FYI from BSF, 07.07.23
Summer Reading
The Boston School Committee’s (BSC) meeting next week was canceled, and the calendar for the year has been updated. BSC will be short one member for at least a little longer.
The final BSC meetings of the school-year were punctuated by concerns about relocating the O’Bryant to the West Roxbury Educational Complex.
A year later, where does the BPS-state agreement to avert receivership stand?
The 1993 Education Reform Act - the Massachusetts law that framed education policy and nomenclature - turns 30. So goes Massachusetts, so goes the country?
The Commonwealth continues to be the center of debate in affirmative action in college admissions. Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) got lots of national headlines for a complaint to the United States Department of Education citing “legacy” preferences at Harvard and other colleges.
The comedian Chris Rock once asked in a routine, “What’s better than being white?” Apparently, being white, the child of an alumnus/donor/faculty, and an athlete (“ALDC” in a variety of working papers).
Citation
Socioeconomic status is another area of college admissions where schools are rising and falling.
In other major education news coming out of the Supreme Court, President Biden’s loan cancellation plan was canceled (unconstitutional). The administration is looking for alternatives. Massachusetts, with so many college graduates, is uniquely affected; Commonwealth college grad debt is equivalent to the GDP of Yemen.
A long, fascinating read about elementary school education in China touches on modern parenting and modern Chinese history, with the surprising fingerprints of American progressive educator John Dewey.