By Laura Onyeneho
12/12/2013
As Boston’s first new mayor in two decades, Mayor-elect Martin Walsh and his administration will inherit the growing issues that shadow Boston Public Schools, one of them being to end the chronic opportunity gap between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds.
A Boston Public Schools press release reported that graduation rates showed promise for students. The graduation rate for Hispanic students increased in its 4th year with 58.8 percent, while African-American students were at a fifth year high at 64.5 percent.
Two decades after the passage of the 1993 Education Reform Act, the state of Massachusetts has achieved remarkable academic growth. The questions that still remain: What can be done to give these students access to good quality education? What must be done to keep minority and low-income students from lagging behind?
John Barros, 2013 mayoral candidate now on Walsh’s transition team, said in an online interview that it is important “to address the social conditions that come with poverty and create challenges to learning such as health disparities, unstable housing, unemployment, and crimes.” Barros, who started his education in Boston Public Schools knows all too well the depths of this issue. “If we don’t address the achievement gap, we will continue to undermine the fundamental tenants of our democracy and economy of freedom, equality, and fair play,” he said.
Many schools in Boston have risen up to the challenge. Orchard Garden Pilot School, a K-8 school in Roxbury has made significant efforts in improving student achievement in the last few years. Its plans include extending the school day to give additional time for instruction in core subjects, collaborating with community-based organizations, and after-school support and homework time. That plan has lifted it from being one of the lowest performing schools in the state to a designated “turnaround” school.
BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), a non-profit organization developed to integrate best practices in academics, tutoring enrichment and evaluation for children grades k-8 living in under resourced urban communities partners with Orchard Garden. It collaborates with teachers and principals to design after-school programs that correlate with regular curriculum as well as students’ unique learning needs.
“The most important thing about learning literacy is for the students to understand what they are reading and apply it to everyday life, said Faye Dookhavan, a BELL teacher. “Many of our students are English language learners, so we have to bare in mind that the students need an extra amount of time to process words and meanings from their language to the English language.”
With Orchard Garden’s activities, staff recruitment, teacher support, and performance assessment data, the school increased it MCAS scores. In 2012, the median Student Growth Percentage (SGP) for both English Language Arts and Math were 70 and 74 respectively.
“We want our schools to be as good as they can be,” said Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union. Boston Public Schools and the Boston Teachers Union jointly developed a peer assistance program providing support for educators who are experiencing difficulties in the classroom. “We want every teacher to teach at his or hers own capacity, and if that doesn’t work out, we want teachers to be given the help they need to succeed,” he said.
The school’s freedom to create its own organizational structure, and other aspects of operations have been compared to autonomous models like those of charter schools, which has been in much debate in the Commonwealth.
Sarah Toce, co-coordinator of the Boston: Forward coalition, a coalition of education leaders dedicated to a broader autonomy in the public schools, explained their stance in an analogy. “If Bill Belichick was asked to coach the Patriots without being able to call the plays, make mid-game adjustments, and sub players in and out as he needed, would we be surprised if he lost games? Probably not. But this is exactly what we do to teachers and schools.”
Boston: Forward has also advocated the Boston Public Schools should have a constellation of great schools. Rules are made at the top, at central office without differentiating between the specific circumstances at each school, so we can’t be surprised that there’s an achievement gap. Without autonomy, teachers cannot make the ‘mid game adjustments’ that lead to student success” Toce said.
In a Commonwealth Magazine interview, Andrew Bott, principal of Orchard Garden and Boston: Forward coalition member said that “it takes effective teachers and an effective leader whose hands aren’t tied by mandates that don’t necessarily meet the needs of students.” Bott, the school’s sixth principal since 2003 has used this model to improve the pilot school’s art education programming, with hopes to narrowing down the opportunity gap for his scholars.
Laura O. 