By Felicia Gans, Globe Correspondent
April 04, 2017
A citywide partnership launched Tuesday will bring together educators from Boston’s public, charter, and Catholic schools to share effective classroom practices. Through the Boston Educators Collaborative, Boston teachers can attend free classes on a variety of topics, ranging from mathematical thinking to the impact of culture in classrooms, Mayor Martin J. Walsh and other city education leaders say.“This is one of a number of efforts underway to ensure that all students in the city have access to high-quality schools,” said Rachel Weinstein, chief collaboration officer of the Boston Compact, one of the groups organizing the collaborative.
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By Jeremy C. Fox,
JANUARY 25, 2016
DENVER — A few years ago, parents here faced a bewildering array of options when selecting their children’s schools. There were more than 60 enrollment systems within Denver Public Schools alone, and another set for the city’s charter schools, each with distinct timelines and applications.The confusion discouraged many low-income families from choosing at all, while parents with greater resources took advantage of the complexity to “game the system” in their favor, residents said.“It did not promote equity with families,” said Karen Mortimer, a Denver public education advocate. “If you were in the know, you got the better schools.”But four years after the Mile-High City adopted a common enrollment system that provides one-stop shopping for traditional, charter, magnet, and innovation schools, parents praise the ease and convenience of finding the right match.
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By Richard Heath
There will be no school closings. Charter schools will not supplant public schools.Boston's Chief of Education Rahn Dorsey and Boston Compact Chief Collaborator Rachel Weinstein made those two statements clear at the sixth in a series of neighborhood meetings this fall to test out the idea of uniform enrollment and receive feedback from parents.The meeting drew more attention than previous ones due to an article published in Esquire magazine earlier in the week that accused Boston Mayor Marty Walsh of wanting to close Boston Public Schools and move charter schools into the buildings. Walsh quickly disputed the Esquire magazine piece, calling it "...untrue and unsourced, and references meetings that the Mayor has never had."
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By Yawu Miller,
October 14, 2015
During the elementary school years, Valerie Davis’ son did well in the district school where he was assigned. But when it came time for her daughters to go to school, Davis says, none of their assignments were good enough.“Of course they didn’t get into any of the schools I picked,” she said. “I didn’t like the school they were assigned to. I called my friends who were teachers and they said, ‘No, don’t put them there.’”
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By Jennifer Smith, Reporter Staff
April 6, 2017
Boston educators are welcoming a new program to help teachers share best practices across public, charter, and Catholic schools, officials announced Tuesday.The Boston Educators Collaborative, established in partnership with the Boston Compact and Teach Plus, will use a peer-to-peer model of professional development. Selected teachers will lead free 5-week, 15-hour courses through UMass Boston, and the participants will then return to their home schools to shared what they have learned with their colleagues.
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November 20, 2015
By Emily Resnevic
Boston Compact held a Nov. 12 community meeting on unified enrollment for Boston Public Schools (BPS) where many attendees expressed outrage over possible BPS school closings and raised concerns over the unified enrollment proposal. Some attendees did support the proposal.About 100 people attended the meeting at First Church in Jamaica Plain, Unitarian Universalist (UU). Before the meeting, people outside were handing out bumper stickers with “no” over a photo of Mayor Martin Walsh and the words “Boston Compact: The Boston 2024 of Education.”
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By Maddie Kilgannon,
October 15, 2015
Sholonda Antrum of Coleman Street in Dorchester spoke about her experience with enrolling her children in school at last Thursday’s meeting at the Kroc Center. Of the proposed unified enrollment plan, Antrum says: “This will work for us.” Maddie Kilgannon photoThe first of six community meetings to discuss a proposed unified enrollment plan for public and charter schools in Boston was held last Thursday, October 8 at the Kroc Center on Dudley Street. Roughly thirty parents,
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