Greetings!
We’re heading into the home stretch of summer. Have a good Labor Day weekend, as we look forward to the first day of school.
News flash from last week’s Boston Globe poll: Voters aren’t eager for more charter schools
“Voter support for more charter schools in Massachusetts appears to be weak, according to a new Boston Globe poll, highlighting a politically risky situation for charter school supporters if they pursue a ballot question.
“The poll found that 47 percent of respondents opposed raising a state cap on the number of charter schools that can operate in Massachusetts, compared with 43 percent who favor such a change…”
Read the article, and see the full poll results. There’s a wealth of information for stat geeks in the poll including perception of our schools, our progress, adding targeted dollars for school improvement, and more. See page 73 and beyond.
Last week we reported that there were 120 vacancies in the BPS; some of them have now been filled as Madison has now hired 30 of the 60 people it was looking for. The school system still has close to 100 vacancies, and there will be more as the year approaches. Here’s an idea: Why not place some of the 115 surplused teachers, excessed last spring, into those vacancies? Here’s another idea: There are countless provisional teachers, already trained, experienced, RETELL-completed, vetted and licensed. Some are looking for their fourth year and permanent status. Others are not quite there yet. So with both pools of individuals out there, why is the department still looking for new people? Why train new hires to replace people who were trained last year, the year before, or even ten years ago?
And here’s a final question: Why are some in the local business community subsidizing this operation? See this June Boston Globearticle. The business community, in an effort headed by Paul Grogan and Bob Gallery of the Bank of
America, is raising $25 million that will be used to offset the cost of paying excessed-but-unplaced teachers while new, less expensive teachers are hired. Yes, this is the same Bank of America that just paid $16.65 BILLION (not million) to the federal government for its role in the mortgage fraud case that roiled our banking system and almost brought our economy to the brink of collapse a few years ago. See thisNew York Times article.
Finally, last week was a big week at BLA as three administrators were placed on leave. The Boston Globe covered the story. We take no joy in announcing these type of events. There are good administrators and bad ones. All deserve due process. But reading the piece, one will notice that a charge — not the only charge — is the allegation of discriminatory practices around the evaluation process. This is a problem that is not going to go away. We have imperfect administrators using efa flawed and imperfect evaluation system — and the outcome has been shown to be skewed against older, male, and Black and Hispanic teachers.