There has been a lot of talk recently about lotteries and education. The documentary “Waiting for Superman” was structured around the stories of children whose families had pinned hopes for their futures on escaping failing school systems by winning the lottery for a seat at a charter school. The movie offered gripping drama showing how a child’s destiny seemed to rest so much on the selection of a numbered ball in a drum.
Last week, when he spoke in Boston at TechBoston Academy, President Obama decried the idea that a young person’s fortunes should be subject to chance in that way. The high-performing Dorchester pilot school has more applicants than seats. “No child’s chance in life should be determined by the luck of a lottery,” Obama said. “Not in this country. This is a place where everyone gets the chance to succeed, where everybody should have a chance to make it.”
That might be an ideal to strive for, but it’s hardly the reality of US public education. And while the president focused his comments on TechBoston, he might as well have been talking about the entire Boston public school system. Under the district’s complicated student assignment system, every family faces a lottery system that will sort children into winners and losers with the ruthless efficiency of a computer program.
That was the focus yesterday of a big Boston Sunday Globe package, including print stories and online videos, yesterday looking at families that are awaiting word on what school their child has been assigned to for kindergarten next year. Schools with better reputations and test scores are oversubscribed, meaning there will be plenty of disappointed families. School officials are right when they say that some families are too reliant on word-of-mouth reputation and have not taken the time to visit less heavily subscribed schools. But it’s equally true that there are schools in the system that are dysfunctional, which no family with other options would opt to send their child to.
The biggest lottery sorting takes place at birth, where kids lucky enough to be born to middle- and upper-class families are on a path toward good schooling in a good suburban district or private school. In either case, families are essentially able to buy a quality education for their child. Unlike lots of big urban districts, Boston has schools that middle class families have some confidence in. There just aren’t enough of them. So yesterday’s Globe stories offer fresh versions of a tale that has been told over and over in the city for years — of middle class families unhappy with their assignment heading for the suburbs. The exodus continues, and the city is worse for it.
–MICHAEL JONAS
JAPAN
People in the Boston area with ties to Japan are desperate for information about family and friends on the stricken island nation.
The damage to Japanese nuclear power plants following Friday’s earthquake is prompting reassessment of recent calls to grow the US nuclear power industry, the Globe reports. Nuclear power has gained unlikely allies in recent years as some, including President Obama, have touted it as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel energy sources.
Residents in Plymouth seem mostly resigned to living with the dangers posed by the Pilgrim nuclear power plant there.
US Rep. Edward Markey is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reassess the ability of this country’s nuke plants to withstand natural disasters. ProPublica takes a look at some of the more vulnerable facilities and how they compare to the crippled reactors in Japan.
MEDIA
The Patriot Ledger, as part of the media’s annual transparency awareness effort called Sunshine Week, sent reporters out across the region to request public records from various town agencies and received a variety of responses and reactions, mostly from officials who didn’t know or misinterpreted the law.
Cape Cod public radio stations keep an eye on the threat to federal funding in the wake of the uproar over National Public Radio.
MASSACHUSETTS
An explosion rocked an adhesive and sealant manufacturing plant in Middleton last night, injuring four workers and raising concerns about contamination of the nearby Ipswich River, the Globe reports. Here’s a report on the blast from NECN.
Massachusetts received a major disaster declaration from FEMA for the January 12 snowstorm, making Berkshire, Hampshire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Essex,andSuffolk counties eligible for federal assistance.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
P.J. Crowley, the US State Department spokesman, resigned yesterday after comments he made to a small seminar at MIT on the power of social media disparaging the Pentagon’s treatment of an alleged WikiLeaker were widely disseminated by attendees…..via blogs and other social media.
MUNICIPAL
Rockport residents provide input for a downtown “master plan” as part of the town’s economic development efforts, the Gloucester Times reports.
Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini plans to announce 100 new private jobs and a series of downtown improvements at his annual “State of the City” address, reports the Eagle Tribune.
Lowell City Councilor Rodney Elliott is pushing to ban Level 3 sex offenders from the city’s public library in the wake of the arrest of a sex offender at the city library on outstanding warrants, reports the Lowell Sun.
Two months in, the Lowell Sun reports on new Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian’s efforts at reforming the department.
WBUR looks at candidate style in the race for the District 7 Boston City Council seat between Tito Jackson and Cornell Mills.
Scott Van Voorhis details development prospects around Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. The Kraft Group‘s 500 acres is one of the largest open tracts along the 495 belt.
Construction at IKEA’s superstore in Somerville has slowed, again.
EDUCATION
A Springfield Republican editorial says that the University of Massachusetts should get more respect, especially after scoring high in recent Times of London “World Reputation” university rankings.
A review of residency for Methuen’s 7,000 students has resulted in 81 students who did not meet requirements being removed from the city’s schools, reports the Eagle Tribune. The paper also provides a breakdown of where the non-Methuen students came from.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Lawyers speak out against Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposal to replace private defense attorneys who work with poor defendants with public defenders.
ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A Falmouth couple leads growing opposition to wind turbines near residential areas on the Cape and beyond. Meanwhile, after the problems in Falmouth, Nantucket decides to go slow on a wind turbine proposal.
The restoration of the polluted Ten Mile River in Attleboro moves into its next phase.
Contaminated disks from a New Hampshire wastewater treatment facility are washing up on Plum Island.
WASHINGTON
Lawmakers are quietly talking like adults about the federal deficit, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The EPA is at loggerheads with big labor.
The Federal Reserve can either support economic growth, or discourage oil speculation. But it can’t do both.
The Lowell Sun analyzes recent votes by Congresswoman Niki Tsongas and concludes she’s moving toward the center since her 2010 reelection.
ELECTION 2012
Tim Pawlenty wants to be all things to all Republicans.
A new Western New England College poll shows Sen. Scott Brown stomping all over US Rep. Michael Capuano and Newton Mayor Setti Warren. Related: Joe Battenfeld says Gov. Deval Patrick is the only candidate who could defeat Brown, which is actually pretty convenient, since Patrick is acting a lot like a candidate.
Former Patrick aide Doug Rubin believes Mitt Romney has a clearer shot at the Republican presidential nomination than most give him credit for.
GOP presidential hopefuls are acting like bystanders on a national sightseeing tour. They aren’t setting the agenda, they’re following one laid out by vocal primary voters.
Michele Bachmann missed the lesson on the American Revolution repeating her Lexington-Concord gaffe not once, but twice in New Hampshire.
BUSINESS
Giant accounting firm Ernst & Young could bear the brunt of the blowback from Lehman Brothers‘ creative bookmaking.
FISHING
Opening arguments in the suit by New Bedford and Gloucester seeking to throw out the federal “catch share limits” for commercial fishermen begin tomorrow in US District Court.
THE TIES THAT OPINE
The Outraged Liberal is perplexed that with all that is going on in the world, Boston Globe opinionators are focused on Mitt Romney’s neckwear, or lack thereof.
IMMIGRATION
Remittances sent to Central America soared last year.
Efforts to restrict immigration at the state level appear to be slowing.
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
Those dragging just a little bit this morning from clock lag may cheer Peter Hannaford’s call in the American Spectator for Congress to either abolish the useless effort of Daylight Savings Time and either codify it year round or eliminate it year round.
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