Hey, there! Log in / Register
Could somebody alert the New York Times that even in Boston it's no longer 1974?
By adamg on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 12:42pm
The Gray Lady reports on the current school-zone issue as if it's all still about racial desegregation in a system that's now 87% minority instead of the fact that it's really in reaction to the fact that too many of our schools still aren't anywhere near as good as they should be, at least not until down near the end of the story.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
It's about economic segregation, which
is already a big problem in Boston and this new direction makes it many times worse. What's left of the city's middle-income contingency if this plan is pushed through will bunch around the best schools. In economic terms it'll be a case of Might Flight. Urban wastelands galore. Hey, let's not do that:
http://signon.org/sign/a-petition-to-stop-the?sour...
Boston is the most
Boston is the most economically integrated large city in the US. That said, more needs to be done.
Notice how the NYT is
Notice how the NYT is promoting the comments which do everything to paint Boston as a cesspool of racism. Bunch of wankers repeating the same tired old tripe instead of focusing on the real reasons why the schools stink and anyone, of any class, economic background, or race, doesn't want their kids in BPS if at all possible.
The Times always race-baits
Even their weather report says, "Partly sunny with a chance of showers focused over minority and low-income neighborhoods."
I didn't read the article.
I didn't read the article. Was there a mention of black people being afraid to go to Red Sox games? Did you know that the Red Sox were the last baseball team to integrate? I assume there's an editor's check list of stereotypes that needs to be satisfied.
It's funny how the NYT singles out Boston as a bastion of racism
when, in fact the entire United States is and always has been a cesspool of racism! I agree, however, that this is no longer mid-1970's Boston, and that people have to realize that there was far more to the whole busing thing than the issue of race, that, for the most part, the Boston Public School System is still lousy, and that people of all racial/ethnic/economic groups had ample reasons for taking their kids out of the BPS and not wanting to send them back to those schools again.
I'll also add that the problem of lousy urban school systems isn't just with Boston, but is a societal problem overall. A big part of the problem is that our military spending is incredibly high and our government, even now, continues to throw good money after bad, towards our illegal, wrongheaded and unnecessary wars abroad that involved the invasion of other countries and laying waste to them and their people (innocent people, at that), just simply because they don't tally up with our government's interests.
If our military budget were cut by 2/3, there'd be more money to spend on public education. I also might add that when people can afford to do so, they'll send their kids to private or parochial or charter schools, or move out of the cities altogether, and there's not enough of a tax base coming in to support and improve our urban public school systems.
Travel abroad and you'll
Travel abroad and you'll realize how racist the entire world is. Societies are always apprehensive if not discriminatory against those which are viewed as outsiders or different, and in our heterogeneous demographics these natural prejudices get noticed more often than in homogenous countries.
Money isn't the problem with public education either. We are spending ridiculous sums of money per capita, which would make even the DoD blush, to no effect. The problems with the quality of public education are more structural and social than economic.
Money is a huge part
of the problem. The thing is that per-capita does not mean that the funding is channeled directly into student heads. Who gets the money and who decides how they spend it on what sort of programming, tied into what corporate consultancy or evaluation industry or mega ed-supplier? And in what sorts of areas is enormous misuse of funds most possible? Ahh, there's what you want to be asking.
That is why "structural" was
That is why "structural" was part of my comment. Much of the increased spending on education since the 1960s has been siphoned off into administrative bloat.
Money is not the problem.
Money is not the problem. Spending is very high in places like Washington D.C. - there is no lack on money spent there. Money is not magic dust. It cannot perform miracles.
Money is most definitely
a factor. When people talk about money, don't think they're talking about a cure, or "magic dust." You can't really think it's that simple. Money decides what's done. What's being done is destructive. Magic dust, no. Toxic dust, to some extent, yes, you could say that, when it goes to programs that destroy instead of build.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGJBC9-GHYA&feature...
Subtract special ed and administration costs
...before comparing spending on what most students have spent on them. Oh, and subtract "Early childhood education" cost which is more special ed than head start. If only some of the money dis-proportionally spent on breast cancer research were spent on researching cures for autism and other diseases affecting children, education dollars would go much further.
As for administration, well, at least they have diversity.
Professional Advocates Are the Ones Stuck in 1974
The NY Times article is fairly balanced if you read it. Attend a public hearing, however, and it's always the Massachusetts Advocates for Children who sound stuck in 1974. Their fear of the past prevents them (and Boston by extension) from building a future better than the status quo.
Have you been to any of the hearings on changing zones?
I've been to a couple and that's one of the reasons I found the Times article odd: People were NOT talking about the status quo. Busing long ago stopped being about race and became a way for parents to try to get their kids into a better school. That's why past rezoning efforts failed - BPS kept coming up with these maps that packed the lowest-scoring schools in the city in a single assignment zone.
And can you imagine the idea of black elected officials from Dorchester and Mattapan joining a couple of officials with Irish names to call for a system of neighborhood schools - as Dorcena Forry and Holmes did earlier this week?
Code words
I think people on both the left and the right have gotten much better at using code words to refer to race. The racial tension I found in the BPS was very, very high, but nobody would talk about it except to trot out the party line. "Unequal access to quality schools" is becoming code for racial politics as usual.
It was remarkably brave for Forry and Holmes to join in with Connolly. I hope their plan - the only one that has an idea about how to actually improve schools, rather than just cutting smaller slices of a diminishing pie - gets traction, but I also doubt it. For that to happen, Connolly would have to be the mayor.
I think you're confusing code words
with Political Correctness.
You reap what you sow.
Thank you, I thought I was
Thank you, I thought I was the only one who felt this way! This article was a huge disappointment.
