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More Boston high school students would be able to attend classes on college campuses. Parents would be able to send their young children to popular Montessori schools without paying private school tuition. And students of all ages would have more opportunities to learn art and music.
Those are among the ambitious plans Superintendent Carol Johnson unveiled last night during her first major policy address before the School Committee. Hoping to entice parents to enroll their children in public schools, Johnson called simultaneously for increasing accountability to ensure there are improvements among struggling students while expanding programs for the highest achievers.
"Families of all incomes, races, languages, or backgrounds want the best for their children," Johnson said in front of a standing-room-only crowd. "Unless [the school system] is perceived as offering a broader array of exemplary schools and programs of choice, parents have and will make choices outside of Boston public schools."
It was unclear how much Johnson's initiatives will cost and how she will pay for them. Boston faces a projected $12.8 million deficit in its more than $818.5 million budget, which includes federal money. Johnson is expected to release budget recommendations next week.
"We must be mindful of our fiscal situation," she said, adding that she was working to incorporate her agenda into the fiscal 2009 budget.
Johnson, who took over the 57,000-student system in August, faces myriad challenges. Boston schools have lost more than 7,000 students since 2000. Nearly 20 percent of students drop out, and the four-year graduation rate is a dismal 58 percent.
The system is also plagued by wide gaps in achievement between different groups of students. Less than half of the city's black and Hispanic 10th-graders are proficient in math and English, for example, while more than three-quarters of whites and Asians are proficient, according to 2007 MCAS results.
To target dropout and graduation problems, Johnson said last night that she would create 10 "credit-recovery schools" to run after school and during the summer so students have opportunities to make up courses. The state recently set a minimum four-year graduation standard of 60 percent.
Already Johnson has hosted a series of community forums around the city to solicit input from students, parents, and the community on how to help those at greatest risk of leaving school.
"This is a far-reaching and ambitious set of goals for the system," said John Mudd, senior project director at Massachusetts Advocates for Children. "What happens in the classroom is finally what matters in overcoming the achievement gap and bringing underperforming schools up to standard. Holding the schools and the system accountable is obviously essential, but, as people know, the devil is in the details and the implementation."
Johnson said Boston should follow the lead of some other urban school systems and attract families by creating schools that use the Montessori method, a discovery-based form of education founded a century ago by an Italian physician.
She mentioned that in meeting with community and parent groups and visiting schools over the past five months, she saw the need to expand the district's previous efforts to allow high school students to earn college credit by spending part of their day on a college campus. She also said she intends to add more college-level courses to the high school curriculum.
Following Mayor Thomas M. Menino's call for the system to better address students' physical, social, and mental health needs, Johnson proposed partnering schools with community-based organizations and city agencies. She advocated for an arts-focused middle school, as well as schools with different grade configurations.
She said she plans to address disparities in achievement between girls and boys by creating single-sex education program.
She also plans to appoint an administrator to monitor the district's 21 pilot schools, which enjoy freedom from many teacher union work rules and school system mandates.
While a recent study showed that students in pilot schools, on average, fare better than those in traditional public schools, Johnson has acknowledged in speeches that pilot schools typically enroll students who are better prepared and more motivated. The pilot school administrator would try to disseminate what is working in pilot schools to other district schools.
Johnson would create an Office of Accountability to oversee school quality, monitor the district's efforts to meet requirements under the federal No Child Left Behind law, and ensure that failing schools are improving.
She would also create a Newcomers Assessment and Counseling Center to help limited-English students new to the school system and establish an Institutional Advancement Office to better coordinate the district's fund-raising strategies.
Last night's presentation was just the first indication of Johnson's vision for the school system. She said she would release the second phase of her plans in April. Those plans would focus on school system operations, family and community outreach efforts, and long-term financial and facilities needs of city schools.
"Today, Boston public schools, the birthplace of public education in this nation, offers the best education possible for some of its students," Johnson said, adding that the system "has the capacity to offer the best education possible for all of its students."
The School Committee will have to approve the budget to fund Johnson's initiatives, and last night they voiced support.
"This report is very candid and speaks in terms that a lot of us have spoken about in private," said Michele Brooks, a School Committee member
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
