1974 remembered in South Boston - for a movie

What does the sandwich board say?

Stop Forced Busing, its 2014!

Well reported, Adam.

That's nice that they recreated the scenes from outside of South Boston High. However in Hollywood's newfound romance with good ole' Southie it seems as if love is truly blind. It seems as if Hollywood is attempting to diminish the racist sentiments that were the undercurrent and fuel of the white anti-busing crowd. In South Boston there were several signs and graffiti on walls that read: "Niggers Go Home" and "Kill Niggers" which was often chanted by crowds as well. If we want to go down memory lane, let's not detour down the road of selective memory.

The filming of this movie in South Boston has thrown into sharp relief the fact that while Boston is no longer dominated by thugs and criminals, it still suffers the same drastic educational inequality that caused so much trauma in the 1970s.

Looking only at 'South Boston High,' or 'Excel High School' as it is now properly called (Boston Green Academy was housed in the building but will move to Brighton next year; Odyssey and Monument High Schools also occupied the building in recent years, but were closed as funding for the small schools initiative, once championed by the Gates Foundation, dried up), it is apparent that neglect by the city and by the surrounding community has had an extreme negative impact on the school. Inside this historic school building, the steam heat system is failing. Pipes that have burst and been repeatedly repaired are exposed through holes in the floor. Excess steam causes paint to peel from the walls and ceiling and allows rampant mold growth. Classrooms are heated to above 80 degrees in the winter, and staff must open windows to make rooms bearable. Unfortunately, the windows are extremely difficult to open, and rarely can be pushed up more than two or three inches, then need to be literally stood on to close again. Student bathrooms in the basement have not been accessible for years because of the need for repairs that are never made. Bathrooms frequently lack soap and paper towels. Desktop computers do not work due to old age or lack of technical infrastructure. The city's recent Chromebook initiative (to prepare students for the PARCC tests, which are run completely online, and profit Pearson rather than students) provided laptop carts to the building, but overloaded internet servers mean that students spend excessive time waiting for things to load.

This past year the school struggled with only two disciplinary administrators, so calls for security in the building sometimes went unanswered, and areas with high potential for disruption, like the gym, were frequently unsupervised and became gathering places for skipping students. The school plans to add a third administrator for next year, but at the same time, cuts across the district mean that several teaching positions were cut, despite some classes being fully enrolled or over-enrolled in the past year. There's no visual arts or music classes; the school had to engage in massive fundraising just to get enough money to support a dance teacher for two periods a day. Many teachers chose to leave the school due to an administration that seemed uncaring and struggled with basic tasks, like test administration and class scheduling.

For high schools in the district, any student who lives anywhere in Boston can technically apply to any of the 24 high schools or 3 exam schools (though they must take a test to be accepted to the exam schools, of course). Excel isn't full of neighborhood kids, though. In the morning, as students travel in to school from Roxbury and Dorchester, the neighborhood around the high school empties out as high school students who live nearby head to exam schools or Catholic institutions. Congressman Stephen Lynch lives literally on the same block as the school, and graduated from South Boston High School in 1973, but his daughter and niece don't go to Excel.

Excel High School is 72.8% low income, which is relatively average for the district. The only high schools with less than 2/3 low income? Boston Latin School 30.4%, Latin Academy 54.9%, Kennedy Academy for Health Careers 65.1%, Mary Lyon Pilot 56%, Boston Arts Academy 65%. The only school on that list that doesn't require an additional application or exam is the Mary Lyon Pilot, which draws students with severe needs and learning disabilities as well as typical students. Busing, and then the 'end' of busing, didn't succeed in integrating the schools, it merely made wealthier families flee the city school system if their children didn't make it into the exam schools. The 'pilot' system within the district means that schools that are already higher achieving can select for themselves a pool of similarly higher-achieving new students simply by adding an application process, something that deters less advantaged students and their families. Boston high schoolers now travel all around the city, but their opportunities are still limited by the ability of their parents to advocate for them. Boston Latin School has an active alumni organization and can take donations right through their website. The current occupants of South Boston High School lack the resources to organize and solicit donations and volunteer hours from successful alumni, like Congressman Lynch.

The residents of Telegraph Hill have chosen to abandon their neighborhood high school, despite the newly revised school assignment plan that would make it easy for local residents to band together and decide to send their kids en masse to the high school next door. As a result, back-to-school nights are sparsely attended by the out-of-neighborhood parents, because the trip is as long and tedious for parents as it is for students, which will only increase in the coming year as yellow bus service is eliminated. The neighborhood has become more prosperous than it was in the 1970s, with residents wealthy enough to pay dog walkers to tend to their pets and leave bags of dog poop littering the sidewalk around the school. Boston Latin School would surely never have the facilities and staffing problems that Excel families currently face. Having parents who can advocate for their children makes it easier to get support for a school. Having parents and alumni who can volunteer time and effort toward fundraising makes it possible to offer enrichment opportunities. This is where exam schools compound their advantage over regular schools, as their involved families give back to the school, making it seem more attractive to other involved families, nudging out the children who need this help the most.

There has been speculation that the district or the neighborhood is hoping for the school to fail entirely, so that it can be taken over and converted into a charter school, forcing out lower-class families by using an application system similar to the existing exam and charter/pilot schools. That wouldn't be a fair outcome, either. All children in Boston deserve a high-quality education. If the high school occupying South Boston High School had an actual mix of students from different neighborhoods and different socioeconomic statuses, and it had the support of some of the more prosperous families in the surrounding neighborhood, it could thrive, providing a strong education to all of the kids who would attend. But while middle class and upper middle class families in Boston continue to send their children only to the exam schools or to private or charter schools, the community as a whole falters, and the children of less-wealthy parents get left behind.

