Tito slams BPS’ ‘Home Base’ assignment plan
City Councilor Tito Jackson says he is worried the city schools’ new assignment system may have left parents and students with fewer good options, and is blasting officials for not releasing promised data on its results over the past three years.
“We are potentially doing harm because we don’t know if this is the best or right way to go because we actually have not looked at what’s going on here,” said Jackson, who demanded an update by the end of the month.
Jackson and several parents criticized the school department at a public hearing last night on the “Home Base” assignment system. In 2013, Boston Public Schools switched from assigning schools based on three citywide zones to a system intended to give families options closer to their homes.
But that raised concerns people living in areas with fewer highperforming buildings would see their opportunities for placement in top-tier schools shrink, and school officials agreed to provide a yearly study of “changes in equitable access to quality seats for all students, as well as changes to academic performance and overall quality.”
Those studies were never delivered, Jackson said. Assistant Superintendent of Engagement Monica Roberts told councilors MIT academics working on the plan said the schools should wait at least three years to gather data for an “actionable” analysis, and that the switch from MCAS to PARCC testing made it hard to make an “apples to apples” comparison in academic performance.
BPS finally hired outside consultant Boston Area Research Initiative to analyze data two months ago, at a cost of $56,277. Roberts said some community members objected to BPS studying its own data and demanded a third party.
But while the schools have been collecting data without sharing it, parents have become frustrated with the system. Hyde Park Councilor Tim McCarthy said families have moved out of his district after being shuttled across the city. South Boston parent Kayla Rudder said she’s been told an open seat was available in Southie for her pre-school daughter, but her daughter was ultimately added to programs in Roxbury and Dorchester — too far away for Rudder to drive while also holding down her two jobs.
“It’s really hard deciding if I want to stay or go,” Rudder said.
Jackson said both concerns over lack of neighborhood placement and the potential for resegregating schools by neighborhood need to be addressed, and called for BPS to give the most recent information on equity and performance.
“Having the latest data is the most important — did we do better? Did we do worse?” Jackson said. “Because if we did worse, we should know that and be able to change course. Young people are not like your 401(k), you don’t get to double down next year and catch up.”