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Actually they haven't, this is a first, please explain! My kids have lovely friends in the Somerville schools from "low income" households, the Brazilians are especially hospitable and family oriented. But please, elaborate on your point with some examples, won't you?
But do these wonderful Brazilian families care about their kids excelling in school and going on to the best colleges? The concern about city public schools is that the students going to them aren't able to get into the best colleges after they graduate from high school. If you don't care about where your children go for college and their future careers (which is also okay), then city public schools are good enough for you. But if you hope for them to become graduates of Harvard, MIT or Stanford, then yes you would be concerned about the quality of your Somerville schools. I feel from your posts that you are a parent who feels surrounding your children with diversity is more important that them having a top level academic education. But that's your choice to make as a parent.
Actually they haven't, this is a first, please explain! My kids have lovely friends in the Somerville schools from "low income" households, the Brazilians are especially hospitable and family oriented. But please, elaborate on your point with some examples, won't you?
Ok, you asked for it...
Quote:
Originally Posted by pennyone
How about peer pressure in those schools? Bad examples? distractions like fights and gang wars? Bullying? Do they not effect your child's sense of well being and development?
I don't have kids so I am just asking. It seems that the argument "if you control for income, then Cambridge and Somerville...." sounds more like a stretched attempt for hip parents to stay living an urban lifestyle and not feel guilty about sending their kids to these local public schools?
Quote:
Originally Posted by SalamanderSmile
I massaged and massaged that mcas data looking to justify staying in the town we were in. When I "controlled for income" the performance was no worse than other towns we could afford to move into. However my son's daily experience in the environment could not be "controlled for income." So we moved.
At least for Somerville High, it's interesting that the low income group in Somerville High seems to be achieving significantly higher score than state average low income group, while non-low-income group is around state average for non-low-income group.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kingeorge
That is all fine and dandy if you assume that data is more important than reality, and that your kid will go to school in some sort of well-to-do bubble and will not be mixing with lower income kids, nor be influenced by their low income peers. That is not what happens in the real life and your data in that regard is actually meaningless.
Peer influences and what teacher can actually teach and accomplish in the class is the most important factor. Public schools cater to lowest common denominator (as in No Child left Behind) and your kids will not learn as fast, or as advanced, as e.g. their peers in Lexington do, because "playing filed" is not even out.
This is why most parents look for "highest common denominator" possible. It does make for much more pleasant and successful learning environment.
Many parents tired this before, only to learn, as their kids age, why majority of families seek environment of like-minded parents with similar socioeconomic standing. Good luck.
As far as examples go, check out the police reports for the staggering number of petty crimes located around projects such as Clarendon Hill. Oftentimes without names as they are juvies.
There is absolutely no issue with surrounding your kids with diversity and all that places like Somerville have to offer. Certainly a very different experience than places like Lexington or Wellesely. But as the students age towards the High School level, your anecdote tends to disprove itself and unfortunately that is when it matters most.
I'd be happy to continue this conversation as another thread or through PM's, but I don't want to derail yet another thread with the "merits" of Somerville schools.
Last edited by wolfgang239; 02-17-2015 at 10:41 PM..
You know there are a lot of Boston Public School parents on BigTent, Yahoo Groups, and Nextdoor etc who offer positive, detailed, first hand experiences about their local schools? If you are seriously thinking of moving to JP, go to the open houses at schools and talk to other parents on neighborhood forums directly. These people exist--there seems to be quite a few of them in the earlier grades (K1 to second grade).
For those parents considering Boston, here are some possible research steps:
a. look at MCAS scores year-to-year progress; take into account classroom demographics (special ed, ESL, free lunch, advanced work class)
b. visit the school and classrooms
c. look at the programming, partnerships, and extracurriculars of a particular school (e.g. some are STEM, some are music orientated)
d. attend a school showcase fair / attend a lottery info session
e. talk to a teacher or principal at a BPS school -- you can get a private tour with a PTA member too
f. talk to a parent or child that is currently in BPS
g. check out a Boston parent forum or school PTA
My husband and I moved from South Boston and bought a house in Roslindale, with the knowledge that the local Roslindale schools are generally considered desirable and are improving. We did a lot of research and hand-wringing before putting down a sizable down payment, but we only did that after we were certain that there would be a decent number of like-minded young families in the area whom we knew would give BPS a try. And even then, I honestly don't mind the background of my children's classmates as long as they are respectful and kind, and the teacher can keep my kids interested in learning. I hope my children would learn to treat everyone equally, especially to show empathy.
