Flaws such as one of the five zones not having enough seats for 616 middle schoolers in one proposed zone, the Globe reports, adding officials also realized that a couple of the zones would have too high a percentage of "failing" schools.
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What Boston's new school-assignment zones would look like.
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Comments
What's too high?
By bph
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 9:09am
It will be interesting to see how "Too high a percentage" of failing schools is defined. Seems like that should be zero - I know it's naive to think that.
Every School Good School
By massmarrier
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 9:25am
I'm with you and posted a rant yesterday on Harrumph! to that effect.
The only answer is the difficult and progressive sort. Every school should between good and great. We have the damned infrastructure in buildings, teachers, managers and such. From the beginning of public schools here, we have not had the commitment to high enough quality.
We all know how tough it would be to train or toss the mediocre and bad teachers and administrators. Let's do that...a few hundred years behind the first calls, but never more timely.
So you are in favor of
By NotWhitey
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 10:21am
So you are in favor of busting municipal unions?
A Laugh Laugh
By massmarrier
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 2:26pm
What, union busting? Where does that come from? I call straw man!
Part of fixing the schools, so that every one is good, will be retaining teachers. Unions have to get behind that as they have elsewhere.
It's like with any job, union/hourly/salary/management whatever. Those at each level have to know exactly what each direct report is supposed to do for a living. They have to see that happens well. Where there is a mismatch they have options. Key are 1) clarify the job for the employee, 2) train or retrain if there are weak areas, 3) shift job components to others, or 4) move to a different job.
I'm firmly for unions and as firmly against union busting. Correcting underperforming systems is not an impossible ideal and is practiced in union and non-union environments all the time.
Your question does highlight one of the reasons folk in a position to deliver on education don't push harder. It won't be simple, particularly when vested interests act viscerally.
And this is why I like the current busing program
By adamg
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 9:27am
And yes, it could probably be improved.
But until there are more assurances that all neighborhood schools are good ones, it's kind of unfair to just wall off entire sections of the city into "bad" zones.
Hopefully
By neilv
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 10:33am
Hopefully there is not a political situation in which a Boston Schools Pearl Harbor is required before giving the smackdown to unsatisfactory teachers and administrators is politically viable.
I think the system is already not working acceptably for everyone, and I don't want to see it get worse before people are willing to let sufficient corrective action be taken.
But what makes a school bad?
By Steve M
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 11:01am
How is a "bad" school defined? buildings seem to be uniformly mediocre to the casual observer. The teacher stock moves around and seems actually pretty good based on the ones I've met. That leaves the parents and the students as the only other two major variables that I can see. So maybe it's not the schools (or the admin, teachers or other things). Maybe we just need to crack a few heads - it costs $22,500 per year to put the average kid through BPS - the students and parents should perhaps take this school thing a bit more seriously and be a bit more appreciative of the annual scholarship we give to them with literally zero asked in return.
This. No matter how "good"
By jeveuxsavoir
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 12:36pm
This. No matter how "good" the school is, if the students don't care, no amount of money or zoning is going to change that.
Could not agree more!
By Biggie_Robs
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 5:23pm
Could not agree more!
Do any other urban school
By cscott
Thu, 02/26/2009 - 12:58pm
Do any other urban school districts go with the "zones and busing" scheme? I cant see any good coming from such a flawed premise, it all but guarantees bad schools. Just play the "lottery" to get your kid out of the big bad school down the street. Its like no one cares about the failing school so long as their kid is not in it.