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This may be a stupid question
And that wouldn't be a first for me, why cant a school system as large and well funded as Boston create it's own exam? Don't we have enough educators to come up with one?
Takes specific expertise I assume
BPS has enormous costs to go with the $1B+ budget. Kind of like how the military doesn't build and design its own tanks.
Not a really good example,
Not a really good example, the congress passed legislation to take those capabilities (and yes the War Department did actually design and build tanks and planes once upon a time) away from DoD to protect the private sector manufacturers.
Parents in the dark with no plan
So I went to city hall website to look at time line. Test won't be selected until mid-July! That's if anyone submits a bid. I guess that means no summer exam school initiative this year? How can kids be doing test prep with no test selected yet? Would be nice if anyone at BPS bothered to communicate with parents about any of this.
So what's Cassellius's plan for selecting students for exam schools next year since they don't have any of the pieces used for old system? Used to be that terra nova was used to invite kids to summer ESI. They stopped offering terra nova with no communication to parents on how they would replace it for ESI. Now there are no real end of year grades for 5th grade students either & god knows what will happen next year. To top it all off, we're on second round of this doomed RFP. If nobody applied in first round, why would anyone apply now that things are so much worse? Denial aint just a river in Egypt.
I would bet money on a lottery for exam school admission next year. Marty Walsh has been too chicken livered to let anyone even discuss a plan for change to admissions, so now he's letting the whole admissions system crumble into the dirt just so he doesn't have to make an upopular decision. I'm sure he'll blame the lottery on somebody else. Get ready for another new superintendent.
Maybe that's part of the plan
If kids can't be doing test prep with no test selected yet, then rich kids can't get an unfair advantage over poor kids who are just as smart by having their parents pay for tutors.
Yes exactly - although it probably won't change things too much
If your child can read, write, and do math very well then they will do well on whatever test is selected and have a good chance of getting into to BLA or BLS. No extra leg up for knowing the test and studying specifically for that test. In fact, there should be a new test every year, in theory that should level playing field.
But don't fear - if you have the means, you can still hire reading, writing and math tutors for your child and give them an extra leg up that way. My guess is that this year will be very similar to other years and the race of students admitted to BLA and BLS will pretty much be the same to that of years past.
And therein lies the rub
Because you just know everybody is going to badmouth the new test maker because the only reason this could happen is the test is racist.
Btw has the Superintendent hit all the schools yet?
At least from a physical plant perspective, this is an ideal time. Hopefully, she won't need toilet paper...
The Boston Latin test wasn't
The Boston Latin test wasn't hard enough?
What's this all about.