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Ironically for the entrenched interests...
I'll be paying more attention to him now.
Well that makes my decision even easier
With so many candidates in the field its difficult to know who to pick. Now that the teachers union has finally come out against someone, he's obviously the best candidate for the job. Thanks for finally providing a public benefit teachers union!
yes more charters
so our kids can be taught by underpaid, overworked, and unlicensed recent ed school graduates who eventually decamp for slightly-better paying union gigs. sounds good to me.
How about better support for children living in poverty before they reach K-1? spend a week with a new kindergarten class in one of the mixed income schools... half the kids are already reading and the other half barely know their own name - let alone colors, letters, numbers... you think this can somehow be solved by charters?
We've spent a few trillion
We've spent a few trillion dollars on that and it hasn't worked.
School are about education. Not being surrogate parents. If children are that far behind from a broken household they should be removed from that household rather than throwing more money at that household.
No, no, no
Removing children from a home is traumatic. Trauma causes developmental and educational issues. Children should only be removed in extreme cases of abuse and neglect where families aren't able to follow through with plans to turn things around.
We do NOT need to be removing children whose issue is that their parents are also poorly educated. We need to be providing quality childcare, requiring all licensed childcare providers to actually take vouchers instead of just saying they do so there's competition and the crappy ones get put out if business. We need to have Head Start actually be in compliance and have licensed teachers in all classrooms like the Feds require. Better yet, make it part of the public school system and pay the teachers accordingly. We need to have pediatricians, WIC, DTA, and everyone who sees children referring them to 0-3 early intervention for routine evaluation, not just when they're seriously concerned about autism or similar.
"Removing children from a
"Removing children from a home is traumatic" If the home is already traumatizing the children it is better to get them the heck away from it and give them a shot a normal life!
I take it you have signed up to provide those better homes?
If you have, then thank you.
If not, you can start here: http://www.adoptuskids.org/for-families/state-adop...
And, if you aren't willing to back your assertion that it is better to pull kids from homes due to lacking parental education with an offer of providing such an environment, maybe you should explain exactly where these kids are going to go once they are taken from their parents that is so much better and stable - and cheaper - than simply helping their parents help their kids? IF you say "foster care", well, thanks for playing.
How many children have you
How many children have you adopted or at least mentored?
Stop paying money to shitty parents to neglect their kids and use the money instead to fix our failing foster care system or reestablish well run state orphanages. The state is perversely subsidizing the neglect of children by throwing money at awful parents and the children deserve better than that.
No...
Most of the families who are helped by various taxpayer-funded programs are, well, helped. Most families stay together, and most kids end up doing well. We need more money and skilled people in the programs that help families become stable and build skills so they don't end up needing protective services. We also need to better train the people who routinely see families (doctors, WIC, child care providers, etc.) to assess what families need and make referrals to helpful programs. What we really need, though, is to eradicate poverty and poor education. While people in all demographics experience problems like substance abuse and mental illness, it's really folks living in poverty and with poor educational achievement who don't get better and end up with ongoing issues. Countries with less poverty and better education have less crime and less abuse.
And what the foster system needs is more stable, competent families to foster and adopt. Money into the system isn't going to do a whole lot, because the foster payments and adoption subsidies are actually quite nice. We need better awareness in the community, particularly the middle-class community, so that people are not characterizing families in the system as "awful parents" as you just did, so that more families will foster and adopt.
One really easy thing you can do to help is when people say something inaccurate about adoption, correct them. If they say adoption is expensive, let them know that adoption through the state is completely free, and families get quite a bit of federal and state financial assistance, often until the child turns 18. If they say there's a shortage of children to adopt and people wait for years, let them know that this isn't remotely accurate. If they want to meet adopted children and see how nice and normal and well-adjusted most of them are, let me know, and I can introduce them to plenty.
Yup
Because those "underpaid, overworked, and unlicensed recent ed school graduates who eventually decamp for slightly-better paying union gigs" kids do a great job in my experience taking children 2-3 years behind grade level and turning them into top performers on statewide exams in some charters. Who cares if you are a rookie or a 30 year veteran if you get results?
Like the others say - this is a feather in John's cap for the non-teacher voter - not a reason to shy away.
I agree with the second part of your statement though - but how would you suggest we fund this? a)Reduce pay and/or lay off a bunch of city employees (which ones) or b) raise taxes and which ones (good luck)? An idea without funding is the same as no idea.
yeah - most of the people who
yeah - most of the people who worked in the charters 10 years ago are now union teachers (and principals) in BPS and elsewhere - the exact same people who somehow increased exam test taking performance. so what happened? why aren't we seeing the same results in the regular public schools? I guess they all became lazy once they got tenure.
Putzman
I don't think they got lazy - I think they just ran into the BTU and Putzman making it logistically impossible to implement much of the success that is present in the charters - there are many things that go into that but I'd start with a longer school day, Saturday and summer school as necessary. That's not happening any time soon for the BTU without more pay and there isn't any spare change laying around to pay for that.
Not a "non-teacher voter"
I think that the Boston Teacher's Union has done a great job getting the idea into people's heads that if they support charter schools then they don't support Boston Public School teachers. That is simply not the case. I support BPS teachers and hope that under a new administration they will have the opportunity to work in a dynamic environment that is not constrained by the insane system that has been created by the union and entrenched BPS administrators. The teachers union and the teachers are simply not the same thing. I know many teachers who have problems with their union. I have problems with the union too. The most fundaental problem is that I think its leaders are more concerned with perpetuating the union as an institution (and their own positions) than they are representing teachers' interests or, more importantly, having the best school system in the country. I also want to make clear that I am not opposed to organized labor in general, just the BPS union.
As for the notion that new teachers at charter schools are not as good as "tenured" BPS teachers, that is laughable as proved by the results that places like the Brooks school have achieved with kids who should be failing utterly based on their social demographic statistics. Moreover, if they weren't doing a good job they would get fired, as should any teacher who isn't meeting performance metrics regardless of whether they have so called "tenure" for having stuck around for longer than others.
Brooke
I bet all the parents at the Brooke wish they didn't have to suffer with the overworked and under qualified teachers you're describing.
Oh wait, there's a huge number of applicants for seats and almost no-one leaves the school. Facts can be so difficult to shoehorn into an agenda sometimes.
Teachers can't vote
for him because most do not live in the City to begin with.
Candidates qualified for ballot 2013 Boston Municipal Elections
A list of candidates that have qualified for the ballot for 2013 Boston Municipal Elections
PRELIMINARY MUNICIPAL ELECTION - SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
Candidates that have at least 3,000 signatures verified for certification for MAYOR
NAME ADDRESS Phones Email Address
1) Felix G Arroyo Jamaica Plain 02130 617-635-4205 campaign at felixarroyo.com
2) John F Barros Dorchester 02125 617-936-7180 johnfbarros at gmail.com
2) Daniel F Conley West Roxbury 02132 617-619-4204 danconley2013 at gmail.com
4) John R Connolly West Roxbury 02132 617-323-6672 617-635-3115 john at connollyforboston.com
5) Rob Consalvo Hyde Park 02136 617-361-5733 617-828-0129 rob at robconsalvo.com
6) Martin J Walsh Dorchester 02125 617-825-4916 617-892-2765 martinjwalsh02125 at gmail.com
PRELIMINARY MUNICIPAL ELECTION - SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
Candidates that have at least 1,500 signatures verified for certification for COUNCILLOR-at-LARGE
NAME ADDRESS Phones Email Address
1) Ayanna S Pressley Dorchester 02124 617-635-4217 Ayanna.Pressley at cityofboston.gov or info at ayannapressley.com
2) Seamus M Whelan West Roxbury 02132 617-469-8734 swhelan4581 at massnurses.org
3) Michelle Wu Boston 02118 617-599-0449 michelleforboston at gmail.com PO Box 180231 Boston 02118
PRELIMINARY MUNICIPAL ELECTION - SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
Candidates that have the minimum signatures verified for certification for DISTRICT CITY COUNCILLOR
NAME ADDRESS Phones Email Address
DISTRICT ONE (200 Signatures)
4) Salvatore LaMattina East Boston 02128 617-567-0071 617-635-3200 sallamattina at gmail.com
DISTRICT TWO (200 Signatures)
5) Suzanne Lee Boston 02111 617-556-9992 617-935-1211 lee.suzanne28 at gmail.com
6) Bill Linehan South Boston 02127 617-224-6911 617-635-3203 bline77 at aol.com
DISTRICT THREE (200 Signatures)
DISTRICT FOUR (189 Signatures)
DISTRICT FIVE (200 Signatures)
7) Andrew Norman Cousino Roslindale 02131 617-469-4613 617-529-9225 a.cousino.umb at gmail.com
8) Patrice Gattozzi Hyde Park 02136 617-364-0189 pgattozzi at gmail.com
9) Timothy P McCarthy Hyde Park 02136 617-364-9971 617-548-5505
10) Mimi E Turchinetz Hyde Park 02136 617-733-8430 eveturchinetz at gmail.com
DISTRICT SIX (200 Signatures)
11) Matt O’Malley Jamaica Plain 02130 617-935-9752 heymattomalley at aol.com
12) Luis F Valerio West Roxbury 02132 617-606-5620 617-818-2342 luisvalerioforboston at gmail.com
DISTRICT SEVEN (200 Signatures)
13) Tito Jackson Dorchester 02121 781-507-3987 tito4boston at gmail.com
DISTRICT EIGHT (150 Signatures)
14) Richard J Giordano Roxbury 02120 617-739-9751 richardgiordano at verizon.net
DISTRICT NINE (166 Signatures)
15) Mark S Ciommo Brighton 02135 617-789-4693 617-635-3113 mark at markciommo.com
Request this and future email notifications...
Sabino Piemonte, Boston Election Department
One City Hall Room 241
Boston MA 02201
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fax 617-263-3024
http://www.cityofboston.gov/contact/?id=33