New Idea: “Parent Teams” applying to a single school
Posted: October 4th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 6 Comments »
Hi folks.
I’ve never heard of this idea before. I’d like to see it tried out.
Context is this. I blogged earlier this week that BPS is considering new ways of assigning kids to schools. A group of city councilors came up with an alternative plan. One aspect of their plan is called “Parent Compacting.”
Q: How does parent compacting work and why is it in the plan?
A. Parent Compacting allows 2-11 families to choose a designated “under-selected” school anywhere in the city and apply to that school as one group. This will allow families who have established relationships via their neighborhood, pre-school, daycare, or faith community to bring new energy to schools that are struggling, and maintain those connections, even if they don’t live in the same neighborhood.
Has anyone ever heard of this idea happening elsewhere?
I can imagine concerns.
For example, I’d hate to be one parent with some ideas on how a classroom should work if those ideas competed against a posse of 11 other parents working together. And to be specific: the most likely Gang of 11 is a well-intentioned, professional, highly-educated, high-social-capital, self-described “progressive” parents from Jamaica Plain….including many of my friends!
So the single, low-social capital mom living in poverty — the median BPS parent — would be at a power disadvantage. I observed some of this when I was on the board of a BPS pilot school.
And I can imagine a teacher feeling bullied by the “Gang of 11.”
However, I can also imagine common sense protections and preemptive moves to limit these concerns. You’d have to execute beautifully in this regard, but it could be done.
One key component, I believe, is explicit parent choice for all the “individuals” who aren’t in the Parent Compact, combined with absolute transparency. That is, nobody should assign your kid to a teacher and a Parent Compact. You should get to meet those specific parents, and decide if you want your kid in that classroom, with plausible alternatives.
And the upside seems big. REALLY big. In fact, this seems like the best new idea I’ve heard in years.
I can easily imagine many middle-class families who move to the ‘burbs when Junior has his 3rd birthday instead building a Parent Compact, staying, and getting heavily involved in helping all the kids in the classroom, not just theirs. And the racial integration opportunities to me seem to exceed the challenges.
Readers: feel free in the comments to describe how this idea has already been tried elsewhere and failed miserably! (I figure if it had been tried and succeeded, I would have heard of it…)
I don’t think it means that all 11 kids would be in the same room…I would guess that most schools (except tiny ones like the Mozart) would have at least two K2 classrooms, so the kids would be spread out. Or am I reading this wrong? I think parents are allowed to choose into a school, but not a class.
In general, I think the Connolly plan is very, very thoughful (and comprehensive), but I still think it disadvantages low-income kids because there will still be higher concentrations in most of their home schools vis a vis the ones in West Roxbury or the newly proposed one in Back Bay.
I also think that if this plan comes anywhere near fruition – and looks like even a partial success, Connolly is the next mayor of Boston.
One other thing…this has been happening in an ad hoc way for years. Schools like this are the Hurley, the Philbrick, the Manning, the Haley, and the Mendell. However, while it may have changed overall test data (white, upper income kids tend to score well where ever), I don’t think there have been much change in the data for the low income kids in those schools…but that’s a rough sense, rather than based on any hard data. Can you get your data hounds on looking at low income SGP at elementary schools? [Confounding this issue is the whole Advanced Work thing moving tons of kids around the year after they start taking MCAS in third grade. And moves the concentrates the strongest performers in new schools].
Paul, the FAQ section on the plan’s website seems to suggest the 11 number was b/c it’s half of 22…ie one classroom.
Yep, I’m with you that the osmosis idea (poor kid next to middle class kid) doesn’t deliver much value.
Instead, I think the opportunity is if you can get 10 moms to each commit to two mornings a week of tutoring, you’d have the potential to get 60 hours per week of high-dosage tutoring for a single class.
However, I’m likely projecting my own strong biases: towards a very deliberate desire to provide concrete, “during the day,” measured, high-dosage tutoring in 1-on-1 and 1-on-2 ratios.
I.e., I probably think “Wow, lots of potential volunteer tutors who could be deployed so less teacher-driven remediation is needed.”
Or in hindsight: have “tutoring hammer,” and so everything is a nail.
The basic idea is to get a critical mass of middle class kids in a classroom. This is actually why many middle class families move to older, inner-ring, diverse suburbs w/lower tax bases: you can have a classroom atmosphere that isn’t too far from what you’re comfortable with, without feeling you’re fleeing from those who are not like you. Not sure the tutoring part is so necessary — I’ve been that tutor, and it didn’t seem to help the kids read much better. Maybe the teachers didn’t have the time or resources to make sure the content of the tutoring was on target. Maybe the real issue is not word attack skills or vocab but something more like Core Knowledge concerns.
Isn’t this like how the Freshman at Harvard apply to Houses in blocks? Freshman can enter the housing lottery in blocks of up to 8. It’s an interesting idea. Haven’t quite thought through all the systemic implications, though.
Several people I know have forwarded me news of this proposal, as I recently published a book, Gentrification and Schools, that recommends trying this very idea. I call them Urban Education Cooperatives (they are essentially the same idea with different framing and details) and I hope they are put into place in Boston so we can all see how they play out in reality. They are a possible way to solve the collective action problem that prevents parents from making a choice for the public good (in my research, the public good is integrating a segregated school) because of their inability to solve a problem as just one family.