Mapping BPS school closures

It started out as an innocent question on Twitter...I was talking to BPS teacher Neema Avashia about her role in getting her middle school moved (and not closed). She mentioned that the district had just announced that another middle school was closing (scattering the students and staff). So I mentioned that I was having trouble finding closed BPS schools. Well, with a big network of OG educators, they fixed that...Check out the ensuing Twitter conversation (also below)...anyhoo, it resulted in Boston Latin Academy teacher José Valenzuela putting the information into a spreadsheet, where he found that 70% of BPS schools had been closed, moved, merged, etc. since '02.

Years ago I'd heard that closings had disproportionately affected Boston's poor neighborhoods. I needed to see if this was true, so I made a copy of the spreadsheet and added dates and neighborhood to the closures (still trying to get a handle on the history). I added the dates to the timeline, but then wanted to see the locations, so I add them to a map. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure. You can see here that the closing came in waves, and schools often were converted into charters, pilots, in-district charters, etc. You can also see that they are concentrated in Boston's poorest neighborhoods, which are, incidentally, the neighborhoods with the highest density of schoolchildren.

Comments

Rating and Testing Part II: Could it Be Poverty Itself?

This is the second article in a series. See Part I . I think the next question we need to ask ourselves is: is there something about poverty itself that interferes with learning? There are many pop-psychology explanations of why poor kids do worse in school: poor kids don't do as well as rich kids because their parents are too busy to help them (or not well-educated enough), or that they don't have access to enrichment activities . These are the more generous ones. Others simply lean on negative stereotypes about low-income families: they don't value education, they are trapped in a culture of poverty, or, my personal favorite, the debunked theory that they simply don't talk to their kids enough (the "word gap theory" [insert eye roll here]. So let's unpack some of these a little. First off, let's just knock off the beating up on families of low-income kids. Yes, parents may be busy but poor and/or marginalized families care just as much, if not mo...

What to do with $400 Million?

Apparently, the city of Boston is getting $400 million in federal relief for its schools in the near future. Debate rages among parents - should we spend it on art programs? Middle school sports? How can we plan for such a large amount of spending? I, of course, think we should spend it on equity. Here's an idea: $150 million for funding long-term positions where they are most needed: teachers in inclusion classrooms and AP classes in non-exam high schools, librarians, counselors, etc. And let's fund them for 10-20 years, not just one year. $100 million for deferred maintenance. Let's fix up our buildings today so that we can pay for teachers, books and innovative programs tomorrow. Fix leaky roofs, rebuild when needed - let's not lose any more buildings because we failed to take care of them! $25 million split among all Boston schools. Or divided on a per-pupil basis. Either way, give some "play money" equally to each school to decide what they want to do...

Introducing All Together Now Blog

Hi y'all. Welcome to the All Together Now Blog. I am a mom, former UMass Boston critical reading and writing instructor and executive function coach, currently an instructional designer and online learning coach, White, queer lady, lover of fantasy and YA fiction, gardening, the great outdoors, and all around teaching and learning nerd. I like to ask big questions and then try to figure out the answers - sometimes with semi-obsessive deep dives. These last few years I've dug in deep on educational equity. As a teacher I was enthralled by trying to figure out how to support my students, almost all of whom fell into at least one of these categories: immigrants, first generation college students, English language learners, students with disabilities, low-income students, or students who struggled with academic reading and writing. I found Universal Design for Learning to be an amazing addition to my practice. In 2018 I left teaching for MIT's Teaching Systems Lab ...

All Together Now

Search This Blog