tax time.

Add that tenants pay more in property taxes than landlords living in the city since the rented property does not get the exemption applied to homes where the owner resided.

Look at boilerplate leases. Landlords by Commonwealth law are allowed to automatically increase rents if taxes increase before the expiration of the lease.

Even when a property is loosing money (and that often reflects the depreciation charge) most if not all of the money going toward property taxes is paid by the tenant.

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Where do the landlords get the money to pay property taxes?

If a rental unit is a viable piece of real estate because people actually live there, that means the tenants, with their pooled rent, help the landlord pay taxes, mortgage and other costs.

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plenty of rental agreements explicitly require the renter to pay the property tax, but my guess if you've never rented a whole single family where this is straightforward to bake into the rental agreement.

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I really hate to get into this as (as noted below) I don't care, but does someone in a subsidized form of housing pay real estate taxes? I'd say no (and again, this is fine) The government pays a section 8 unit owner some amount of subsidize the rent - at best it's tax neutral.

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Maybe anon is the ghost of Scalia and as a constitutional originalist believes that white, land-owning males are the only folks who matter.

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I see you are still having the trouble with plural!

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I think its odd choice to bring up the 'paying for it' aspect of BPS given that more of the families who opt out are middle class so likely paying taxes via home ownership or renting than those people who are in subsidized housing.

To be clear, I have no problem with the fact that many BPS kids need public assistance but it's a politically curious approach to take from Jackson. Attending any BPS school is a matter of being entitled to and or qualifying for a school, not paying for it- that's the whole point of public schools. If you start throwing around 'paying for a seat', you'll have all the parochial and private school families looking for vouchers, which we can't afford.

EDIT - can't afford

Also, I'd argue we don't want to have vouchers, even if we could afford them. Everything which people claim is bad about charter schools, but true.

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I think he was just trying to use some shorthand there, related to the fact that most of BPS's budget comes from city sources, not, say, federal funds, and that only city residents should get into city schools.

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I doubt Tito would really like to compare who pays property taxes in this city with who sends their kids to BPS.

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I'm a homeschooling mom. I'd love the city to throw me some money for homeschooling my kid. CA does this.

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your choice, not up to the city to reimburse you. "Oh, I don't use the roads so please reimburse me on my taxes."

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I homeschool my kids. I choose to do so. And I recognize that our family is incredibly privileged to have flexible work schedules and the education background to successfully do this.

I'm happy to pay my fair share of taxes so that families who don't have the privilege that I do to homeschool their kids can get a quality education. Public schools are extremely important resources.

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from what I hear from friends in Chinatown. They get ticked off because a family will live in Quincy, use a store front in Chinatown as a "home" address, and get their kids in to Latin. It reminds me of the days in Beverly Hills 90210 when Andrea Zuckerman lived in the Valley, but had to pretend to live with granny in Beverly Hills.

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Issue at Boston Arts Academy as well.

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Your neighbors are education refugees.

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I mean--I literally have no idea but I've always heard a lot more rumor about this than actual cases.

In any case, whether it's real or not, this whole line of thinking seems geared towards going after low and middle income Asians, not the mythical Wellesley residents who were bending over backwards to illegally send their kids to BLS. Jackson seems to be on a cultural collision course that could get really ugly.

And hey--leave Andrea alone!! She got all of the crappy sad story lines and wasn't she like 35 IRL?

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That Chang didn't do enough to connect with his own ethnic group.
He's connecting with them just fine. Chang, bus, tires, Asians. Connection!

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You only added this post since it includes a mention of "racism". I am not fooled.

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I actually wasn't going to write up the thing about racism, which came up first, because while today's Globe story is gripping and infuriating (well, for some of us, you probably just muttered sinister thoughts about Black Lives Matter), I've touched on the issue before, and I'm about ready to keel over my laptop because of some stupid cold I have.

But then Essaibi George brought up the out-of-town thing, which I haven't written about before, so it was news to me, and it seemed stupid to write about that and not say anything about the other education issue the council discussed today.

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You've also written about how kids who grow up in the city but attended private school shouldn't have the same admittance rates to exam schools as kids who attend BPS.

Which by the way will never happen.

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But I've never called for banning Boston private-school students from exam schools.

It's quite a bit different than people living on the South Shore figuring out how to get their kids into BLS.

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The only piece I recall Adam posting (and feel free to refute me if you search and find it) was about how there may be grade inflation at the private schools compared to the public ones. Since this is a consideration for admittance to the exam schools it could tilt the admission unfairly in favor of those who went to private schools.

Would you have a problem eliminating the grade consideration and having it strictly based on exam with a small number of seats available for nominations by principals with input from teachers?

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I really admire the work you do here, Adam, but that statement is really hard for me to believe - it beggars the imagination that as a Boston journalist and an engaged BPS/BLS parent you have never heard the grumblings about out-of-towners sneaking their kids into the city's better high schools/exam schools before.

