There are few issues more important in the Boston City Councilor-At-Large race than education. City Councilor-At-Large John Connolly even said it’s his number one concern.
‘Whether you have kids who are school age or not, great public schools equal great neighborhoods,’ he said.
Connolly, a former teacher and chairman of the City Council Education Committee, said the achievement gap is the ‘most daunting’ issue facing Boston Public Schools.
‘Our poorest students who are African-American and Latino lag behind in test scores and grade level for reading and math,’ he said. ‘We need an all-out effort to both prevent the achievement gap and help kids who are being victimized to close the gap and then excel.’
The Boston Teacher’s Union has endorsed Connolly, City Councilor-at-Large Stephen Murphy and challenger Felix Arroyo. Union President Richard Stutman said the union chose to endorse these candidates because they are pro-public education.
However, the union said it’s unhappy with Connolly’s stance on charter schools, which goes against the union’s main goal of limiting charter school growth.
‘We knew he liked charter schools,’ Stutman said. ‘We didn’t know he loved them.’
Arroyo said he supports existing charter schools, but is against their expansion. He said a lack of available resources for teachers is one of the most important issues facing BPS.
He said his wife, who is a BPS teacher, once spent $5,000 of her own money to furnish her empty classroom.
‘It’s the City Council’s job and authority to follow the money,’ he said.
Candidate Ayanna Pressley, who could not be reached despite multiple phone calls, states on her website that she will ‘advocate for educators to receive the support and resources they need to do their jobs.’ She lists ideas for after school programs, including support for graphic novels and video game production.
The incumbent Murphy, who was also unavailable for comment, sits on the City Council Education Committee and sponsored an initiative to bring more transparency to the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes process, pertinent to higher education.
Candidate Tomas Gonzalez, former director of community outreach for Boston University’s Medical Campus, has pledged to give Boston’s youth a better chance to succeed in school before they even start preschool. His top education issue is his commitment to Thrive in Five, an organization seeking to give parents the resources they need to prepare their child for school, according to his web site.
‘It takes a holistic look at early education,’ Gonzalez campaign field director Dan Hoffer said. ‘It represents what is lacking on the parental side.’
He said Gonzalez, former director of community outreach at Boston University’s Medical Campus, also wants to use technology to improve the quality of the current school busing system.
Candidate Andrew Keneally, who did not return calls, states on his website that working with parents to send their children to a school closest to their home will save over $70 million in transportation costs.
In a YouTube video on his website, candidate Doug Bennett said schools don’t have enough money. Bennett was also unavailable for comment despite numerous phone calls.
‘There’s 144 schools and the budget is a little more than $800 million. If you divide that between the 144 schools, maybe $6 million,’ Bennett said in the video. ‘We need to find ways to generate more revenue to be able to give these schools more money.’
Candidate Tito Jackson, who is Governor Deval Patrick’s industry director for information technology, said he supports looking at public and charter school models to help improve college acceptance rates.
‘We have amazing colleges and universities [in Boston],’ he said. ‘The schools are not preparing them to compete at the level they would need to get into these colleges and universities.’
Jackson said BPS could benefit from the resources Boston’s colleges and universities have to offer in order to improve the four-year graduation rate, which was about 60 percent for the class of 2008, according to the BPS website.
College students, he said, should also reach out to the public education system to help.
‘If we are going to have the best and brightest students visiting us for four years, it would be good if they took a more active role in the community, and many of them already do.’ he said.
Look for further coverage on Boston public education in The Daily Free Press tomorrow.
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