davis_square | Proposed new charter school

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Proposed new charter school

There is a proposal for a new charter school in Somerville. The state (DESE) will be reviewing the application for the next few weeks and will possibly grant the charter on February 28th. If granted this charter school will undermine the existing Somerville Public Schools by reducing school funding by nearly $5 million a year, which is almost 10% of the current school budget. This cut in funding will lead to devastating cuts in public school programs, loss of 60 -75 teachers, and potentially closure of an entire school. This would represent a huge set back for public education in Somerville, setting back much of the progress that has been made in our schools in the last 25 years.

There will be a public hearing by the DESE on this on December 14 2011 at Somerville High School. More info can be found at:

https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville

http://www.thesomervillenews.com/archives/21168

http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=6532

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I don't believe their actual proposal makes any claims that it would provide native language classrooms. (Neither does the article - it mentions an after-school program - optional and perhaps even for pay, is what that wording makes me thingk -- that would provide "instruction in students native languages", according to the Somerville Journal.) I have not read the proposal, but I am not sure that that "instruction" is acutally, you know, math lessons being taught in Spanish, rather offering enrichment classes in Spanish, French, and Portugu

The UNIDOS program in the SPS does in fact have two-way bilingual Spanish-English instruction, fwiw.

I don't believe they address how these particular most needy 500 students (iin a school that will only take 180 students ramping up to 425, btw) would get any preferential treatment in admissions or even be encouraged to apply, either. (They *can't* give them preferential treatment., in fact - charter schools have to run neutral lottery, in theory.)

In Somerville, students in need ofthe most English-language learning help are actually bused to whatever school building has the language program they need. The Charter won't provide that transportation.

Bottom line: I don't see any reason why it would

Not impossible to change schools from within :) But schools like Promise Academy are few and far between. Many are completely unsuccessful. I'm not really sure if I'm for or against this charter, but it's definitely not guaranteed to be great or even as good as the current schools.

Bottom line: is missing. Sorry. Bottom line: I don't see any reason to convince me that a charter school is an effective way to specifically enroll english language learners or to provide Somerville's more economically challenged or more academically challenged immigrant community with access to more educational opportunities.

Sure. But if you take X% of the students out of a school, the school does not become X% cheaper to operate; there are fixed costs and economies of scale.

If a charter (any charter) takes 400+ students out of the Somerville district (which is their eventual goal), the best-case scenario is that either a school closes and some students have to go further to get to school, or our property tax rates go up. It's not without costs.

I don't know. This (a sample from the 2011 10th grade MCAS) seems like something a high school graduate ought to be able to do (more here (http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2011/release/default.html)). It doesn't seem to be asking too much. Some sample responses are here (http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/student/2011/question.aspx?GradeID=10&SubjectCode=ela&QuestionID=15454#). A 4 for topic development and a 3 for English put kids on the road to pass. I'm not an expert, but these are certainly things I'd expect MY kids to be able to do before graduating high school. Shouldn't we expect a minimum from all graduates?

WRITING PROMPT

Often in works of literature, a character stands up for something he or she believes in.
From a work of literature you have read in or out of school, select a character who stands up for something he or she believes in. In a well-developed composition, identify the character, describe how the character stands up for something he or she believes in, and explain how the character’s actions relate to the work as a whole.

At the moment, 66% of Somerville district public school students are eligible for subsidized school lunches, meaning that their family income is below 1.85 times the "official" poverty level (that comes out to ~$31K for a family of four). I'm sure all of their parents would be thrilled to take time off work to support a DIY home schooling program without any government involvement at all. =/

Sources:
http://projects.propublica.org/schools/districts/2510890
(which is a highly interesting ~~waster of my work day~~ information source in general), and
http://www.doe.mass.edu/cnp/nprograms/nslp.html

Can I ask what community you live in that apparently isn't Somerville and why you care about what goes on here in Davis Square and Somerville?