Last edited by sharencare; 02-18-2015 at 01:34 AM..
Given the high degree of gentrification in places like JP and Southie, why are the schools (especially elementary and middle schools) still so bad? Do the people who live in JP have no young school-aged children or do they send them to parochial or private schools?
Here's the MCAS comparison between Curley Elementary in JP and Collicot Elementary in Milton.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Guineas
I figured as much. But it still blows my mind how bad the public schools are in an increasingly expensive real estate market like JP. Home prices in JP aren't much lower than they are in Milton, and if you work in downtown, the commute is about the same. If you have 3 school-aged kids, you would have to be incredibly wealthy to afford JP and three private or Catholic school tuitions. Unless you don't care about where your kids go to school at all, but 84% (Milton) versus 31% (JP) in Math proficiency is nothing to sneeze at, especially if you're already shelling out $400k+ for a 3 bedroom condo.
We strongly considered JP, but the horrendous public schools simply made JP prohibitive.
Will this ever change? It's discouraging to see that BPS enrollment is actually trending down despite rapid gentrification of Boston.
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Originally Posted by Whatsnext75
There are a lot of poor people in boston. Some of them are hardworking and still poor, some of them are just happy to collect welfare, smoke crack and are sorry they had children but have to send them to school. Sadly these are the people who use bps these days. There might be a few middle or even upper middle families who believe in public schools and choose to send their kids there but they are few and far between.
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Originally Posted by Dm84
I have a few middle class friends who tried BPS. By 1st grade their kids were either in private school or they moved out of the city.
Quote:
Originally Posted by miu
Because their students are victims of bad parenting. It's not the schools' fault that their students don't care about doing well academically.
I worked as a substitute teacher for a while in the Boston Public Schools and had the intent to go on to pursuing a Masters in Education or maybe even an Ed.D. or PhD in Education. Well, let me tell you, as the Jewish folks would say: "Oy vey!!!" (a Yiddish phrase expressing dismay or exasperation).
I mean, I worked Grades K through 8 while serving as a substitute teacher and also a teacher's aide and worked at a host of schools all around the city and, let me tell you, wherever I was, I would spend 95% to 98% of the time just trying to maintain order. Hardly any kind of learning would ever take place, as the students were just utterly out-of-control. They seemed to have little to no sense of why society sends us all to school. To them, it was all "fun fun fun". Lack of respect for authority, lack of self-control, lack of good manners, lack of drive to apply oneself, physically fighting with one another, running in and out of the class at will, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. And the school principals or administrators would argue with me (like it is my fault that these students are the result of lack of good parenting or bad parenting or no parenting ... or perhaps some of them had special needs or disabilities, but then they shouldn't therefore be in a regular or normal school but rather in a special school or program that caters to their special needs). After a while, I just bailed out of substitute teaching and never went back (and I dropped all plans to get further degrees in secondary education).
Afterwards, even when varied schools would call me on the phone for the first time to come to serve in their school, I would say to them essentially "Uh, no thanks. I don't do this anymore. There are others that simply handle it better than I do. I am here to be a facilitator of learning, not a substitute parent or stern taskmaster for these youths. I'm not responsible for and can't make up for their lack of good parenting or bad parenting or no parenting. Do you have my resume/curriculum vitae in front of you right now?" They'd say "Yes". I then would say to them "Just put it in your shredder and pretend that I never dropped it off at your school in the first place. Call the Boston Public Schools office and have them send you someone else. There are others better suited for this work than I. I have taught adults and have done quite well doing so and received much commendations. I'll just work with adults, if I teach at all from here-on. Best of luck to you."
As commenter Miu said (quoted above): "Because their students are victims of bad parenting. It's not the schools' fault that their students don't care about doing well academically." Aint' that a fact!
But do these wonderful Brazilian families care about their kids excelling in school and going on to the best colleges? The concern about city public schools is that the students going to them aren't able to get into the best colleges after they graduate from high school. If you don't care about where your children go for college and their future careers (which is also okay), then city public schools are good enough for you. But if you hope for them to become graduates of Harvard, MIT or Stanford, then yes you would be concerned about the quality of your Somerville schools. I feel from your posts that you are a parent who feels surrounding your children with diversity is more important that them having a top level academic education. But that's your choice to make as a parent.
Nowadays, it's no longer necessary that one goes to the Ivys school or Stanford to have a successful life or career. I went to Brown, but many of my colleagues who went to state schools are just as smart and capable as I am.
