A Tried-And-True Model For Boston's K-12 Schools
The Boston Globe
May 8, 2004
By Michael Goldstein
Boston K-12 Schools face three pressing challenges. An out-of-the-box, all-in-one solution could come from a surprising sector: medical schools.
The first challenge: City Councilors desperately seek to end busing for elementary schoolchildren without starting race riots. Eight plans are now being circulated to parents. None are decipherable without an MIT degree.
Second, Boston's superintendent wants to continue shrinking enrollment in large, often dangerous high schools and keep expanding smaller "pilot" schools. But teachers union officials have recently slowed the growth of these pilots - especially as MTA lobbying kills off competitive pressure from small, flourishing charter public schools. Third, while Boston public school choice has dramatically expanded in the last decade, critics cite distortions. Pilot schools admit fewer special-ed students. Charter public schools admit fewer limited English students. METCO is required to include Hispanics, but the program remains 86 percent African-American. Exam schools have lost court cases over admissions processes. These distortions occur, in part, because there's no easy way to understand school choices.
METCO, which buses 2,900 minority children to suburban schools, has 36 separate apply-and-wait processes in 36 school districts.
State law requires each of the 16 Boston charter public schools to have their own admissions random lotteries. An annual Boston school choice "parent expo" forbids participation by METCO and charters. So parents understand some options but not all.
There are four separate "regular public school admission lotteries" divided into four geographic "zones."
Elite schools like Boston Latin (and related nonprofit programs like Steppingstone Foundation) have various admission exam dates.
Simple, huh?
So how can med schools help?
Every March, across the nation, 16,000 graduating American medical students are simultaneously assigned, by computer, to the hospital where they will work as residents. This annual event is called "Match Day."
Economists tend to love this sort of Nobel Prize-winning methodology. It "maximizes satisfaction" - the number of young doctors and hospitals who receive their first choice, second choice, etc.
What if Boston became the first school district in the nation to adopt the med school approach - called the National Resident Matching Program - for the roughly 15,000 children citywide each year entering new elementary schools, middle schools, or high schools?
Each parent would get a single, simple form - listing every possible public school option - to rank preferences. A nonprofit like MassInc could print - in various languages - an easy-to-understand accompanying guide and offer neighborhood Q and A sessions. Meanwhile, schools like Boston Latin could still give entrance exams, and Boston Arts Academy could still audition students; they'd submit "admittees" in order of preference. Charters, METCO, and other district schools would continue to submit no preferences.
One day each spring, all kids would be placed in their new schools by the computer. This system has been perfected over 52 years by hospitals.
For example, Sarah, a Mattapan mother, might consult with her eighth grade son and then create an order of high schools: Boston Latin, Boston Arts Academy, City On A Hill Charter School, Brookline High (via METCO), Tech Boston Pilot School, Excel Academy (part of South Boston High), Brighton High, and Charlestown High.
As one of its millions of concurrent calculations on "Boston School Match Day," the computer would know, for example, that Sarah's son didn't score high enough on the Latin admissions test or pass the Arts Academy audition. The computer would then find the optimal "match" - balancing Sarah's preference list in a mathematically perfect way against all the other eighth-graders in the city.
The advantages?
Less forced busing, saving some of the $50 million transport budget.
Less race-based admission litigation, which has torn the Boston community for decades.
Compliance with No Child Left Behind federal law requiring choice for low-income parents.
Fewer fears that "connected" parents in certain schools somehow get an edge, or that poor, special ed, or limited English students have unequal access to certain schools.
Best of all, with a well-publicized Boston School Match Day, the gigantic parent demand for the charters, pilots, exam schools, and METCO will become transparent. Traditional schools where teachers work hard to build a positive culture, like English High, will be recognized. The long-term political result would be more and better choices for all.
|
2004 Headlines |
A Tried and True Model for...
|
|
