Chang discusses new positions as Walsh listens.
School Superintendent Tommy Chang this morning named former Boston Latin School Headmaster Michael Contompasis interim headmaster until a new permanent headmaster is chosen.
At a noon press conference, Chang and Mayor Walsh said Contompasis, who served as headmaster between 1976 and 1998, would bring stability to the school as school officials launch a national appointment for a permanent headmaster, who would start next March.
Also named today: Jerry Howland as associate headmaster and Alexandra Montes McNeil as the school's instructional superintendent.
Chang said that in coming weeks, he will name two co-chairs of a search committee that will include representatives of various school interest groups, including parents.
Chang said the two men - both also BLS graduates - will help BLS through the transition to a new headmaster. Contompasis, 76, served two years as BPS Superintendent before the appointment of Carole Johnson.
Howland and Montes McNeil also both have extensive experience in BPS.
Walsh said that work into dealing with racial issues at BLS will continue. He pointed to the expansion of both a program to provide preparation for the ISEE test that helps determine BLS admission and of the two-year advanced-work program for fifth- and sixth-graders as evidence of how the city is reaching out to minority students who now make up a much lower percentage of the BLS enrollment than their numbers in the overall BPS system.
Walsh and Chang said they did not select any administrators at the school for the interim role both so they could continue the work they are doing and apply for the headmaster position. Walsh predicted Boston will get a large crop of highly qualified candidates from across the country and in BPS, because the BLS headmaster role is the "crown jewel" of any educational career.
He added there's no way former Headmaster Lynne Mooney Teta and assistant Headmaster Malcolm Flynn are coming back. "We're well beyond that," he said. Even City Councilor and BLS alumnus Matt O'Malley, who expressed deep distress at Mooney Teta's resignation, attended the press conference to say it's time to move forward and do what's best for BLS students. Walsh and Chang were also joined by several other BLS alums, including City Councilor Andrea Campbell, state Rep. Nick Collins and School Committee Chairman Michael O'Neill.
Contompasis did not attend the press conference because he was out of town on a family matter, Walsh said.
Chang reiterated his previous statement that he did not leak information about a student disciplinary matter to the Globe last week. Walsh professed ignorance as well, and asked the assembled reporters to ask themselves who the source was.
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Comments
Goddamn Swirlly have a talent
By RhoninFire
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 1:35am
Goddamn Swirlly have a talent in taking arguments that have some merits (pointing out something how correlation of wealth and test scores) and somehow leave a distaste in my mouth. This most recent one with so many levels.
I think it's all the "isms"
By Sally
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 7:25am
Because those always make me a little queasy.
An aside
By Sally
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 7:31am
re the "special needs" or er..."ableism" issue. Can anyone read that cringe-worthy article in the Dig and explain to me how the administration of any school should have responded to a student whose "disability" caused them to repeatedly skip school, skip classes, not do her work, and eventually to drop out of another school (the O'Bryant which somehow escapes the Dig's scathing condemnation)?
I read it.
By Pete Nice
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 7:45am
I think the school may have failed that student, but that kind of thing happens in every high school. Parents not happy with how their child receives services at a school.
I think the issue with Latin (I wouldn't call it a problem), is that the entire school is basically an entire student body that is tracked into an AP/honors program, and that is what makes the school so great. Other school systems may have more support/programs in their specific school, but they also may place students into other outside programs inside the district themselves. Some schools do better than others but I wouldn't say this kid would have done the same thing in Newton or Brookline. But those places also have more support within the school itself, since many of the students aren't tracked into the highest level only.
Brookline High School has about 7 programs that may have benefited a child like the one mentioned in this article (meaning she wouldn't have been able to attend the AP classes at BHS either)
http://bhs.brookline.k12.ma.us/services-programs-a...
http://www.brooklinecenter.org/bryt
http://bhs.brookline.k12.ma.us/sws.html
Brookline only has one high school though too, so Boston can't support every BLS kid in that one building. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Boston is simply a larger school system.
Exam schools
By Sock_Puppet
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 8:42am
The argument about whether BPS does sufficient outreach to minority communities to encourage application to our city's exam schools is different from the question of whether exam schools should exist at all, which seems to be what you're driving at, in this and other comments, Pete.
Boston isn't the only place in the country with exam schools. BLS may be the first and oldest, but it's part of a larger set. There are about 165 exam schools across 30 states. Other places also see the need for schools where the district can present a more advanced curriculum geared to a group selected for academic ability.
This may sound like argumentum ad populum, but I do believe it is helpful to know that Boston is not the only place exam schools exist - or cause controversy. Examination of the ways that other exam school systems have wrestled, or not, with similar problems could provide helpful ideas of ways to address the problems we see in our system.
I don't really have a problem with it Sock Puppet.
By Pete Nice
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 10:09am
I also went to an exam school and think they serve a purpose.
But I think that in the world of public education, and knowing the history of public education (separate but equal, affirmative action, etc), public exam schools have some legal flaws and loopholes that don't always fit into the theory of public school "equality".
Would BLS have the right to eliminate all criteria for entering except for test scores?
Criteria
By Sock_Puppet
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 10:34am
Pete, exam scores are all that NYC uses for its exam school entrance criteria. So if the Boston School Department, which sets the policy for admission to BPS' three exam schools, wanted to set the test only as the policy, it could. I don't know why it would want to.
