The Standard Times - April 1, 2013
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130401/OPINION/304010339/
By Kate Fentress
Kate Fentress is executive director of the Women's Fund at the Community Foundation of Southeastern Mass.
Relevant Quotes: (Please follow the link above to read the complete article.)
These schools, located within public schools in the New Bedford system, were created to increase options within a district that values diversity of educational choices.
In a system that was moments away from state takeover, this argument makes no sense to me. The New Bedford Public Schools district needs more evidence-based creative approaches to education within the system, not fewer.
My understanding is that the per-pupil cost for a student in an Innovation School is exactly the same as the per-pupil cost the district receives for students in all other classrooms — the money is in the district. Teachers are union teachers who accrue the same benefits as all other teachers in the New Bedford system.
It seems to me that we owe our students more than they have gotten in the past. In the Innovation School smaller "community" with more individual attention, parents as partners, and higher expectations, the rules of the game can be changed and all students can be successful. I urge a vote in favor of the Innovation Schools as a step forward in offering positive choices within the system to maximize learning and optimize opportunity. I also hope that teachers will reconsider their position and try to see this as the beginning of a process that will empower them to do better in a system that is a wonderful work in progress.
