Flying solo

Boston's pilot schools raise an interesting question: how committed is this city to fixing education, really?

Education by Yvonne Abraham

Fifteen third-graders, bundled up against the cold, are playing freeze tag outside the Young Achievers Academy, in Mission Hill. The game doesn't last long: the blacktop that passes for the school's playground is only slightly bigger than the average suburban driveway, and the kids can't run far. In less than 10 minutes, all but a few of them are standing still, loudly egging the others on, their breath visible. They might have played in the basement cafeteria, but the kids from Mission Grammar, the Catholic school from which Young Achievers leases classroom space, are already down there, playing basketball. Big silver trash cans, propped up on furniture, serve as hoops.

Space is tight throughout the school: the girls have a single bathroom, also shared with Mission Grammar, and there's only one working washbasin in it. Next year, Young Achievers will add another grade (as it has done in each of the last two years), and the school will need to negotiate to rent more classrooms. And even if they get those extra rooms, the whole school might be homeless next year anyway, when its lease is up.

And yet parents are clamoring to get their kids in here: the waiting list for Young Achievers is 250 names long. The academy is a pilot school, one of 11 innovative schools authorized by the school department, the school committee, and the Boston Teachers' Union since the spring of 1994 in the interest of bringing change to the deteriorating Boston public school system. Free of most union and district rules, the pilot schools can choose their own teachers and set their own hours. They were designed to find new ways of educating, to pioneer models that could be adopted by the entire system.

But despite the good work the pilot schools are doing, the city has not backed them up. They are plagued by facilities problems. They must battle daily for the autonomy they were promised. And the rest of the school system isn't taking up the lessons they can provide: lessons on reconfiguring the school day, on nurturing enthusiasm among teachers, on getting through to kids beyond the reach of traditional approaches. The city is in danger of squandering the hope the pilot schools offer, and of ducking the radical change they represent.

But the school system needs that change, and fast. Most of this city's 123 schools have been consistently shortchanging their students for more than a decade. Test scores are alarmingly low, truancy and dropout rates alarmingly high. Kids have been shunted from one grade to the next regardless of whether they are qualified. Parents who can afford the choice take their kids out of the public school system -- or out of the city altogether -- when the students reach middle-school age.

Both Mayor Thomas Menino and Schools Superintendent Thomas Payzant have promised action, and they've promised it soon. Every year without reform sends another class of disastrously unprepared kids into the real world: there's no time for modest, incremental change. The clock is ticking.

Since pilot schools began three years ago, they have been helping a wide range of students, from gifted kids to those the system had given up on. The schools offer longer days and smaller classes, specializations in science or performing arts, committed teachers and involved parents. Where test scores are available, they're good. Attendance and enthusiasm at the pilots are higher than in most schools.

But each one has a long waiting list: pilot schools serve only 1500 of Boston's 65,000 students. The rest must make do with schools of varying quality. Some are every bit as good as the pilot schools; most don't even come close. So hundreds of parents, even some who could choose private schools, are hankering to get their kids into the pilots. The experiment is working. Which makes it all the more puzzling that the city hasn't let more people in on it.

On to part 2

Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham[a]phx.com.