I live to serve:
http://www.thespcs.org/home/official-documents/SPCS_Final_Application_2011-12.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1

If they could actually make a ase for how it would serve lower income immigrants with language challenges, sure. But I don't think it will serve those students better than the mainstream public school system - I don't even have a lot of confidence that it will enroll them in the first place, but if so, it just doesn't have the same scale of programs in its proposal that are offered in the public school district already.

I think their intentions started out good, and that they truly were not happy with how the schools were serving their kids' needs and wanted to find a way to do better. But I just don't see 'better' in any of the bullet point items they propose to do.

Oh, yeah, let's hope for some more good empty public school buildings that used to afford kids the opportunity to walk to a school in their neighborhood and learn -- especially the ones who don't *have* other ways of getting to school, who aren't well served by a bus route, whose parents can't afford the bus far or the time to get them halfway across town to school, etc. Then we can rent them out to interesting educational groups, not that the kids who are now having even more trouble getting to the math+reading part of their education are going to make it to afterschool classes run by sprout or parts and crafts. Or, heck, we could just turn them into condos!

Do you know that the Healey School curriculum is the same progressive methodology advocated by the proposed charter school?

This strikes me as the weakest of the arguments against the charter school. If the curricular approach that the charter school parents want was already available at the Healey, the founders would have no reason to want to create the charter school.

Thanks!

It will expand the options for families. Rather than having just one dual language program that they have to compete to get into, there will now be two, each with their own different approach.

You don't see how amazingly awesome a democratically run school, where children are valued for who they are as unique individuals with different needs and interests, and supported in becoming creative, with a special focus on science and languages, using the STEM ideals? And with a goal of serving immigrants in East Somerville?

I mean, this certainly is a challenge to make it really work, but it's dramatically different from anything a mainstream school offers, that are run with an authoritarian approach and kids are all expected to "behave" and "obey the teacher" and do everything pretty much in whatever way the teacher decides they should. I think a progressive school (rather than the mainstream conservative approach) is something many, many families will very much appreciate, and it will help Somerville's young people grow up far more beautifully, so that they can be their best, unique selves.

I was once a resident of Somerville; I still work in Davis Square; I am a member of an organization in Davis Square; At one point our goal was to be able to move back to Davis Square...though this last year has made me question that goal significantly. I have friends that are more like family who reside in Somerville and Davis that I visit often.

So yes. I do have a slightly vested interest in the square. Thank you for enquiring.

I hope full more FULL schools, filled with MORE than just conservative, authoritarian type programs (which I know some folks, apparently like you, want, so go ahead and keep some space for them for those who want it), that include programs run by anyone and everyone who has experience teaching. Why force all kids into a limited program, when they could have a choice of what kinds of programs meet their needs best? Why not let kids go to an authoritarian math class for an hour with their favorite mainstream teacher, and then next hour they go play with Aurduinos that collect data on garden health with Sprout, and then next hour they create a kinetic walking sculpture to exhibit as science-art in a public park with Parts and Crafts, and then next hour they make a documentary about politics with SCAT, and then next hour they collaborate on a literary journal with Pagan Kennedy, and so on!

And most normal, healthy folks care especially about the places they have lived, worked, and visited even more than average.

Also, many of us care about the kids we are related to or friends with in Somerville.

It will be a truly progressive, rather than the usual authoritarian/conservative approach, that is actually democratic. There are very few democratic schools in the world, so this would be revolutionary for Somerville! The application is fairly mild mannered sounding so I imagine that you could not understand the vast implications of such a unique approach of respecting and valuing the child's unique needs and interests, but trust me, it's a huge difference compared to mainstream schools.

So the city is just moving money around from schools that aren't serving the kid's needs to ones that are. Thats a good thing.

They definitely turn kids away. I know two families who wanted to get into the Unidos program but didn't get in, because it was already full. Adding another school to the system would very likely solve this problem.

> > Actually its more like "if we can get this charter passed, we can have our own private school and not have to pay for it....screw the rest of 'em".

> Do you seriously want to publicly say something like that about people

Having observed them and heard of their behavior recently, that's exactly how I would characterize them. At a PTA meeting someone recently asked a SPCS (the new charter) supporter giving info at a table, why they didn't want to send their kids to the existing charter school and their response was "Have you seen that place, it's a sea of black faces".