Did their reporter even bother going to any of the meetings- with parents of all colors basically saying the same thing- we want quality! Did she totally miss the work of the elected coalition that put out their own plan on Tuesday. Take a look at that press conference and tell me times haven't changed. C'mon NY Times- talk to your cousins at the Globe ( or maybe just read them from time to time) maybe they can bring you up to speed.
Plus, Larry DiCara was the best they could do?
Maybe I'm biased because the last time I saw him was a few weeks ago at a licensing hearing where he was reminiscing with a member of the Ianella clan about that time he attended Smoki Bacon's wedding at the original Tea Party Museum, but, really?
Why not John Nucci, a contemporary of Larry's who is still active in school issues (as a member of that advisory committee)?
You can kind of tell the story was ready for publication when the Connolly plan came out - fortunately, the Times had enough room to let the reporter tack a couple paragraphs on at the end (although even there, the proposal was painted as being about grandfathering, when it really isn't).
At least DiCara's quote was
At least DiCara's quote was right on. In fact, he should probably lay off any ZBA hearings for the next few weeks: its Menino after all who's presided over all the false starts in trying to reform this system.
The lack of political courage line from Larry may not play well with the Menino folks. Maybe Larry's quote about Tom Menino showing real courage is on the cutting room floor in NY.
Looks to me like this reporter probably got played by Menino/Johnson's press people who don't really want the Connolly coalition plan to get much oxygen. As you say, there was plenty of time too add in some info about this pretty big development.
Silly question? Why is the Times even wading into this unless they're going to do it right. Glad we have local media like UHub to fill the gap.
Better yet, why don't they
Better yet, why don't they ask some actual black folks who live here NOW. Oh yeah, that might screw up their premise that we're a walled city with scally-cap wearing white boys manning the barricades on the bridges - like some Ben Affleck fantasy flick. GTFOH
How about the Times "picking" and promoting the worst comments, like the woman who was forced to endure four long years getting her Masters in Cambridge and found Boston most horrid and a "nauseatingly segregated city." F-U
And I love how they obviously pay no attention to the Boston Globe's articles. So much for team spirit.
Cousins at the Globe? Do you
Cousins at the Globe? Do you own your own cousins?
Tell them it's worse
The schools in Boston are more segregated today than they were in 1974. The BPS proposals on the table will probably increase segregation even more.
As long as the practical effect of school policy is to concentrate poverty in the BPS, the schools will continue to segregate and decline in quality.
There are still too many people out there beating the same damn drum they were in in 1974, and until the drumming stops the middle class and white families (who are still a plurality in Boston) will not return to the BPS.
I amusingly recall
Reading a NYT article about the tired, old cliche of 'racism' in Boston in the late 1990s. It was on THE FRONT PAGE no less. Anyway, at one point the author of the article [forget the name] writes that there are even few blacks in downtown Boston. As I read this I was sitting by a big window looking out onto the street, and there was of course no shortage of black people and every other type of person.
I don't know why they promote this stuff, especially considering this is one of the premier 'Progressive' parts of the country, we even have gay marriage since 2004! And never mind the fact it's completely false.
Old problem of perception becoming reality
The real problem with this story is, as ever, perception becoming reality for so many (particularly when the "perceiver" is someone who buys ink by the barrel and has a very popular iPhone/Pad app).
As I have been saying for days, the Mayor had a chance to step in to stop the insanity, and he had that chance before this nonsense hit the national news.
Now it's too late, and the entire City's reputation will undeservedly suffer because of it (n.b., as opposed to the BPS Administration's reputation which should suffer mightily). Cue the tired old images of people being stabbed with flag poles bearing American flags.
Sigh.
Quality a prerequisite for inequality!
It does seem absurd to put so much energy into splitting up a small pie fairly when a bigger pie to share is the solution. Its like roadway, more good education is better.
In the violence-torn
"Violence-torn"? The author makes it sounds like we're all dodging a spray of bullets every time we leave the house. That's not to say there is no violence, but...srsly? It's not a war zone.
I can't believe the number of buses that come into the neighborhood picking up kids in the space of 3 hours between 6:30-9:30 AM, kids you live next door to each other, but are waiting for different busses to take them to different schools. All I can think of is "Horrendous waste of tax-payer money." Let's put all that money spent busing all of these children hither and yon back into the neighborhood and the neighborhood schools so that no matter where a child lives, s/he can get a good education in a safe environment.
Can't blame the reporter for "violence torn"
That comes straight from Carol Johnson, who has become very fond of using Bowdoin/Geneva as an example of what's wrong with the current zone system.
Local schools are greener!
Convince administrators that busing students all over the place is bad for the environment and budgets.
I don't see it
You know I'm usually quick on the draw whenever someone tries to trot out the old stereotype of Boston, but I don't see it here. Except for the miscategorization of the Connolly-O'Malley-Holmes-Dorcena Forry-Coppinger plan as being exclusively about grandfathering, I thought the article was fairly reported.
What time for "The Times"
Some writers just luv to live in the past and write such waste.
Jees I would have thought NYC still had the "The Warriors" crowd or "Pelham 1 2 3" matters still at hand.
Is that why I Luv New York. Abe Beame could write a better piece than that writer. Go back to Drama School -- Whoops Journalism.
Old images of Boston die hard
It seems old, outdated images of Boston die hard. I have seen tourists at DTX looking for Filenes. I have even seen articles, believe it or not, referring to the "largely Italian" population of East Boston! What year is this?
Is there racism in Boston?
Yeah, but I mean really, New York City cannot lecture *anyone* on racial problems.
Well,
That's because New York City's got a history of its own quotient of racial problems, whether many people care to believe it or not.
Yeah, but I mean really, New
Perhaps the 'creative class' who write and allegedly edit these articles are closer to historical archetypes that are two generations out of date in Boston than they are racial tensions in NY?