The city of Boston has been disappointed with some of their schools’ results over the years fro MCAS. In James Vaznis article “City unveils plan for schools” for The Globe, he discusses what the city is doing to fix this ongoing issue. The city plans to shut down many of their pilot schools, and reopen new school in their place. The schools being shut down are mostly elementary level, and I am not sure whether I agree with this. Part of me likes the idea that they are catering to at risk students and trying to improve their lives, but the other part of me wonders how they are going to make these new pilot schools a success. If the original schools didn’t work, what will they do differently? How will this improve the test scores as well as the students’ lives? I believe before they make these new schools the city needs to conduct further ideas and delve into a solid plan.
An idea that has been discussed statewide is increasing the number of hours in a school day. This was one of their ideas for these pilot schools. I believe that this could help, because giving the students a longer school day at the elementary level would help prepare in an overall increase in the number of hours students spend in school. An increase in hours at school would also help to increase the test scores, because teachers would have more time to prepare their students for the MCAS. Another positive to this idea would be that it would keep students off the streets and would hopefully set them up for a better life.
Another issue discussed in this article is how some school districts have many immigrants who do not understand English, which causes confusion in other subjects. These pilot schools could develop a strong ESL (English Second Language) program so that their students would benefit in the public schools later in life.
Overall the idea of reorganizing the pilot schools is a good idea, my only concern is how they will achieve this. Hopefully they will find a way to better the lives of those who attend these pilot schools.