Just a quick google search on my phone:
By Pete Nice
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 12:16pm
shows that a complaint/lawsuit was filed back in 2012, but I cannot find the results of that complaint.
http://www.naacpldf.org/files/case_issue/Specializ...
I get a sense that NYC has some problems, but also has some non exam schools that seem to be "great" schools where minorities actually do pretty well.
I've seen what lawsuits have done with exam only police tests (courts have ruled them unfair), so I can only imagine that public school entrance exams would find the same results. In NYC though, it looks like there are suitable alternatives to the exam schools where in Boston there are not.
Complaints
By Sock_Puppet
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 1:10pm
Pete, the NAACP would sue a ham sandwich if they thought it had too much mayo. That doesn't mean it's against the law.
The whole complaint rests on the "disparate impact" concept, which has a shaky legal history. It was successful in Griggs v Duke Power Company, the Supremes came down against it - or turned it the other way - in Ricci v. DeStefano.
I don't know of any case where "disparate impact" has been sufficient to sustain a legal challenge against public exam school admissions criteria. The key difference is the demonstrability of applicability of the aptitude test; a test may have "no demonstrable relationship to [the] successful performance of the jobs for which it was used," in a physical employment setting, but learning information and passing tests is a big part of a schoolkid's work.
What's happening with this right now is the shysters up in Albany are figuring out how to screw over the Asians who dominate Stuyvesant in favor of rich white kids, while pretending to care about blacks. They'll do that by creating extra categories in admission, like extracurricular activities, that rich parents can buy for their kids, and poor Asians don't get.
Like in NYC, this will get settled by politicians, not lawyers, and the result will favor... the politicians' kids, or kids like them. Count on it.
I see and agree with what your saying.
By Pete Nice
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 1:48pm
But I'm still surprised that no one has tried the disparate impact argument in a lawsuit against these schools, especially since schools themselves are putting less of an emphasis on tests and testing in general, at least at the highest level.
This goes back to the Asian situation, where it seems that Harvard (and other schools) are putting less of an emphasis on test scores, and more emphasis on other things (not because Asians can't afford it though). These standards put Asians at a disadvantage in other areas (Harvard and the Ivy league have their own separate formulas for athletes getting in).
Yes, we've been here before
By Sock_Puppet
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 2:10pm
In 1926, Harvard moved away from strictly academic, objective criteria for admissions, and included more subjective criteria, including a number of qualifiers in the area of "character," also requiring a passport-type photo. The purpose was to restrict the number of Jews; legacy admissions were instituted for the same purpose. Today, some say they do similarly hinky things behind the scenes to address TMA.
In terms of the disparate impact argument against objective standards for exam school admissions, the argument just isn't very strong. It's possible to argue that standardized test scores, grades, etc, are not related to job performance or business necessity for a cop or firefighter, but it just doesn't pass the laugh test to say that grades and tests are irrelevant to the work of a student.
Maybe if the school were a kind of holistic type school, without grades and tests and rankings, you could make that argument, but that description is pretty much the opposite of BLS.
It will be very interesting to see if a disparate impact suit is brought on behalf of Asians against whatever cockamamie scheme they cook up in Albany to replace the SHSAT.
But Sock Puppet..
By Pete Nice
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 3:18pm
You have many top ranked schools (I know Bowdoin and Holy Cross off hand) that don't even require a test at all. If a top ranked school in the world doesn't use a test at all, can't you make an argument that the test isn't a mark of high academic standard? (playing devils advocate here).
Also Asians might have more of a chance at the NY public schools than they do at Harvard, taking the public/private factor into consideration, but I also assume title 9 effects Harvard as well.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/20/40824099...
Interestingly enough, this is a "complaint" too, instead of a lawsuit.
Admission Criteria...
By JPMom
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 1:52pm
to BLS and the former GLS has varied over time. When Leonard Bernstein went to BLS, admission was based on teacher recommendation. Students were simply selected by their elementary teachers and sent to BLS.
When I attended GLS, admission was based on test scores only.
Grades were added to the formula later on to level the playing field a bit for kids who were good students but didn't perform their best on standardized tests.
I suspect that the admission criteria might change again soon.
There you go again
By Sock_Puppet
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 7:47am
With your have-to-do-the-work-ism. So unfair.
This is the key quote here Sally
By Pete Nice
Wed, 06/29/2016 - 8:07am
Right from the article, and I think it pretty much makes your point.
Source of "the leak"
By Dan Farnkoff
Tue, 06/28/2016 - 2:22pm
Wasn't it just the parents of one of the students involved? They are on facebook, I think, and are not really hiding their child's involvement in the incident.
Smart pick
By Fitz
Tue, 06/28/2016 - 2:35pm
Contompasis will steady the ship and is widely respected. I hope he can cut through this and get to the bottom of what is really going on there. We have armchair quarterbacks on all sides preaching gloom and doom about the end of BLS, thinly-veiled racism, and outlandish attacks on anyone who has touched this matter. I hope Contompasis is able to work through that.
As interim is the Latin adverb "meanwhile"
By bulgingbuick
Tue, 06/28/2016 - 3:05pm
and Latin is an ancient European language the appointment of an interim headmaster is a clearly a micro aggression.
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