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

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

If you want to know what they really are trying to do, rather than making assumptions about what they want, ask them. :-) There seems to be a whole lot of jumping to conclusions, rather than actually trying to learn what these folks want and trying to help them get it in a healthy way.

"SPCS will expand our city’s educational options by offering a fully progressive, democratic school that is designed to meet the needs—and capitalize on the strengths—of Somerville’s large immigrant population."

Seems pretty much in the basic goal of the school. Plus, since it's a democratic school where the kids get to make decisions it's clear that, at least in theory, that every kid would get the kind of environment that best serves their own unique intersts and needs.

Again, this is a huge challenge to pull of, but it's at least a worthy goal that is better than mainstream authoritarian/politically governed schools.

I have been talking to them and following the discussions.

I started out neutral and interested, but every new bit of information I discover has led me to be suspicious and now hostile to their intents. My utter lack of confidence in them and their ability to run a school would be enough on its own for me to object. However, the damage, division and inequity it brings to the city's school system adds to my misgivings.

It's only very recently they've put content on their website in response to the outcry over their secrecy with which they have been trying to push this through. They deny any secrecy, but as I said, the sheer numbers of involved parents who were completely unaware of this application belies that.

"Pig Kitchen! Lard in every meal!" made me laugh. Thank you!

But there won't. The SPCS as desscribed would NOT have a dual language program. It will have optional afterschool enrichment programs in French, Spanish and Portuguese.

I don't believe that they can do it, or even that the details of their proposal match the "amazingly awesome" description.

The words about the ELL program, for instance, sound promising, and then it turns out that what is actually offered/described is incredibly limited, and that making it "really work" by getting the kids they target to not have barriers to attending the school in the first place is a BIG DEAL to me. Nice language in a somerville journal article is one thing, reality of what they can offer to who is quite another.

I'm sending my child to a progressive school that is part of the Somerville Public School system, that I do think is up to the challenge of making that work over the next 8+ years, and that is already supporting my child in being creative and valuing her as a unique individual. And it's serving a diverse immigrant community, too.

And compared to that school, the proposal is not dramatically different from where I the future of our school, and I don't have any confidence that they can implement it, make it work, and actually serve the kids they say they want to serve.

Thanks. I hope you are able to return to live here, if you want to.

"In the lower grades, students will have a minimum of 105
minutes each day of ELA"

Also, remember this is a democratically run school, so what the parents, teachers, and students want, collectively, is what they will do.

Plus, they specifically say they offer afterschool programs to help work with students in three different non-English languages.

If you really are happy with the status quo of your kid's school, great! These people aren't. And they are taking the responsibility for making their kid's education good enough. That's the kind of thing I hope everyone supports. Don't expect someone else to do things for you, do it yourself. Take responsibility for your life and what the world is like. Rather than complaining to others, be the change you want to see.

I'm sure you agree that this is better than families being forced into a school that doesn't work for them, and better than complaining about it. :-)

> Why force all kids into a limited program, when they could have a choice
> of what kinds of programs meet their needs best?

Because that choice is only available to a few of them, and honestly, that choice is already available to a few of them. I want more diversity, but not at the expense of any viable options for educating the kids whose parents *don't* have time to argue endless about this on internet forums, and who have heard of Sprout, Arudinos, kinetic sculptures, and parts and crafts. Bring Parts and Crafts to the open elementary school (wait, wait, I believe that's already been done, yay Parts and Crafts!) Don't shut one down so that you can rent it to them so that only families that look like mine can go learn there in all sorts of ways, in their own languagues, and with evolving programs that bring Arduinos (ok, maybe just Lego Mindstorms) to their classrooms.

I'm fortunate enough that I can do all of that with my kid, but part of why I choose to participate in the public schools is to share what I can with the entire community, not take away from them .

Seriously, you were not talking about expanding the schools, you were talking about shutting *down* schools because Somerville needs more empty buildings to turn into fabulous pony-and-flower-filled fantasy world of learning and hacking that wouldn't be open to everyone or even necessarily provide more than an hour of stuff to do a day. That's reducing options, and extremely important ones in my book.

Unless you have a fantasy proposal for how all kids are going to get afforded the chance to do any of this cool stuff, instead of just yours or mine?

Yup, that'd be the French, Spanish, and Portuguese afterschool enrichment I mentioned.

ELA is the currently used acronym for "English and Language Arts" -- What your schol growing up might have called reading or language or English class depending on grade level, decade, and what sort of school you went to. That's not unique to whether kids are learning English as a second language, proficient in English, native speakers, or what. And it's certainly not a dual-language immersion program.

Why are you ignoring what I say? Is there a reason you want to believe I've ever said anything about shutting down a school? Because clearly (if you read what I've said, it's obvious that I'm saying the opposite).

My goal is for every kid to have all these choices. Period. MORE diversity, as I said. You seem to want less. You don't want people to have the option to have another school, run differently, by people who really want to create a school. Clearly having another option, just as open and availble to everyone as the current schools, is good for Somerville. But you don't seem to want more diversity. You want people to be forced into using only what's currently available. That's pretty mean, if you ask me.

If you really want all kids to have all of these options, then encourage your own school to allow outside programs to use the building, for free, using any empty space that happens to be there. Alas, without the unions going away, it won't happen. So for now, creating a new school, free of those restrictive unions, is the best option.

I'm not happy with the status quo of my school when it can no longer find funding for an art teacher, a music teacher, etc, or with the status quo of some other school that's likely to get shut down in addition, and which serves kids who can't just pick up and go to a different one nearly as easily once the one in their neighborhood closes.

It's not just that I'm happy with it (which I am, right now) - I'm quite positive there are things that I will want to see changed over the next decade and a half and that I'm going to be part of changing them - it's that I believe it serves our ENTIRE community and I believe it is vitally important to keep free and public school options that serve our ENTIRE community open, well-funded, and available to all.

