Roslindale Mom Investigates School Options

A newish blog called Braving the BPS Lottery, written by a Roslindale mom, is tackling the drama of figuring out how to pick a public school in Boston for her little one. Geeky Mom, as she refers to herself, is exploring different options, including, it seems, charter schools. The writing is solid, and I'm guessing it will be interesting to follow the process from the perspective of a parent. She also does a nice job of keeping a calendar of upcoming events for those parents starting to investigate and enroll kids in schools. You can find the blog here.

RadioBoston Talks Charters

RadioBoston, the weekly WBUR show, featured the charter school debate as their main piece yesterday (with a nice piece on Camp Harbor View, where a number of my studens went this summer, to wrap up the hour). Not much new for those in the know, but a good overview of the arguments on both sides for newbies. A couple of quick thoughts:

No appearance by BTU president Richard Stutman. He declined to appear, which is odd since he normally takes any chance to attack charter schools. I'm curious if anyone knows why he would have sat this one out.

While there was lots of support from Paul Grogan of the Boston Foundation, and Mitchell Chester from the DESE, there was very thin coverage of actual charter schools. There was a small bit on Edward W. Brooke Charter School in Roslindale, including a short interview with guestblogger Kimberly Steadman, and a teacher. However, there was no appearance by Jim Peyser, who is leading the ballot initiative to lift the cap, Marc Kenan, from the Charter School Association, or any other actual charter schools.

Candidate Analysis

The September 22nd primary is coming up fast, so it seems like a good time to see where the candidates for Mayor and City Councillor sit in regards to charter schools.

Mayoral Race

The incumbent, Mayor Tom Menino, is proposing an expansion of charter schools that would be run by the Boston Schools Committee. His plan allows the BSC to take over the lowest performing schools in the district and convert them to charter schools with new leadership and no unionized teachers.

Sam Yoon supports lifting the cap under a proposal that he refers to as a "smart cap." This model, which he pushed before Gov. Deval Patrick picked up the idea, would only allow high achieving schools to replicate.

Michael Flaherty supports lifting the charter school cap, among many other school reform ideas. Flaherty references the Harvard charter/pilot school study in this campaign literature.

Kevin McCrea does not support lifting the cap on charter schools.

City Councillor At Large

There are a lot of candidates, so I'll group them by their positions, or lack thereof:

Supports Expansion
John Connolly (Incumbent)
Robert Fortes
Sean Ryan - also supports vouchers

Supports
Ego Ezedi
Hiep Nguyen

No Comment
Felix G. Arroyo
Doug Bennett
Tomas Gonzalez
Tito Jackson
Andrew Kenneally
Stephen Murphy
Ayanna Pressley
Jean-Claude Sanon
Bill Trabucco
Scotland Willis

Kennedy to be Honored (Perhaps)

Health Careers Academy, a Boston Horace Mann charter school, will be renamed after Senator Kennedy, pending approval by the state Board of Ed.