Southie only cares about the school now because there's free overnight parking. Maybe the school should start charging for parking spots. That might raise enough funding for another teacher or two.

The filming of this movie in South Boston has thrown into sharp relief the fact that while Boston is no longer dominated by thugs and criminals, it still suffers the same drastic educational inequality that caused so much trauma in the 1970s.

Looking only at 'South Boston High,' or 'Excel High School' as it is now properly called (Boston Green Academy was housed in the building but will move to Brighton next year; Odyssey and Monument High Schools also occupied the building in recent years, but were closed as funding for the small schools initiative, once championed by the Gates Foundation, dried up), it is apparent that neglect by the city and by the surrounding community has had an extreme negative impact on the school. Inside this historic school building, the steam heat system is failing. Pipes that have burst and been repeatedly repaired are exposed through holes in the floor. Excess steam causes paint to peel from the walls and ceiling and allows rampant mold growth. Classrooms are heated to above 80 degrees in the winter, and staff must open windows to make rooms bearable. Unfortunately, the windows are extremely difficult to open, and rarely can be pushed up more than two or three inches, then need to be literally stood on to close again. Student bathrooms in the basement have not been accessible for years because of the need for repairs that are never made. Bathrooms frequently lack soap and paper towels. Desktop computers do not work due to old age or lack of technical infrastructure. The city's recent Chromebook initiative (to prepare students for the PARCC tests, which are run completely online, and profit Pearson rather than students) provided laptop carts to the building, but overloaded internet servers mean that students spend excessive time waiting for things to load.

This past year the school struggled with only two disciplinary administrators, so calls for security in the building sometimes went unanswered, and areas with high potential for disruption, like the gym, were frequently unsupervised and became gathering places for skipping students. The school plans to add a third administrator for next year, but at the same time, cuts across the district mean that several teaching positions were cut, despite some classes being fully enrolled or over-enrolled in the past year. There's no visual arts or music classes; the school had to engage in massive fundraising just to get enough money to support a dance teacher for two periods a day. Many teachers chose to leave the school due to an administration that seemed uncaring and struggled with basic tasks, like test administration and class scheduling.

For high schools in the district, any student who lives anywhere in Boston can technically apply to any of the 24 high schools or 3 exam schools (though they must take a test to be accepted to the exam schools, of course). Excel isn't full of neighborhood kids, though. In the morning, as students travel in to school from Roxbury and Dorchester, the neighborhood around the high school empties out as high school students who live nearby head to exam schools or Catholic institutions. Congressman Stephen Lynch lives literally on the same block as the school, and graduated from South Boston High School in 1973, but his daughter and niece don't go to Excel.

Excel High School is 72.8% low income, which is relatively average for the district. The only high schools with less than 2/3 low income? Boston Latin School 30.4%, Latin Academy 54.9%, Kennedy Academy for Health Careers 65.1%, Mary Lyon Pilot 56%, Boston Arts Academy 65%. The only school on that list that doesn't require an additional application or exam is the Mary Lyon Pilot, which draws students with severe needs and learning disabilities as well as typical students. Busing, and then the 'end' of busing, didn't succeed in integrating the schools, it merely made wealthier families flee the city school system if their children didn't make it into the exam schools. The 'pilot' system within the district means that schools that are already higher achieving can select for themselves a pool of similarly higher-achieving new students simply by adding an application process, something that deters less advantaged students and their families. Boston high schoolers now travel all around the city, but their opportunities are still limited by the ability of their parents to advocate for them. Boston Latin School has an active alumni organization and can take donations right through their website. The current occupants of South Boston High School lack the resources to organize and solicit donations and volunteer hours from successful alumni, like Congressman Lynch.

The residents of Telegraph Hill have chosen to abandon their neighborhood high school, despite the newly revised school assignment plan that would make it easy for local residents to band together and decide to send their kids en masse to the high school next door. As a result, back-to-school nights are sparsely attended by the out-of-neighborhood parents, because the trip is as long and tedious for parents as it is for students, which will only increase in the coming year as yellow bus service is eliminated. The neighborhood has become more prosperous than it was in the 1970s, with residents wealthy enough to pay dog walkers to tend to their pets and leave bags of dog poop littering the sidewalk around the school. Boston Latin School would surely never have the facilities and staffing problems that Excel families currently face. Having parents who can advocate for their children makes it easier to get support for a school. Having parents and alumni who can volunteer time and effort toward fundraising makes it possible to offer enrichment opportunities. This is where exam schools compound their advantage over regular schools, as their involved families give back to the school, making it seem more attractive to other involved families, nudging out the children who need this help the most.

There has been speculation that the district or the neighborhood is hoping for the school to fail entirely, so that it can be taken over and converted into a charter school, forcing out lower-class families by using an application system similar to the existing exam and charter/pilot schools. That wouldn't be a fair outcome, either. All children in Boston deserve a high-quality education. If the high school occupying South Boston High School had an actual mix of students from different neighborhoods and different socioeconomic statuses, and it had the support of some of the more prosperous families in the surrounding neighborhood, it could thrive, providing a strong education to all of the kids who would attend. But while middle class and upper middle class families in Boston continue to send their children only to the exam schools or to private or charter schools, the community as a whole falters, and the children of less-wealthy parents get left behind.

Southie only cares about the school now because there's free overnight parking. Maybe the school should start charging for parking spots. That might raise enough funding for another teacher or two.