In today’s Boston Globe, Malcolm Gay and Jenna Russell contrast student experiences at Brighton High School and Newton South. Read, then come back here to discuss.
“Experts often say geography is destiny in the United States, that a student’s future success depends heavily on what neighborhood they grow up in. But in this case, it is Jada’s and Britney’s daily destinations, rather than their home addresses, that would seem to hold the most sway. Jada attends Newton South, a sterling suburban high school that routinely sends graduates to the country’s elite universities. Britney lands just 3 miles away at Brighton High, a floundering city school where fewer than 30 percent of graduates earn a college degree or other credential within six years of graduating.”
Wow. Really well reported story. And even though the word Metco only appears once, this is the best told argument for the program I’ve read.
It’s long but I hope people will make the time to read it.
Great article. My husband and my senior at south discussed it over breakfast. My son has a part time job but doesn’t work every day after school. It really shed light on how kids a few miles apart have such different lives.
Newtonites and neighboring suburbanites have done everything they can to ensure that opportunities for education and advancement are limited to their own ilk.
David Brooks hit the nail on the head a couple of years ago –
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/opinion/how-we-are-ruining-america.html
Education should be administered uniformly at the state level.
Heck Michael, why stop at the state level? Using that logic, why not outlaw private schools and administer all education at the federal level. President Trump will be in charge of your kid’s education.
NewtonMom,
Ask your son to do some investigative work at NSHS re the ELL Program. I have heard some harrowing stories about kids who are breaking their backs to help keep their families financially afloat. Simply put: a lot of children aren’t afforded a childhood. These stories come from NNHS. However, I would surmise there are parallels abound. Say what one will, but that is troubling.
Jeffrey, maybe charter schools are the panacea? Do you remember Paul Sagan? If not, I can share some information about his background as the former chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
@Michael –
Jada Pierre is thriving at Newton South exactly because Newtonites have indeed extended our educational opportunities to others. Could we, should we do more – absolutely.
I enjoyed the article. Public schools in wealthy towns are associated with better outcomes then public schools in poor towns. I think it is mistake to attribute to much of this to schools.
First, parents have a huge effect. People in Newton care about education and that affects their children more than the school. Look at Jada. Jada’s mom is a superstar. She is going to college, which tells Jada (and us) that she cares about education. Jada is taking a SAT prep class and attending Russian School of Math. The Newton Public Schools is not encouraging RSM (and probably not the prep class). The article lists 5 other things that Jada is doing. Orchestrating this is very difficult if you are a single parent with limited means–which describes many parents in poor neighborhoods. Jada’s mom is pulling it off. I salute her.
Second, most children in Newton have parents who have gone to college. Many Newton parents have careers that require extensive education. If parents take education seriously and it affects the kids. These children create an incredible peer effect in the school.
Everyone should have a teacher like Ramon Trinidad. But the article makes clear that great teachers, while important, can only do so much.
@Jerry, the METCO program is a perfect example of suburbanites’ hypocrisy: a handful of pre-screened children from the inner city, whose parents have demonstrated their commitment to the “pediacracy” by making a beeline from the delivery room to the METCO office to get their babies on the waiting list, are allowed to partake in our rarefied, override-funded and MSBA-endowed suburban school system. In exchange, the chosen few Rosburyites will be expected to wake up at 5am to hop on a bus, abandon their cultural heritage and carry themselves according to the suburban lifestyle code, and to never complain about their social isolation when it becomes clear that they will always be treated differently. Oh and to also be thankful to us incredibly generous suburbanites for opening up a few incredibly valuable slots in our school system to them.
@Michael – Whew! Not a Metco fan, eh?
@Jerry, I think METCO was a distraction that perpetuated suburbanites’ sense of economic entitlement and absolved them of needing to pursue true educational equity for urban student populations.
For at least 45 years, White Bay Staters have been well aware that African-American schools in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan have been rotting away, and they’ve done nothing; as David Brooks points out, the so-called “progressives” of Newton and environs are (not surprisingly) more worried about getting their own kids into an Ivy League institution before they spend any time or resources pushing true educational reforms that would allow the kids in Boston or Chelsea to compete on an equal footing come admissions time.
Given that, it’s not productive to propose illusory gimmicks like METCO and charter schools, which usually do provide an excellent education but only to a very, very limited numbers of students whose parents happen to be interested in their education. The Globe article highlights this – one girl had a mother who registered her in Metco when she was 3 days old, and the other was one of the 99% of Boston kids whose mothers left them in the BPS and prayed for the best. “And that has made all the difference.”
As an April article in The Atlantic highlights, METCO students are expected to “code-switch,” i.e. to have two different personalities to try to fit in – which is not a very nice thing to do to a kid.
When the kid in the Atlantic story complains to his mom,
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/boston-metco-program-school-desegregation/584224/
All this to say, it’s not a fair or sustainable solution to take a small number of kids and tell them that the only path to success is 10 or 15 miles away from their home neighborhood in a completely different community inhabited by a completely different culture.
Michael,
Please expand on how charter schools provide an excellent education.
@Jason, I’m the last person to defend charter schools, but:
During their experimental phase, many charter schools cherry-picked excellent students with involved and academically-active families, spent lavishly, and hired personnel willing to overwork and exhaust themselves for a couple of years.
Of course none of these strategies is sustainable across a wider student population, nor will they be sustainable as charter school enrollment increases.
Michael,
A myriad of people takes umbrage with the idea that ghost investors make a lot of money from charter schools. These folks never play by the rules, but it’s different when kids get the chair kicked out from under them due to greed, wealth, and power. The list of the proponents is extensive.
As I stated in a previous post, “Do you remember Paul Sagan? If not, I can share some information about his background as the former chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.”
Michael,
Do you consider Newton an “overide-funded” school system?
Of 75 ranked districts in Massachusetts, Newton is number 67 in per-student spending.
https://www.masslive.com/news/erry-2018/12/e0a2680f7e9903/the-massachusetts-school-distr.html