FYI from BSF, 01.20.23
The recent unveiling of the Embrace and the return of the annual breakfast resulted in a days-long, citywide conversation on Martin Luther King, Jr., his connection to Boston, and its legacy.
King’s time at BU. His budding relationship with his future wife, Coretta. King’s address on the Boston Common and at the State House in 1965. The “Mile of Marchers” that preceded it, one of the largest, if not the largest, mass demonstration in Boston’s history.
“Education” was an apt theme for the breakfast Monday. King moved here to complete his studies. Education was a central element of the 1965 mass demonstration, including rallies outside of schools and a protest at Boston Public Schools (BPS) headquarters.
Subject to frequent sanitization, King’s legacy yielded a more radical and often-overlooked event in Boston’s history: school boycotts in 1963 and 1964. Newsletters aren’t supposed to tell you to go read something else, but this piece from the WGBH archive is a detailed, riveting account.
Citing inequities in funding and quality, tens of thousands of Boston Black families mirrored the tactics of the Deep South, participating in “Stay Out for Freedom” days, refusing to send their children to school in Boston, often sending them instead to self-organized Freedom Schools.
The largest boycott: 10,000 Black children attended 35 Freedom Schools across the city rather than reporting to BPS on February 26, 1964.
Today, as we focus on Martin and Coretta’s legacy, we are not acting on what is right in front of us. Since 1973, the equivalent of nearly 2 out 3 Black children are no longer enrolled in BPS.
Nearly all of the decline has happened in the last twenty years, with continued distrust of the system, increased housing costs, and increased interest in alternative school options.
2 of 3 Black parents recently polled reported they would choose to enroll their children in a non-BPS school. 19 Black third graders in BPS read above grade level last year. Nearly half of Boston’s Black students missed 18 or days of school last year.
Not a formal boycott, but pushed out or opting out, Black families and children constitute less and less of the Boston school community each and every year.
The elected Boston School Committee, led by an emboldened Louisa Day Hicks, largely set aside the boycotts of 1963 and 1964, hurtling along to the conflicts of 1973 and 1974.
History will decide what the legacy of our current leaders’ action - or inaction - will be.
Notes in the Margin
Boston School Committee met Wednesday. There were significant discussions not on the agenda, emerging in public comment, including teachers not receiving correct pay and the topic of school mergers. Summary here. Full meeting materials here.
With rumblings from City Council and as required by the state improvement plan, a report and recommendations on school safety was presented, including a return of school police. There is an ongoing debate about school safety, ranging from the causes to the actual scope of the problem. Regardless, a lack of response is increasingly untenable: a recent National Education Association poll revealed student behavior to be a significant factor in teacher burnout and turnover and Massachusetts families gave school safety their schools’ second worst grades on a recent poll.
BPS teachers want support and focus on instructional practices - survey here.
An update on the campaign to move back to an elected school committee in Boston. School board elections across the country were particularly divisive and partisan last year.
Want kids to do better in school? Give them a summer job.
Two potential warning signals for Boston’s municipal revenues - housing prices may be softening and lots of empty office space downtown.
Labor rumblings continue around the state. Melrose averted a teacher strike earlier this week. The Haverhill Education Association is incurring significant fines for an illegal strike.
Like Boston, New York City is facing a fiscal cliff with less students and less federal funding.
A comprehensive summary of data and research on the major issues of PK-12 today from Bellwether.
Diseases that were basically eradicated in the US - measles, tetanus, etc. - may be making a comeback with vaccination rates falling among kindergarteners.
The pandemic has moved American perceptions around PK-12 - more individualized, more worry about the “basics,” less standardized assessments, less concern about college. Story here.
Other Matters
Over 50 years ago, a small and radical school integration effort was shared by Roxbury and Lincoln, MA.
Andrea Encarnacao Martin, of Boston Latin School, was named Massachusetts Guidance Counselor of the Year.
