Algorithmic Change and Political Failure: Boston Public Schools Case Study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen P. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Boston Public Schools ◽  
Political Failure

Freeing Resources for Improving Schools: A Case Study of Teacher Allocation in Boston Public Schools

1995 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 476-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Hawley Miles
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
School Systems ◽  
Student Needs ◽  
Teaching Resources ◽  
Boston Public Schools ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Significant Opportunity ◽  
School Spending

Increasingly, discussions of education reform end up in debate over how much money will be required to fund it. Although educators often argue for more funds and critics counter that school spending is already at an all-time high, neither group has looked systematically at the use of existing resources. This analysis addresses how school systems might reconsider their use of teachers, their most important and expensive resource, to support reform. A case study of Boston Public Schools shows how the specialization and fragmentation of teaching resources reduced the individual attention most students received and limited a school's flexibility to respond to student needs. The analysis develops three measures that might be used as indicators of the size of opportunity for freeing teaching resources. It identifies four practices that together account for over 40% of Boston's teaching resources and could provide significant opportunity to redirect resources to support reform.

Using data wisely at the system level

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-30
Author(s):  
Meghan Lockwood ◽  
Mary Dillman ◽  
Kathryn Parker Boudett
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Central Office ◽  
System Level ◽  
Central Office Administrators ◽  
Boston Public Schools ◽  
District Administrators ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Data Wise ◽  
Data Inquiry

District administrators who want to build capacity for data use in schools may be well-served by starting in the central office. This case study of the Boston Public Schools shows how central office administrators can leverage their own data inquiry cycles to improve the ways they support schools in using data. Using the Data Wise Improvement Process, this central office team revamped its model for supporting teachers as they identify, practice, and integrate new instructional strategies to better meet the student needs they uncovered in their data. Here’s what it looks like when inquiry facilitators “walk the walk” of continuous improvement.

Bus Routing Optimization Helps Boston Public Schools Design Better Policies

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Dimitris Bertsimas ◽  
Arthur Delarue ◽  
William Eger ◽  
John Hanlon ◽  
Sebastien Martin
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Boston Public Schools ◽  
Bus Routing ◽  
Routing Optimization

HEALTH HAZARDS OF EXCESSIVE STUDY IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS (1854)

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-93
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Present System ◽  
Boston Public Schools ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Surgical Journal ◽  
Loss Of Appetite ◽  
Poor Children ◽  
Mental Exertion ◽  
Academic Demands ◽  
Do So

During the mid-nineteenth century American physicians were greatly troubled by what they thought were the evils of excessive academic demands placed on children in our public schools. The editorial below, published in 1854 in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, is typical of many of a similar nature. Our city prides itself on the superiority of its public schools; and we think Boston is justly entitled to take the highest rank among the cities of the civilized world for the facilities afforded by its citizens for the education of youth. But notwithstanding the large expenditure of money for the erection of beautiful and commodious school-houses, for mathematical and other instruments, for teachers, &c., all which give a character to our Boston schools, there exists an evil in the present system of educating, which seriously demands attention, and, if possible, a remedy. It is the ambition of the teachers of our schools, to have their scholars thoroughly instructed, and that they may appear well before the committees at examinations; and for that purpose, lessons in great numbers and requiring toilsome study, are imposed upon them. No discrimination is made, as regards the mental or physical capacity of the individual members of the class, but all are required to be perfect in their answers, or else they lose their position in the class and school. Not one fifth of the time devoted to school hours is allowed for study, being occupied in recitations; and the severe tasks the poor children have in getting their lessons must be apparent, when it is known that so long a time is required in reciting them. The scholars of the second class, for instance, have to commit to memory from twelve to twenty-five pages of geography, three to six pages of arithmetic, the same of grammar, three pages in spelling, besides exercises in reading, writing, &c. Now these lessons must be studied out of school, at the time which should be devoted to exercise and recreation. The imposition of such severe tasks upon the young and growing children, must enfeeble their constutions, and often incapacitates them, if they arrive at maturity, for enjoying life. We have seen many children who were ambitious to accomplish all that was required of them by teachers; and to do so, the greatest portion of the twenty-four hours was necessarily devoted to their books, scarcely allowing any time for taking their meals. It must be obvious to every one, that such close application to study, produces, in their turn, a train of diseases which cannot always be eradicated. Aching heads, loss of appetite, sleepless nights, inflamed eyes, with other deviations from health, are the accompaniments and the consequences of excessive mental exertion.

PERMISSION TO CONDUCT THE FIRST STUDY OF THE HEIGHTS AND WEIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN THE UNITED STATES

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-311
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Harvard Medical School ◽  
The United States ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
The Public ◽  
Boston Public Schools ◽  
School Committee ◽  
Boston School

The beginning of all growth studies in this country occurred less than a century ago when the Boston School Committee approved the following order permitting Henry Pickering Bowditch, Professor of Physiology at the Harvard Medical School, to measure and weigh children in the Boston public schools. This document is one of the great, and I believe little known, landmarks in modern pediatrics.1 In School Committee, March 9, 1875 Ordered, That permission be given to Prof. Henry P. Bowditch, of Harvard University, to ascertain the height and weight of the pupils attending the public school, through such an arrangement as the respective chairman and the headmaster, or masters, may deem most convenient.

Hypermobility and Educational Outcomes: The Case of St. Louis

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 774-805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly W. Metzger ◽  
Patrick J. Fowler ◽  
Todd Swanstrom
Keyword(s):  
Urban Education ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Urban Neighborhoods ◽  
High Rate ◽  
School Mobility ◽  
Mobility Rate ◽  
School Year

The school mobility rate in St. Louis Public Schools was 40% in 2011-2012, meaning that nearly half of students exited or entered a given school midway through the school year. This alarmingly high rate of churning across schools is accompanied by high neighborhood turnover, particularly within low-income, urban neighborhoods. This constant, disruptive change presents a serious and fundamental challenge for urban education. In this article, we summarize the literature linking mobility to educational outcomes, examine the causes of hypermobility in the case study of St. Louis, describe some of the current approaches to this challenge, and propose additional policy and program solutions.

The Institutionalization of Stewardship: Theory, Propositions, and Insights from Change in the Edmonton Public Schools

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Segal ◽  
Mark Lehrer
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Intrinsic Motivation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Stewardship Theory

Prior scholarship on stewardship as a principle of administration largely portrays stewardship as too idealistic and dependent upon situational factors to be institutionalized in large-scale organizations. Through a case study of the Edmonton Public Schools, this study explores the extent to which stewardship can be institutionalized as a central organizing principle, thereby ensuring performance and checking corruption in ways that are consistent with the primacy of intrinsic motivation. The study deepens our understanding of the challenges that managers face in reconciling stewardship with a bureaucratic context, documents practices that have been used to deal with these challenges, and more broadly discusses how it might be possible for islands of stewardship to emerge in a world governed by assumptions of human opportunism. To this end the paper develops a model of the choice that organization members face in deciding to elect a principal-agent or a stewardship posture within large-scale organizations. This model draws on assumptions of human ambivalence in choosing between self-serving and altruistic modes of conduct.

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