In Massachusetts, we sure do love our education reports. Especially about the Boston Public Schools. In case you missed it, last week, the Boston Foundation and the Boston Opportunity Agenda released their report: Guess what? Post-secondary outcomes are bad. The indicators of potential success? All pretty obvious. We know this already, but God bless the Boston Foundation for trying to…
GUEST OPINION: More Than Money Required to Transform Lagging Schools
This was originally published on MassLive and in the Springfield Republican. It’s nice to see these business leaders step up. We need more of this please. (Yes, EduMom is looking at you.) By Tricia Canavan and John Davis Springfield Public Schools have been improving by some measures. Yet, there is still much work to be done. Seventy-six percent of…
Parents Are Idiots: This and Other Stupid Things I Read on the Internet This Weekend
I read a lot of dumb things on internet. The dumbest thing I’ve read on the internet this past week involves the Momo Challenge. I know, I know — you’re expecting me to join the chorus of folks giggling with glee about how stupid parents fell for the rumored urban legend. Nope. Today we’re going to discuss how ridiculous it…
Hitting the Gas on the School to Prison Pipeline: Racist Police in Springfield
Massachusetts is the hotbed of resistance to the Trump administration and home to the largest disapproval in the country based on the President’s actions on immigration, women rights and healthcare. Yet the state also has the distinction of having one the deepest racial economic divides in country on nearly every metric. There is no more of illustrative example of that…
Hundreds of Massachusetts Public School Teachers Under Investigation: Where is the Outrage?
By Zack Mazrimas, EduMom contributor Even with a master’s degree in education from a major Massachusetts teaching college, I’ve been shocked by what I’ve witnessed as a parent when it comes to our district education system and my own children. I mean, I know this stuff — so you’d think all this stuff would be a walk in the park…
Dear Administrators: You eat breakfast, don’t you? Time to make sure all your students do too.
By Ola Szczesna, Massachusetts Parents United During January of this year, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education sent out a letter calling on school superintendents and leaders of high poverty schools to implement a breakfast program for kids called Breakfast After the Bell. There were 287 schools listed in the letter from DESE, all who are considered high poverty…
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Well, lookie here! Even though Alma del Mar has been under attack by a powerful, well-funded union campaign machine for months on end — parents in New Bedford are still signing up for the chance to get a seat in droves: Alma del Mar Charter School held their enrollment lottery Wednesday night with more than 100 hopeful family, friends and…
Alma del Mar Teachers Have Had Enough of the Lies and Distortion – And EduMom is Here for It
Brittney Sousa, Middle School Academic Dean and Seventh Grade Humanities Teacher Jessica Summers, Third Grade Lead Teacher, at Alma del Mar In his February 6, 2019 piece on WBSM “Numbers Don’t Lie on Charter Schools,” Mr. Jack I. Bartholet cherry-picked information from the Commonwealth’s new (and complex) accountability system to misrepresent the learning and growth taking place in the Alma…
Mass Education Politics Blocks Children and Parents From A Powerful Public Option. Again.
By Zack Mazrimas, EduMom contributor As parents, we want to raise our children to receive a high quality education, but that may look different depending on the needs of our children. The common tie that binds us is the desire to give our children access to the right settings, resources and support that will put them on the pathway towards…
Hey! These kids CAN learn! Maybe it’s your system and not “THESE PEOPLE”?
Hot off the presses – another new Boston Globe piece about Metco: Metco students outperforming those in BPS, charter schools The Harvard report showing that on two key indicators — graduating from high school and enrolling in college, the Metco program is outperforming BPS and charters: “The four-year graduation rate for students in the Metco program was about 30 percentage…