Many of those schools with immigrant kids are great schools. The immigrant children have a harder time with MCAS tests because they have a language barrier to overcome, not because they don't want to learn. It's not so black/white as you described. Many immigrant kids do want to succeed, but they need help that goes beyond the traditional standard curriculum. Here is where a school with many immigrant kids may not help a child who does not need remedial help like ESL. The resources are flowing to help the immigrant kids, while non-immigrant kids get forgotten. That's where the problem is....but AP classes can solve the problem.
I have a colleague who went to MIT and her husband did as well. He now teaches at Harvard and they send their kids to Somerville public. I dont think they'd send their kids there if it was such a horrible place. I think Somerville is a lot different than Boston. She said once that some people would probably tell you that somerville public is bad. Her kids are in elementary school and she said she doesn't want them to grow up to be two white boys who don't know anything. So i do think a lot of parents do care about having their kids be in a diverse atmosphere these days. My guess is that she wont send them to Somerville public for middle and high school...but i could be wrong. If they are smart as their parents they will likely do well wherever they go.
I am not sure what kind of parent I will be, but I think I'd get irritated if i was constantly around parents who were like OMG my kid has to go to Harvard or MIT he has to be the best. These people are often jerks. I think everyone wants the best for their kids but their are parents out there who think their kids are better than everyone else's and I would not want to surround myself with people like that. It's easy to get disappointed if you set these types of goals for a 5th grader. You have no idea what could happen over the next 7-8 years. You could have perfect grades, perfect scores, all the right extra curriculum and still not get in to the school of your dreams.
As far as examples go, check out the police reports for the staggering number of petty crimes located around projects such as Clarendon Hill. Oftentimes without names as they are juvies.
There is absolutely no issue with surrounding your kids with diversity and all that places like Somerville have to offer. Certainly a very different experience than places like Lexington or Wellesely. But as the students age towards the High School level, your anecdote tends to disprove itself and unfortunately that is when it matters most.
I'd be happy to continue this conversation as another thread or through PM's, but I don't want to derail yet another thread with the "merits" of Somerville schools.
As you can see from the repies wolfgang, for every example of someone with a negative experience, there is more than one with something positive to say. I also received a private reply from a BPS alum that went to Harvard and has kids in BPS now. You gave three examples, pennyone's is purely speculative, Claiz is referring to at the high school, and kingeorge seems to be talking about experiences of "other parents". Only SalamanderSmile had true experience with an urban environment. Meanwhile 9instead of just anecdotes, I provided hard data showing that these claims that low income kids pull down higher income kids academically just isn't showing in the MCAS data, at least in the schools we looked at.
I think you also live close to Clarendon Hill, which has a pretty high crime rate, so your perspective may be skewed. I'm not sure where most of those kids go, but i'm pretty sure not a single one of them is in the class of either of my kids. Not sure why that is.
I wouldn't put my kids in just any urban school - the school needs to be carefully selected by visiting, sitting in classrooms, talking to other parents and also the principal. We did all of these things. Unfortunately gentrification is rampant here in Somerville and you can see it trickling into the school population at a pretty alarming rate lately, both visually based on racial mix, and by looking at the DOE data. Some elementary schools have more than 50% low-income students overall, but the kindergartners are at around 25% low income. So ironically, if anything, my bigger concern with the schools is not having low income kids in the class, but that the schools are becoming more like the suburbs. All of this eventually migrates to the high school, which has not happened yet. Click the play button here - SGP is a way to compare districts while controlling for socio-economics: mcasdata
Other parents in my kids classes consists of Harvard faculty, MIT faculty and researchers, Google software engineers, 2 attorneys, 2 artists, and several non-profit workers - very education focused families. The classes also have quite a few immigrant families from Brazil, Haiti and Europe. This great cross section of professionals and immigrants, with very few BMW-driving corporate types, is what we cherish most about the school. As gentrification takes hold, whether this can continue is the question.
Is my goal MIT, Harvard, or Stanford for the kids? Nope, not really. I went to a state school and I work as a consultant with alumni from Ivy schools on a daily basis. It's really not necessary anymore - other schools like WPI, UVM, Holy Cross would do just fine without surrounding kids with a sense of entitlement. Most kids are likely going to be working in a much more international, diverse environments when they are adults. Exposure to all types of cultures and personalities only helps them succeed.
Lastly, even if you send your kids to Wellesley or Lexington (we have multiple friends in both schools), you need to rank in the top 20% just to be considered for Ivy universities. To get top 20% in those towns you are up against pressure cooker households with tutors and very restricted free-play time so they can study all night and weekend. No thanks. Many kids can actually do better by being in the top 10% if their schools in another district, instead of working hard just to be above average in Lexington and not being able to take the 3-4 AP classes needed to get into a top college.
Of course, our backup plan if we are not happy with the high schools when we get there in 7 years, is to move 2 blocks to Cambridge and send the kids to Rindge and Latin.
I could go on about the benefits of walkability, being car-independent 90% of the time, and having almost all of your classmates living within a 0.5 mile radius...
I have a colleague who went to MIT and her husband did as well. He now teaches at Harvard and they send their kids to Somerville public. I dont think they'd send their kids there if it was such a horrible place. I think Somerville is a lot different than Boston. She said once that some people would probably tell you that somerville public is bad. Her kids are in elementary school and she said she doesn't want them to grow up to be two white boys who don't know anything. So i do think a lot of parents do care about having their kids be in a diverse atmosphere these days. My guess is that she wont send them to Somerville public for middle and high school...but i could be wrong. If they are smart as their parents they will likely do well wherever they go.
I am not sure what kind of parent I will be, but I think I'd get irritated if i was constantly around parents who were like OMG my kid has to go to Harvard or MIT he has to be the best. These people are often jerks. I think everyone wants the best for their kids but their are parents out there who think their kids are better than everyone else's and I would not want to surround myself with people like that. It's easy to get disappointed if you set these types of goals for a 5th grader. You have no idea what could happen over the next 7-8 years. You could have perfect grades, perfect scores, all the right extra curriculum and still not get in to the school of your dreams.
Well stated. Whenever you talk to an actual parent, it's often a different story. The number of Harvard and MIT faculty, staff, researches and alum with their kids in the schools has been great boon for the schools. In a way, Somerville is taking away from Cambridge schools as many of these families got prices our of Cambridge and moved here 5-10 years ago. If my kids were about to enter high school this year, i would have some reservations about the high school too. I visited the school, there still seems to be too many distractions to teach effectively. But I think the changes we are going to see with the green line extension and the rapidly improving elementary schools is going to change all of that on the next 5-10 years.
As I said - buying a house in Lexington in no way gets you into an Ivy. You still need to enter the pressure-cooker rat-race of tutors and overworked kids.
Well stated. Whenever you talk to an actual parent, it's often a different story. The number of Harvard and MIT faculty, staff, researches and alum with their kids in the schools has been great boon for the schools. In a way, Somerville is taking away from Cambridge schools as many of these families got prices our of Cambridge and moved here 5-10 years ago. If my kids were about to enter high school this year, i would have some reservations about the high school too. I visited the school, there still seems to be too many distractions to teach effectively. But I think the changes we are going to see with the green line extension and the rapidly improving elementary schools is going to change all of that on the next 5-10 years.
As I said - buying a house in Lexington in no way gets you into an Ivy. You still need to enter the pressure-cooker rat-race of tutors and overworked kids.
lol I wouldn't count on seeing the Green Line extension anytime soon.
The diversity and culture is why we stay in Boston, and are willing to take some risks--with the lottery, with the exams, and even with our house. My husband and I went to excellent colleges after graduating from large, urban school systems (I graduated from Boston Latin School). We want our kids to have the childhoods we had where we had friends from all economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds--and yes, many of them were very lovely, nerdy people who were poor minorities or immigrants or from single parent households. Many matriculated into amazing top tier colleges or got free rides at BU, Northeastern, and Umass, and ended up with great careers (e.g. female neurosurgeon, a female video game programmer).
Since this is a thread about Boston, I would point out that two dozen or so students get accepted into Harvard from Boston Latin School every year, not to mention the other impressive, highly selective colleges. I think only Lexington, Stuyvesant, and some wealthy legacy-heavy private schools can even get close to that statistic. Yes, it would be nice if our kids had a chance at the college alma mater in Cambridge but that's okay if they don't get accepted or want to move far, far away from us. Yes, BLS kids have to take an entrance exam. But 1 in 3 students at BLS is economically disadvantaged, and 52% of the school are minorities. All the students go to college. That's pretty good for a city school with diversity. It's a shame though that not every student in Boston is getting an excellent, public education, but BLS is one of the few schools in this country that has enough resources and support to help kids claw their way out of poverty if they have enough ambition and grit.
Last edited by sharencare; 02-18-2015 at 10:34 AM..
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