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November 4, 2004

Committee nixes new school assignmt. plan

Jeremy Schwab

Parents and community activists often complain that Boston’s school department ignores their input on policy decisions. The school department regularly finds itself at odds with one or another group of frustrated parents or activists on issues ranging from school closings to reading pedagogy for black children.

Given the history of distrust, many progressives and people of color greeted the department’s promise late last year to hold an open, community-driven school assignment policy-making process with skepticism.

“There were questions about whether the process was going to be a legitimate one, whether there were going to be opportunities for people to give their views in the various communities, or whether the school department and mayor already had a plan they were just trying to provide cover for,” said City Councilor Chuck Turner.

But last week, the mayorally appointed school committee silenced skeptics when it heeded the concerns of parents of color by deciding not to make any major move toward neighborhood schools.

Hundreds of parents of color and activists had voiced their opposition to neighborhood schools during forums held in neighborhoods across the city this spring.

The overwhelming majority of those who turned out from Roxbury and other neighborhoods of color said they did not want the district divided into smaller zones. Instead, they said they wanted the department to work with parents to improve the quality of all schools.

The school committee responded to these parents’ concerns not only by keeping the current three-zone model but by creating a task force to examine school quality across the district.

Those who fought against a return to neighborhood schools say they have won the battle, for now. The key to their success has been communication and coordination among different advocacy groups.

Turner, a former chairman of the city council’s Education Committee, helped found in November the Educational Working Group for Quality and Excellence, which served as a blanket coalition for anti-neighborhood schools activists.

In February, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) turned out members and other contacts to attend a community meeting at 12th Baptist Church in Roxbury that is credited with turning the tide of the debate from a focus on neighborhood schools to a focus on quality.

Meanwhile, Kim Janey, who heads the Boston School Reform Project for the group Massachusetts Advocates for Children, attended meetings of the Student Assignment Review Task Force alongside staff from Turner’s office, reporting back to the coalition on what was being discussed.

Most activists surveyed agreed that the 12th Baptist Church forum, during which community members engaged in heated debate with task force members and voiced their opposition to any reduction in school choice, had a major impact on the task force members.

“When you have 300 people including students and parents — that, I think, really changed the dynamic,” said Janey. “Where the system was thinking they would have more neighborhood schools, this, I think, was where that got turned around.”

Student Assignment Review Task Force member Sandra McIntosh, who joined the coalition opposing neighborhood schools, affirmed that the forum had an impact.

“They didn’t think people were so passionate about it,” she said. “They talked about the anger at that meeting. As we were coming to a consensus, I reminded them of that night and the passion of those people.”

McIntosh and other members of color on the task force recommended making no changes to the current three-zone model. Although the majority of the task force recommended going to a six-zone model for elementary schools, the school committee ultimately sided with the dissenting minority on the task force.

But activists in communities of color say the fight is not over. The school committee has said it might consider making changes to the zones for the 2006-2007 school year. Also, the Educational Working Group for Quality and Excellence, renamed the Work4Quality Coalition, plans to continue pushing for a focus on improving quality in all schools.

“We want the task force to look at quality in different schools and resolve those issues, and that is where we hope this process will go,” said Owen Toney, an organizer at ACORN.

 

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