Flying solo

Part 4

Education by Yvonne Abraham

The Boston public schools scored quite a coup this year. Linda Nathan and Tom Payzant convinced Deborah Meier, who started the revolutionary Central Park East School, in East Harlem, to come to Boston and start a pilot school. Meier heads the Mission Hill School, with 100 students grouped by age rather than grade and taught in small classes.

But when her school opened a couple of months ago, Meier, a nationally acclaimed educator whose presence is arguably one the most powerful signs of hope for the Boston Public Schools, had to take the doors off closets and use them as tables till the real ones came. She'd ordered them in the spring, but the request took months to fill. The chairs, part of the same order, still haven't arrived.

Principals all over Boston complain about the public school system's bureaucracy, about the way the mountains of paperwork, the archaic purchasing processes, and the constant requests for reports get in the way of educating kids. Pilot schools were supposed to be free of the red tape, so they could concentrate on education: they were supposed to have autonomy. Fat chance, say their directors. The city hasn't come through for them here, either.

The Mission Hill School, like the Young Achievers Academy, must rent its space from the Catholic archdiocese, but the red tape bothers Meier even more than her lack of a permanent home. "The supply question has been more distressing," she says. "It's so time-consuming. We ought to be able to order directly, but they haven't worked that out. I just moan and groan. Right now we're trying to figure out how five- and six-year-olds are going to eat without trays. This weekend, I'm just going to go to a store and buy them myself."

Following the old rules is often more expensive, too. "See this?" asks Fuentes, pointing to the greenish-gray rug in his tiny office. "I had to use city contractors to do this rug, and the rugs in the next two rooms. It cost me $4000. I could have gotten it done for $900 cheaper."

And if autonomy comes at all, it comes at a high cost. "Being free from regulation and bureaucracy seems to take more time, more negotiation, more effort than just being a part of the regular system," says one director. "When you don't want to do something, you have to call somebody and have a conversation about why not."

The school department counters that the pilots' pain is just part of their responsibility to help improve the system for everyone. "I acknowledge that they've had their frustrations," says Payzant. "And some are understandable. On the other hand I see some real value in the pilot schools working together as a group and identifying problems, and coming up with some solutions." Next month, the pilot schools will bring forward a set of recommendations about fiscal autonomy, which they've been working on for over a year. "My hope is that they'll come up with some changes we can make through the whole system," Payzant says.

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