The Boston Globe recently unveiled a new series, “Getting In: Inside Boston’s School Assignment Maze,” which follows 13 families through the Boston Public Schools‘ lottery for school assignment. The home page for the series features video introductions of the families, who come from diverse backgrounds and varying neighborhoods across the city. The first article in the series, “Taking a Chance, Making a Choice,” follows a South End family who is considering moving to the suburbs if the lottery doesn’t work out in their favor. An accompanying article gives more background on the school choice process in Boston: “Selection Process Starts with Choices, Ends with Luck.”
Category: Education
ReadBoston & Farragut Elementary Celebrate African-American Heroes
Our last blog post described Sacha Pfeiffer’s interview on WBUR with Rick Weissbourd, the founder of ReadBoston. This literacy initiative has offered exciting opportunities to students at one City Connects school, Farragut Elementary, located in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston.
Today, students at the Farragut will take part in a “Celebration of African-American Heroes.” Guest speakers from Boston hospitals will read stories to students, who are encouraged to come to school dressed as a famous African-American leader. As part of the event, students will choose a book to keep and to read at home over the school vacation.
In another event earlier this year, author Irene Smalls came to the school to read to students. Students also got to hear Boston Celtics players read at a third event through the NBA Read to Achieve program, partly sponsored by ReadBoston. The Farragut school applied to ReadBoston for a grant to help fund these activities.
“This has been a great opportunity for kids to take part in fun events that generate excitement about reading,” said Georgia Butler, the City Connects School Site Coordinator at the Farragut. “We’re glad to have this excellent partnership.”
For more information:
- See how City Connects helps improve students’ reading report card scores
- Follow WBUR on Twitter @WBUR
City Connects’ Partner ReadBoston Featured
In a recent story on elementary school students’ reading achievement, “Making Sure Mass. 3rd Graders are Strong Readers,” WBUR interviewed the founder of one of City Connects’ community partners, ReadBoston.
Rick Weissbourd, who also founded WriteBoston, commented on the reading achievement gap related to poverty: while 37% of third-graders statewide read below grade level, among children from low-income families, 57% do. Weissbourd noted that an early difference in experience with spoken language may be related to the gap; children growing up in low-income families may come to school not knowing as many words as their peers growing up in more affluent families.
Reporter Sacha Pfeiffer dug deep into the issue, asking what factors in the lives of low-income families may be affecting the difference in spoken language experience. Weissbourd’s answer reinforces a core belief of the City Connects mission: poverty creates stress. An example is the pressure of working more than one job, which limits time for conversation with children. Weissbourd also cited the low-level depression that can accompany life under the pressure of poverty.
Like ReadBoston, the City Connects intervention aims to provide supports to students and families that can help address the out-of-school factors impacting achievement. Watch our blog in the days ahead for a description of City Connects’ successful partnership with ReadBoston at one of our schools.
For more information:
- Read a related NPR story, “Closing the Achievement Gap with Baby Talk,” which describes research that found the average child in a welfare home heard about 600 words an hour while a child in a professional home heard 2,100
- See how City Connects helps improve students’ reading report card scores
- On Twitter: follow WBUR @WBUR and NPR at @NPRnews
“Income Gap” Growing for Middle-class Families
A report from the Foundation for Child Development (FCD) offers an analysis of the relationship between family income and child health, education, and social outcomes. Declining Fortunes of Children in Middle-Class Families (pdf) found that even before the recent recession, middle class families saw a drop in family income of approximately $4,000, while privileged families only saw a decrease of $139. The “income gap” between middle class and high-income families has expanded over the past 20 years, from $60,000 in 1985 to $93,100 in 2008.
The report found that for middle-class children, public education and health programs have helped to provide supports and services that their families cannot afford, like access to health insurance and pre-kindergarten education. The report’s authors caution that in the face of government budgetary shortfalls, eliminating these services would have a negative impact on the health and wellness of middle-class children.
“This study is a stark reminder that policies we set today have very wide and real ramifications in the lives of children – not only children from low-income families but children squarely in the middle class,” said Ruby Takanishi, President of FCD. “The budget decisions we make in the coming months will have consequences that could last a lifetime.”
Survey Shows Adults Blame Parents for Public School Problems
According to a poll conducted by the Associated Press and Stanford University, adults think that parents and state education officials deserve the bulk of the blame for problems facing America’s public schools. When asked who deserved “a great deal” or “a lot” of the blame for public education problems, respondents answered as follows:
- Parents, 68%
- State Education Officials, 65%
- Federal Education Officials, 59%
- Local School Administrators, 53%
- Students Themselves, 46%
- Teachers Unions, 45%
- Teachers, 35%
The poll was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
For more information:
- Read the Associated Press story on the poll and a description of how the poll was conducted
Report Details Decrease in “Dropout Factory” High Schools
The America’s Promise Alliance is a cross-sector partnership of corporations, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and advocacy groups founded by General Colin Powell working to improve lives and change outcomes for children. They released a report this week, “Building a Grad Nation,” that detailed a significant decline in the number of high schools where fewer than 60% of students graduate, known as “dropout factories.” According to the report, from 2002 to 2008, the number of “dropout factories” fell by 13%. Even though these schools represent a small fraction of all public high schools in America, they account for about half of all high school dropouts each year.
Massachusetts showed modest gains with the percentage of high school graduates rising from 77.6% in 2002 to 81.5% in 2008. When looking at all 50 states, the Commonwealth tied with Hawaii to rank 13th overall in terms of the largest gains.
“Public schools are showing improvement thanks to reforms and other efforts that have been put in place, but we need to dramatically increase the pace of progress,” said Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education. “No principal, school board, teachers’ union or mayor can resolve a community’s dropout crisis alone. It takes everyone working together to make progress every year and build on success.”
For more information:
- Read the America’s Promise Alliance press release about the study
- Read the full report or the executive summary (pdfs)
- Follow the America’s Promise Alliance on Twitter @FivePromises
City Connects in the Boston College Chronicle
Read about City Connects and our recent conference on Optimized Student Support in the most recent issue of The Boston College Chronicle:
BC Program Draws Notice Among Education Reformers
For more information:
- Read this issue of the BC Chronicle in pdf format
- Follow Boston College on Twitter @BostonCollege
New Report Shows High-poverty Schools Have Fewer In-field Teachers
The Education Trust, a nonprofit group working to close the achievement gap, published a study yesterday that reports that 9 years after a federal law was passed to ensure that low-income students were being assigned to strong teachers, students in high-poverty schools are still disproportionately taught by out-of-field and inexperienced teachers. According to the report, Not Prepared for Class, “Staffing schools in a way that ensures that all kids have access to strong teachers requires states and school districts to mount strategies that address multiple problems at once.”
The study’s recommendation’s include:
- Collect data on teacher quality and equality, and get it out in public.
- Adopt a policy prohibiting disproportionate assignment of high-quality or low-quality teachers.
- Use the state’s authority to intervene in low-performing schools.
- Provide big incentives for strong teachers to stay in or move to high-poverty and high-minority schools.
- Measure and hold accountable teacher preparation programs for producing high-quality teachers for high poverty and high-minority schools.
- Develop rigorous evaluation systems to measure teacher effectiveness.
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