FYI from BSF, 05.20.22
Are you hearing about some sort of meeting next Tuesday about Boston schools?
Analyses of the limits of past receivership interventions. Open letters to the Mayor calling to invite the state in. Emergency meetings by the teachers’ union and plans of direct action. Op-eds calling for compromise. City Council speeches and votes for, against, and abstaining. National teacher union head visits.
All the while, there was a steady flow of updates from Boston schools. Monday, we learned there are 31 candidates for superintendent (fewer than the last two searches). Tuesday, a new communications team for Boston Public Schools was announced. Wednesday, we learned summer meals for Boston schools will be provided by City Fresh, a Black-owned, Roxbury-based food service company that built its business serving charter schools. Thursday, the $2 Billion Green New Deal for Boston Public Schools was announced again.
Perhaps more to come later today. There hasn’t been this level of public engagement and focus on Boston Public Schools in some time.
But while the politics of state intervention was unfolding, schools pressed on, and teachers were teaching and students were learning. In those hallways and classrooms, there continue to be concerns about the well-being of teachers. With claims of negligence, firearms, incidents of violence (including assaults using Chromebooks)and even threats against the superintendent, safety concerns continue as well.
How widespread is the problem? We don’t know; beware of the combustibility of small sample fallacy meeting social media. It is clear that we lack the tools to assess the problem. Safety is a feeling, not a fact, and in response many other cities have developed comprehensive, parent-led and parent-defined assessments of school safety. In Boston, we have incomplete suspension data from last year and family survey results that are incomplete and not public.
Along with continued questions around unreported and unaddressed sexual assault and abuse at Mission Hill K-8 School, the theme of educator and student well-being is sure to be prominent in the selection of the next superintendent.
On that note, check out the Shah Foundation’s series on selecting Boston’s next superintendent, which includes interviews with every former superintendent since 2006, starting with Michael Contompasis, all the way to today with Brenda Cassellius.
That next superintendent will also be handed the second comprehensive audit of Boston Public Schools in two years. It has been reported the audit is done, and could be public soon.
The politics of education received a lot of attention in the past week. Let's see if there is a similar willingness to focus on schools.
Reopening Boston, MA, and Beyond
School-based COVID cases rose again, with Massachusetts rates leveling (+8%), but Boston continuing to climb (+38%).
Wondering how many federal stimulus dollars are making their way to schools? There’s a dashboard for that. There is a reporting lag, but to date Boston has spent 10% of the available funds, with at least one quarter of a billion dollars still available.
There is more data mounting that public school enrollment decline in cities is a feature, not a bug.
Other Matters
Brookline teachers voted to strike and returned to work one day later with a new contract.
Colleges refraining from required standardized testing has coincided with grade inflation.
Evidence-based literacy instruction is growing in demand, with New Your City as its most recent adopter.
One of the finalists for Massachusetts Teacher of the Year is a Boston teacher.