They've sneaked this proposal through without involving the community or making substantive attempts to involve the city and the school committee. A huge number of the very active and civically involved parents in the city were completely blindsided by this. They're trying to steamroll it through without concern for the rest of the community. There are other options whereby they could start a charter under the umbrella of the school committee, but they are butt-hurt that they didn't get their way at the Healy and that is why they are saying "screw you guys, we'll do it anyway, at a heavy cost to the rest of the community". I would not trust any child of mine with these inexperienced dogmatic control freaks.

If there are fewer students in each school, you can open those extra classrooms up to other educational programs, open to all community members, including kids. Rather than having just one option in each school, encourage a whole variety if community-focused programs to share the school space, so that kids have more diversity of options for learning. For example, the excellent King Open School of Cambridge got it's start as one room in the regular King School. Somerville could do the same kind of thing, sharing the public buildings with the public for MORE diversity of education. This way kids still get to walk to their local schools, and still be able to get the kind of education that works best for them, and they even could have the option to go to different programs each day, truly giving them the best education possible.

You're trying to claim that a school INTENTIONALLY designed and aimed at serving immigrants is racist? Seriously?

And since the superintendent has already clarified his belief that nothing needs to be changed to meet the needs of these families, then obviously it would be moronic to try to work with the school system to fix the problem. DIY is the best way.

Maybe there is a bit of racism in that one person, but this democratic charter school is the most liberal thing I've ever seen in Somerville, so really, I think you are more likely making it up.

> You're trying to claim that a school INTENTIONALLY designed and aimed at serving immigrants is racist? Seriously?

Nothing of the sort. Don't twist my words. Firstly, I'm not claiming they're all racist. Secondly, you can be racist against blacks while supportive of immigrants; you don't have to be white anglo to be racist either.

However, this school is definitely not "designed and aimed at serving immigrants". The ELL aspect of the school is *inferior* to that which is currently in Somerville schools, and was tacked on late to give the proposal some weight and chance of success. I think this list archive is open to the public: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/somerville-4-schools/message/3862

> This democratic charter school is the most liberal thing I've ever seen in Somerville

Really!? The most liberal. It's utterly anti-liberal. Don't be lead astray by the "Progressive" in the name - that's a 100 year old educational term and is nothing to do with progressive politics. It's removing education from the control of democratically elected school boards to put public money in private hands. It calls itself "democratic" but then puts hurdles in the way of that democracy (can't run for office without spending time in the classroom) which will make elected office primarily for upper-middle class parents. It's all about dividing the school system into a two tier system for the haves and have-nots - leaving the SPS to pick up the pieces.

Try to see past the propaganda of the proposal and the proposers. For an excellent outline of why this is not the most liberal thing *anyone* has seen recently, read this excellent post: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/somerville-4-schools/message/3851

Can you point me to the source that the charter school will have a dual language program, equivalent in quality to Unidos? I thought they were offering 1/2 hour of language instruction a day, plus an optional after school program.

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Proposed new charter school

Re: Here's a litte more info for balanced reporting. :-)

Re: Watch Waiting for Superman!

Re: Here's a litte more info for balanced reporting. :-)

no subject

Somerville's MCAS scores

Re: Watch Waiting for Superman!

Re: Not sure why the name calling, but...

Re: I don't see an application listed there...

Re: This program is one of the good ones...

no subject

Re: The school system is failing the families of those who are working to create this new school.

OK, confirmation: ONLY Somerville residents can attend the school

Why it will help...

Really?

Re: Not sure why the name calling, but...

Expanding the shools to allow for MORE diversity is good, in my opinion.

We all live on planet Earth, thus we all care about what happens here. :-)

Did you get a chance to read the proposal? It's wonderful!

The charter school is a public school.

Somerville schools aren't "true" public schools by your own definition.

Re: Seriously?

Don't close the schools, OPEN THEM UP!

Seriously, Seriously?!

Re: Seriously, Seriously?!

is the charter really dual language?