Discussion about the proposed Brockton charter school, which would have served a minority-majority city, centered on a 2005 Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) letter that identified problems at SABIS’ Springfield school.ĭays after the new charter school’s application was rejected, a 2006 DESE letter surfaced that said the Springfield school had successfully addressed all material issues raised in the earlier letter. In 2008, a school that would have used this model became the first charter proposal recommended for approval by the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education to ever be rejected by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. News and World Report and Newsweek as one of the nation’s best high schools.īut attempts to extend the opportunity we provide to more urban students in Massachusetts have been thwarted. The SABIS International Charter School in Springfield has repeatedly been recognized by U.S. Toward that goal, I work in a school that implements the SABIS model that is used in three Massachusetts charter schools and has been the driving force behind getting every graduate from those schools accepted to college. I also see educational opportunity for all as the fulfillment of everything for which my husband fought. I’m not against teachers’ rights or teachers unions, but they too often protect teacher wrongs. Despite charter schools’ outstanding performance, a recent effort to raise the statewide charter cap failed in the face of entrenched resistance from teachers unions and the education establishment. A Stanford University study found that the commonwealth has the nation’s best charters, and that Boston charter schools are doing more to close race- and poverty-based achievement gaps than any other group of public schools in the country.īut to paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, we still have miles to go before we sleep. In Massachusetts, charter schools are realizing my husband’s dreams. After the Ku Klux Klan bombed his home on Christmas in 1956 in retaliation for his efforts to desegregate Birmingham’s buses, he said, “God gave me a hard skull because he knew I lived in a hard town.” King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, the March on Washington, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.įred was arrested 38 times and survived several attempts on his life. It was the Birmingham Campaign’s Project C (for confrontation) that led to images of young African-American students being knocked down with high-pressure fire hoses, Dr. King, “As Birmingham goes, so goes the nation.” and the SCLC to join the campaign to desegregate Birmingham, then, perhaps, America’s most segregated city. Fred Shuttlesworth, saw educational opportunity for all as the fulfillment of the civil rights dream to which he dedicated his life.Īs a founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and a Birmingham, Alabama pastor, he led marches against segregated lunch counters and helped organize perilous Freedom Rides through the South. To many, it’s become a cliché to describe education reform as the civil rights issue of our time. Pioneer Young Professionals (PYP) Networkīy Sephira Shuttlesworth (This op-ed originally appeared in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette on Nov.Book: U-Turn: America’s Return to State Healthcare Solutions.Pioneer Institute’s Life Sciences Initiative.Common Core National Education Standards. ![]() BOOK: A Vision of Hope – Catholic Schooling in Massachusetts.
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