A federal judge ruled today that the Boston School Committee can proceed with selecting students for the city's three exam schools via a formula based on grade point average and Zip codes, rather than using GPAs and the traditional entrance exams. Read more.
By adamg - 3/3/21 - 11:07 am
A federal judge today held off any action on a bid by a group of White and Asian-American parents to block the way the Boston school system plans to enroll students in the three exam schools until at least March 16 to give the two sides - and lawyers for groups representing Black, Latino and other Asian-American parents - time to try to agree on the basic facts of the case. Read more.
By adamg - 2/26/21 - 9:49 pm
A group of parents sued Boston Public Schools today over its decision to replace exam-school exams for one year with a system that uses pre-Covid GPAs and Zip codes to select students for Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the John D. O'Bryant School. Read more.
By adamg - 2/24/21 - 10:14 am
Boston Parents Schoolyard News posts a copy of the essay Khymani James wrote as part of his application to Columbia. James is a Boston Latin Academy senior and the student representative on the School Committee, which voted in October to eliminate the exam-school exam for one year due to Covid-19.
By adamg - 10/22/20 - 1:42 am
Update: School Committee chairman resigns over "hot-mic" comments.
The Boston School Committee voted unanimously early this morning to suspend the use of an exam to decide who gets into the city's three exam schools for the next year because of a raft of problems brought up by the Covid-19 pandemic, in a meeting that lasted more than 8 1/2 hours. Read more.
By adamg - 10/18/20 - 12:45 pm
About 70 people rallied this morning on the steps of Boston Latin School in support of keeping an exam to help determine who gets into Boston's three exam schools next year, while across Avenue Louis Pasteur, about 20 people held a counter-protest saying it's time to ditch the test as a legacy of Boston's racist past. Read more.
By adamg - 10/13/20 - 10:19 am
There are currently a couple of Boston-specific petitions circulating online: Read more.
By adamg - 10/8/20 - 9:15 pm
WBUR reports BPS Superintendent Brenda Cassellius is proposing a one-year change for Boston's three exam schools: 20% of next year's seats would go to students with the city's top grades, while the rest would be awarded based on students' ranks in each city Zip code - with students in lower-income Zip codes getting first crack.
By adamg - 7/8/20 - 9:19 am
The Bay State Banner reports the BPS's Opportunity and Achievement Gap Task Force unanimously urged a one-year halt on exams because of Covid-19 - just as some colleges are doing with SATs, two days before BPS announced it would be using a test from a non-profit testing concern.
By adamg - 2/18/20 - 7:15 pm
BPS today issued an RFP for a company that can write exam questions that will both ensure potential students are ready for the "rigorous" exam schools while also "furthering equitable access to the exam schools, particularly for Black and Latinx students who have historically been underrepresented." Read more.
By adamg - 2/5/20 - 8:54 pm
The company that writes the ISEE exam that BPS has long used to help figure out who to invite to attend exam schools and BPS administrators are exchanging exclamations of "You can't quit me! I quit you first!" today. Read more.
By adamg - 12/4/19 - 1:39 pm
WFXT reports on the situation at English High School in Jamaica Plain and the O'Bryant School and Madison Park, next to each other in Roxbury. The schools were put in "safe" mode," in which students and teachers try to go on with their days normally even as all external doors are locked to keep people out; the schools are now back to regular mode.
By adamg - 10/15/18 - 7:15 pm
City Councilors Andrea Campbell (Dorchester) and Kim Janey (Roxbury) want to look at ways to increase black and Latino enrollment at the city's three exam schools - including possibly replacing scores from the ISEE exam now used to help determine entrance with results from MCAS tests. Read more.
By adamg - 4/5/17 - 3:18 pm
Tanya Freeman-Wisdom, who has been serving as interim headmaster at the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, was today announced as the school's permanent headmaster.
The O'Bryant lost its most recent headmaster in June. Unlike at Boston Latin School, whose headmaster resigned after a year of racial tension, there was little controversy - Nicole Gittens left to become a deputy school superintendent in Brookline. Read more.
By adamg - 9/1/16 - 12:06 pm
When School Superintendent Tommy Chang named Michael Contompasis as interirm headmaster at Boston Latin School in June, he held a press conference at City Hall with Mayor Walsh and an assortment of name-brand school alumni. Then, last month, BPS made Contompasis available for interviews by local media outlets.
No similar fanfare, or, indeed, any at all, has accompanied Chang's appointment of Tanya Freeman-Wisdom as interim headmaster at the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury, another one of the city's three exam schools. Read more.
By adamg - 6/28/16 - 1:10 pm
At a press conference to announce the new interim BLS headmaster today, School Superintendent Tommy Chang said he will appoint an interim O'Bryant headmaster "in coming weeks." Read more.
By adamg - 6/22/16 - 11:51 pm
Nicole Gittens, headmaster at the O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, is leaving Boston to become deputy superintendent of teaching and learning in neighboring Brookline, Brookline Schools announced today.
Gittens became O'Bryant headmaster in 2014; her last day is June. 30.
Before the O'Bryant, she was headmaster at the Urban Science Academy.
- ‹ previous
- Page 2
- next ›