I was hearing about this years before our daughter was old enough for it to be an issue. And I know you can't read every single comment that gets posted here, but it's also been mentioned on UH before too.

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Guess I was using some Jacksonesque shorthand there, sorry. By "news to me," I meant it was something I don't think I've written about recently, as opposed to the BLS racism issue. It was definitely news to me, however, that a city councilor came out publicly to demand something be done about it.

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Are we talking about 10 kids or a 100? I have no idea if this is a popular rumor or semi-established fact. It always seems to be my friend's cousin knows ... kind of thing.

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Absolutely.

Unless that is some kind of secret code for "we need a new scheme to keep white kids out of Latin."

In other news, it's absolutely awful that a kid said a mean and rotten thing to another kid in school, and I hope he was corrected or punished to exactly the same extent as all the other children who say mean and rotten things at school.

Or maybe even actually corrected and punished.

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This happens at the K1 and K2 level. How pervasive it is, I don't know. But when people find there is free preschool and full day kindergarten (surround care at some early learning centers), some people use the address of a relative and take a spot. I think it will be worse with universal pre-k, if it goes through. People see it as free childcare and think nothing of the $17,000 spent to educate their child, let alone if the child is found to need special education services.

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Early childhood education is one of the few things that really pays huge dividends to society later on, though -- there's years and years of scholarship linking pre-k to higher rates of employment, lower rates of incarceration, higher ages when having first child, etc etc. That 17k per kiddo will probably be a wash with costs being saved down the line for disadvantaged kids.

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When we applied to an exam school we had to show a ton of documentation that we really live in the city. Short of sending an inspector out to knock on every kids' door, I'm not sure what more they can do.

(BTW, this stuff DOES piss me off, so if there is more to be done, within a reasonable budget, I say go for it.!)

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The way the council is handling this, is really not the way to get things done. If there is a problem, they should have cited real examples, estimated how many cases like that exist and then presented a proposal for how to fix it. Just stomping your feet and saying, "IT'S NOT FAIR!" is not active governing.

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Is they identify some issue, then hold a hearing on it, where all the details come out.

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I find it amusing to read this given the fact that many Boston residents take seats in suburban schools every day without paying for them in the manner that Councilman Jackson is demanding happens for the Boston Public School system. In fact he should look in the mirror with that statement because I am pretty sure his family did not pay the cost of the seat in the Bookline Public School system where he graduated from in 1993.

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Comments by somebody who doesn't really understand the rationale behind Metco, where the suburban school districts volunteer for the program and get something out of the deal as well (i.e., they expose their overwhelmingly white student bodies to the concept of diversity).

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"They expose their overwhelmingly white student bodies to the concept of diversity)."

I don't thing that was the actual purpose of METCO.

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Adam,

What are you now? Governer LePage?

mea culpa, etc

J

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Hearing on state police jurisdiction in Seaport. MSP Laughs at Councilors refuse to show up.
Hearing on Northeastern Police carrying rifles NPD Laughs at Councilors refuse to show up

The latest reason to laugh at the City Council, hordes of kids from Dover and Newton crossing over the borders to attend Boston Public Schools. When is the date for this hearing I need a good laugh after yesterday.

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What about all the city employees that lied on their employment applications about their residency to get a city job, such as the Boston Police Department in the last 30 years?

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Not just at the elite schools, I work for the BPS and you would be amazed at how many kids from Lynn, Brockton and Chelsea we have. Typically these are kids whose families are homeless and or floating between residences. Mom gets a new man, they move to his place or Mom is in crisis and they move in with a relative but stay enrolled in the BPS. There are middle schoolers taking two buses and two subway lines just to get to school.

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with a majority of students of color put into awful situations due to family hardship. That was not the objective of this effort. Its goal was to paint a picture of white suburban parents taking advantage of the BPS. These particular parents are Trump voters taking oppertunities away from kids hoping to attend Boston Latin School.

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I have heard about the same problem in Chelsea with kids crossing back and forth between East Boston, Revere and Chelsea due to unstable homes. In my mind that can not possibly be the issue because from the sounds of it Chelsea has kids from Boston and Boston has kids from Chelsea in these situations. It sounds like that issue will balance itself out.

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Maybe that's why Essaibi George brought up the issue, since she used to teach at East Boston High School.

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If that is the reason I would hope they would reach out to the other local cities because kids in families that move around a lot are a very different issue than kids from outside of Boston trying to get into Boston Latin. The instability of residency due to high housing costs would be more of a regional issue as many of the local schools often see the same issue.

I am familiar with her back ground, it is good to have people formerly from inside the school system in elected office since they have an inside view of the issues.

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Give the best Boston City Councilors 4 Year Terms, the worst Councilors 2 Year Terms or less!
http://meetingrecords.cityofboston.gov/sirepub/cache/2/lu3rfywhcvlfmhgrf...

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