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Charlestown parents not happy long-term BPS plan seems to leave them out
By adamg on Sat, 12/08/2018 - 1:29pm
The Charlestown Patriot-Bridge reports on Charlestown dissatisfaction with the BuildBPS plan.
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Comments
BPS..Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic
As the band plays on.
As it sinks...
I mean SHRINKS about 1% every year. That might increase to 2% now that they are close to maxing out babysitting, er, umm Pre-k classes.
What do you know about pre-K?
I'm guessing "nothing".
But anything that allows parents to work to pay taxes must be bad! Why, CAN'T JUNE FUCKING CLEAVER TAKE CARE OF ALL THAT SHIT???
More than you can imagine
But let's call a spade a spade - I went to Kindergarten and there wasn't much "education" happening even there - and I'm sure that hasn't changed. It's not the point of kindergarten anyway.
And pre-K - c'mon swirly - we are talking 3 and 4 year old babies. They play, they eat and they sleep. Some piss and crap their pants. They're super cute - generally a lot like my cats - but they know how to go in a box. But they aren't exactly discussing Aristotle and I'd be surprised if they were even learning to count to 10 or sing the abc song.
It's probably better than a lot of options. But don't tell me this has much of anything to do with education. It's free day care. And free stuff is popular so we do it.
Know what?
Even your wet dream authoritarian libertarian Stephen Harper's home province bankrolls childcare for obvious economic reasons.
As for "education", I suspect that your lane is "finding abstruse and theoretical sounding justifications for greed and selfishness". Otherwise, who else would even try to claim that we could improve outcomes in the state with the strongest schools if only we were more like Oklahoma!
U shouldn't comment on what you don't know
I'm actually a supporter of the pre k program for lower income qualified families. There are many studies that show the actual academic benefits at least in the early grades for lower income families.
But:
A) it IS babysitting
And
B) it's used to manipulate budget demands by BPS which as I've pointed out many times is 10-15% overfunded, limiting other city priorities from parks to police to paying down debt or even upgrading the BPS physical plant.
due to the increasing
due to the increasing academic standards (yes, shockingly) in kindergarten in the last few years, pre-k has largely adopted what was the K curriculum from 20-30 years ago - which is when I'm guessing you went. pre-k is now about learning how school works, how to sit, how to pay attention, some basic numerical and literacy skills, and playing catch up on language and other deficits in some kids so when they get to K everybody can start cracking. modern kindergarteners have homework, ffs - all because testing starts earlier and earlier now.
How does that work
Only about 50% of kids in the state even go to pre-k. So if you go to public pre-k and show up in k you get to start learning math and reading, but if you didn't go to pre k you get funneled into the "learning about this school thing". Even in Boston where we have pre k - it's still not universal and definitely not required.
How can the state mandate something that isn't required and isn't universally available?
Very obvious
The Mayor does not like Charlestown or South Boston. Bring back an elected School Committee.
Terra Incognita
They are off the edge of his known world (but not in Ireland). They both kind of stick off into the ocean where There Be Dragons!