And no, actually, I don't want my child in a conservative, authoritarian program. I just also don't want her in a class-segregated one.

I'm in the same boat as

alterfer. sounds good on the surface, but then the more you dig, the more you read, the more divisive it gets.

I'm not ignoring what you say. You said it, right up there, in the same thread that my comment is nested under, even: http://davis-square.livejournal.com/2793736.html?thread=31531784#t31531784

(

turil wrote: And yes, the mainstream schools will lose funding, but they will also have fewer kids to serve, thus evening things out fairly well. And empty school spaces can be turned into more open ended community spaces that serve the city even more. Creating maker spaces, continuing ed classrooms (there's a huge shortage of public spaces for teaching in Somerville!), and even funky things like Sprout, Parts and Crafts, and perhaps non-profit incubators.)

I don't want THESE people to run THIS school with the money that should SERVE EVERYONE. I want more options, but I want them to not be one of those for-profit evil charter schools companies AND not to be something else that strikes me as equally damaging to our community.

I'm about 15 minutes away, so I return often enough, just haven't moved back to live. ;)

SPS as a whole does not turn away kids. It will, and must, always assign a kid who lives in the school district to a school in the school district, and if that kid needs a particular sort of language learning assistance or special education assistance, it will (and must) provide it.

Adding another option will certainly change the dynamic of how students find schools, but I don't think you can model or predict how it will affect students getting to attend the school they most wanted. Within the district schools, that is differnt each year - did more parents want/need programs at Kennedy and a school with a swimming pool? A growing Union Square neighborhood school at Argenziano? A progressive program at Healey with mixed-age groups, looping, and a strong emphasis on creativity? A small old-fashioned brick school building with traditional education at Brown? A walking-distance school serving East Somerville? West Somerville? Winter Hill? etc? Some schools are consistently oversubscribed and hold a lottery, some vary every year. But any child who needs ELL education will be provided it, even if they don't get Unidos. And I will reiterate that I don't think that the language program in the charter proposal is anything like the bilingual program at Unidos.

It's not really adding another school to the "system" - it would be dding a separate admissions/lottery process open to residents of the same town, not adding an option (as in, rank your programs out of 7 choices - now you get 8 instead.) Many kids might, to take your example, apply to both UNIDOS and to SPCS, or to both Healey and to SPCS, and get a yes/no placement in SPCS, and then a school that might or might not have been their first choice in SPS, and then both the district and the charter school would have to reshuffle once the family's choice was made.

Also, in terms of adding options - I anticipate that will probably be a zero-sum addition unless a lot of additional funds appear out of the sky - one charter option appears, and one elementary option disappears, once the budget implications level out.

Are you really suggesting that you would support *any* charter school proposal whose proponents were eager and believed in what they were doing?

Of course I am not happy with the status quo of my kid's school; that school is changing and evolving over time (as all decent schools arguably should). I would like to help *that* school become the best it can become. This will be harder if there is less funding for that school, or fewer children from middle-class families, or fewer engaged parents. *That* is the change I want to be a part of. Does that mean that I will oppose any charter school proposal in Somerville? No, of course not. But it does mean that a new charter should demonstrate to me why it will be *better* than what we have now or could have soon.The SPCS has so far failed to do so for me. I understand you disagree; that does not mean I approve of your condescension.

[I'm starting a stopwatch to see how soon someone suggests that I should be supporting the SPCS because otherwise we will end up with a worse charter.]

Where do you think we can find funding for this? =( I don't think significant tax increases are politically feasible; I hope I'm proven wrong about this.

Also, particularly for students in the lower grades, switching to a new teacher on a daily basis is IMO not the best option. Or yearly. =) And how could we possibly schedule it in a sane way?

Er, where do you think you saw this confirmed? I didn't see anything about it in the application, but the SPCS web site says this:

Who is eligible to attend?
All resident of Massachusetts are eligible to attend a State charter school. Realistically, since Somerville residents will have enrollment priority, most if not all students will be Somerville residents.

http://www.thespcs.org/home/faqs

FYI, Bill Shelton's column in the News seems to cover both sides of the argument fairly well:
http://www.thesomervillenews.com/archives/21276

I have to disagree. A bunch of butthurt parents throwing a hissy fit where, if they succeed, they'll actually make the problem worse? Disastrous.

Here's my problem:

1) This will take exactly the same amount of tax dollars.

2) It will not solve the stated problem, which is that the Somerville school system, shockingly, does not do that great on the MCAS. Gee, I wonder if that's the school system, or tied to, say, the fact that not every kid in the system speaks English as a first language, or class size, or any of a number of problems that have been found to be major factors in standardized test performance.

Nope, it's right there in their FAQ:

"Like all charter schools, enrollment will be determined by a lottery in early March. Preference will be given to Somerville residents, though all Massachusetts residents may apply. Within each of these larger groups, the lottery will be entirely random with no student receiving any advantage."

Now, I think this is a crock, myself, but if that's the way it's supposed to be run, how the hell is this going to do anything except privilege the lucky few and screw the rest by depriving them of resources?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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Proposed new charter school

These questions should be asked of the organizers.

Re: is the charter really dual language?

Re: These questions should be asked of the organizers.

no subject

Re: Why it will help...

Re: Really?

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

Then what is...

OK, so don't send your kid there.

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

Re: Then what is...

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

Re: OK, so don't send your kid there.

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

Re: These questions should be asked of the organizers.

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

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

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

Re: OK, so don't send your kid there.

Re: Don't close the schools, OPEN THEM UP!

Re: OK, confirmation: ONLY Somerville residents can attend the school

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject