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Election roundup: Some Dems endorse Ross, Connolly goes on a bike ride
By adamg on Mon, 07/22/2013 - 9:31am
The Ward 21 Democratic Committee (Allston/Brighton, Fenway) likes Mike Ross, calling him the innovation candidate.
Speaking of Allston/Brighton, John Connolly went on a bicycle tour of the neighborhoods, which have more bike collisions than any others, this morning. Connolly says as mayor, he'd add money to the city budget for dedicated "cycle tracks."
The Jamaica Plain Gazette interviews Charlotte Golar Richie about why she wants to be mayor.
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Comments
Hardly innovative from where I stand
Trumpeting a Corporate Ed Reform policy cooked up in a think tank while doggedly ignoring parent input isn't innovative. It's upholding the status quo. We need a mayor who respects parents and can put him or herself in our shoes, rather than booting us out of our children's lives. Get real: "Lengthening the school day by two hours"? Unless Ross gets his act together soon and responds to the concerns expressed to him again and again by parents, only to be ignored, he is getting filed off as a Rahm-style corporate henchman sure to de-voice students and parents. A universally longer school day is neither needed nor wanted by all families and schools, and the city can't sustain it fiscally. The only element it is sure to benefit are the nonprofit management outfits slavering at the opportunity to implement the massive project until the funds dry up.
Cynical much?
Sheesh!
Play "Budget Hold-em" much?
Me, neither. More interested in preserving a child's right to the unfettered wonders of childhood and the sustenance of family time. If that's cynical, call me what you will. But let's not keep stripping our natural reserves of "much" quite so much.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-schwarz/citizen...
Sorry, but...
how many children do you know who have the option of spending afternoons exploring the "unfettered wonders of childhood" OR enjoying "family time?" This may be your family's scenario but you should know that it's a rare one. Most families in the BPS are working at very least until dinner time and their kids are taking part in the fairly fettered world of after-school programs, soccer, sitters, or latchkey-land--and those are the lucky ones. If you're going to tout the importance of parent input, you should have a clear understanding that parents are going to have strong and wildly diverse opinions about how their children are schooled, scheduled, disciplined, etc. and you're probably going to be unhappy with the consensus.
Big misperception
You seem to assert that parents opposed to universal ELT want to take something away from families that require wraparound services. Why?
That's picking a made-up fight. Parent like me want everyone to preserve their freedom of choice. I fork over my tax money for social services I don't require, happily, because others do need them. That's also why my childless friends are chipping in for my child's education--with their taxes. That's how our society works. We don't, on the other hand, enforce social services on people who don't require them.
Another misperception is that kids and youth with free afternoons are a rarity. Not as rare as you state. And if it were, why would you want to make this way of life completely extinct in the city?
Plenty of kids have free afternoons--parents not so much
You seem to assume that letting kids out at 2pm will be a great boon to the flocks of home-bound parents who will immediately be able to leap into the brink. Not so. As much as I wish that my child had been able to spend after-school hours either with me or with some kindly neighborhood Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, it just wasn't an option. And since when is school--or school-related activities like sports or band or study hall--considered social services? I have no argument with paying taxes for services that we don't personally use--most of us do that. But I'm saying that if you want parents to rule the roost, you have to remember that many of them will have opinions directly counter to yours.
ELT
Hi Sally,
Some parents want ELT and some don’t. I know that I am against it being mandatory. I am 100% for free, high quality afterschool. As long as families aren’t forced to do it.
I am not going to go into why it would be so disruptive for my family but it would. But I also don’t trust that it isn’t eventually going to be turned into more test preparation time. I’ve also noticed that no one is talking about how they plan to pay for the ELT. These are the things that concern me. But I do want people to have the option for after school. And I think it should be paid or subsidized.
Googie
Misstating again, why?
First, to clarify:
so·cial serv·ice
Noun
Government services provided for the benefit of the community, such as education, medical care, and housing.
Public education is a social service. I am therefore a recipient of a social service, and my child, too. It is no shame. After-school activities subsidized or covered by tax money are a social service. They are no shame, either. They are all benefits of our society that I am very proud of. We look after each other by pooling our resources. The government doles these out. When it does this well, that's good.
Regarding ELT, you're again misstating my position rather extremely. Why?
You are picking a made-up fight and creating a drama with imaginary warring factions. That makes you sound a lot like a politician sticking to talking points, or a BPS official pitting one community against another during some manufactured crisis. (Do I sound cynical again, Stevil? That'll just be the voice of experience talking.) Not saying you're either of these things, but mainly that it's a shame that level of discourse is setting our norms in town.
In your narrative, there is a conflict. The conflict is occurring between two factions of parents. First, there are the deluded or else uncaring parents who want kids tossed into the rough winds, or into the plump arms of Piggle if they are so lucky, at the end of every school day. These sorry folks, anyway, would include me, in your story.
Then there are those parents--like you--who do not want kids tossed into the rough winds and aren't so lucky as to be on babysitting terms with Piggle. These good parents are angry at selfish and out-of-touch parents like me.
This is a fable. The reality involves no conflict between parents. You want better-invested and more thoughtful after-school options so every parent who cannot pick up their child at the current end of the school day can rest assured their child is nurtured, stimulated and enriched in those hours? You have 100% of my understanding and support. I don't need these services and I really and truly don't want them. Same goes for many other families. They and I don't choose for our childred to be forced into these services. I don't understand why you wouldn't support that choice, or why you seem so determined to state that demanding parent voice regarding our afternoons means majority voice, whatever that is, must prevail. I never asked anyone before how to schedule my child's afternoons, and I don't see why I should have to now that our pols are rolling out their pitch for the shiny new ELT. I got stuff going on. It's not shiny. But it's doing us good. I also don't see why my city should burn through enormous amounts of taxpayer cash forcing families like mine into programming they don't need or want.
Aren't MOOCs replacing 80% of teachers soon, anyway?
Free and cheap on-line education courses featuring much better teachers than found in typical classrooms are the disruptive Internet technology making archaic classrooms go the way of record stores, book stores, help wanted newspaper sections, and well, most printed media. A much smaller number of remaining teachers can then individually mentor students and answer questions instead of standing up in front of a whole classroom and deliver material.
I take it you're not voting
I take it you're not voting for connolly either.
Innovation Candidate?
Har.
Universities fuel the innovation sector in this area.
Ross is at constant war with the universities.
QED
I think you mean Ross
I think you mean Ross strongly represents the clear consensus among residents that universities should consider the needs of the communities they are based in, and develop and follow a sensible institutional master plan.
That's what everyone in the district wants to see done.
cycle tracks?
geesh - it's better designed intersections in high crash areas and cycle tracks in places where people are too scared to ride with traffic. he's got it backwards!!
or - maybe he wants a cycle track in high-traffic area for the photo-op... hey connolly - how are all those bike lanes working in west roxbury?? what about the extensive network in mattapan? south dorchester? huh?