Back Bay Garage Tower | Dartmouth and Stuart | Back Bay

[DominusNovus]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Say what you will about being committed. My wife and I both work in Boston. We just weren't willing to gamble the kids education for a few years to show commitment to living in the city. Their education is more important.

I gotta agree 100% with this. I'm absolutely appalled at the idea of 'giving the schools a chance' for a few years. My sister sent my nephew to an urban school for about 6 years, and when they moved out to the suburbs, he was drastically behind his peers, even though the kid is really bright and was top of his class in *everything* back in the city.

Personally, I fully intend to send my eventual children to a private school, but failing that, I'm certainly going to try to locate myself in a town with exemplary public schools.

 

[belmont square]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Personally, I fully intend to send my eventual children to a private school, but failing that, I'm certainly going to try to locate myself in a town with exemplary public schools.

My bad. I thought this board was for people who were big believers in city development and city living. Maybe some are more interested in the theory of city living.

Sorry to hear about your sister's kid's experience. I heard about a kid who went to public schools in Wellesley and ended up being a heavy drug user. And another who only got into community college.

 

[mass88]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

My bad. I thought this board was for people who were big believers in city development and city living. Maybe some are more interested in the theory of city living.

Sorry to hear about your sister's kid's experience. I heard about a kid who went to public schools in Wellesley and ended up being a heavy drug user. And another who only got into community college.

Just because someone goes to school in a good school system, doesn't mean they're going to do well. You get out of it what you put in.

 

[TallIsGood]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

What message do our children absorb when, because we are financially able, we move to suburban environments that we profess to disdain, simply so they can be educated in a homogenous school system that does not expose them to the range of realities they will face in adulthood (only to return to the city as empty nesters as soon as their school years are over)?

We live in Wellesley now where we are one house away from the elementary school on a dead end street and our kids will walk to the middle school. The neighborhood all walks to school. The kids all play in the street at the ends.

They have good parents, they face reality.

We work hard to be able to afford to get them the best education and upbringing possible. I'm not going to sacrifice that for some theoretical ideal. I made the practical choice. Its one small choice we made that a lot of others made as well. Its not a statement either way.

Bottom line? Improve the schools and middle class families will return (or not leave). That's reality whether people like it or not.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Just because someone goes to school in a good school system, doesn't mean they're going to do well. You get out of it what you put in.

Agree,

but I still would rather do nothing in a good school enviroment and have those people as my contacts in that school rather than a bad school environment.

You would be lucky to get out of a bad school environment with a positive outlook on life. How many successful people do you know from Brockton or Lawrence besides little poopy?

 

[DominusNovus]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

My bad. I thought this board was for people who were big believers in city development and city living. Maybe some are more interested in the theory of city living.

Sorry to hear about your sister's kid's experience. I heard about a kid who went to public schools in Wellesley and ended up being a heavy drug user. And another who only got into community college.

My point about my sister is that its obvious that the school system failed him, not the other way around.

I'm for cities providing the services that people want in order to attract them. It seems that many people think the way to improve the city is to get people in and then use that larger tax base to improve things. Seems rather backwards to me.

 

[HenryAlan]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

I'm for cities providing the services that people want in order to attract them. It seems that many people think the way to improve the city is to get people in and then use that larger tax base to improve things. Seems rather backwards to me.

It's a bit of a shell game. To get better schools, you need more middle class families sending their kids to the schools. To attract those families, you need better schools. It also takes a long time for reforms and quality improvements to be noticed. There are a lot of good schools in Boston, but until I start talking to my friends and neighbors about my positive experiences, they might not know about it. I believe we are approaching the point where a virtuous cycle will become self-sustaining. Kindergarten and first grade are over subscribed, that's a good problem to have.

 

[czsz]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Holy hell. I didn't think it was possible to derail this thread further. Van, can you please move all this school stuff elsewhere?

 

[belmont square]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Bottom line? Improve the schools and middle class families will return (or not leave). That's reality whether people like it or not.

But what does "improving schools" mean? If you transport the student population from a BPS school to Wellesley, do you really think you'd see any measurable improvement in their performance?

There are a lot of things that could be done to improve the schools in Boston (having more middle class families stay and invest in them is one way). But sometimes it seems like the only improvement that will satisfy people is the removal of lower-income or non-native students from the student population.

 

[commuter guy]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Probably Boston public schools largest problem is the fact it is saddled with so many disadvantaged students - whether its non english speaking immigrants just arriving, poverty striken single parent households or working poor couples who can't be around for the kids. One way to slowly turn that ship around is to go back to neighborhood based schools. More of those folks living in JP, Roslindale, W. Roxbury and elsewhere in the city who own their homes/condos and who like their neighbors will stay if they can send their kids up the street with all the other families in their neighborhood. This will stabilize already good neighborhoods. It would also likely support and increase gentrification of up and coming borderline areas. Say what you will about social economic gentrification, good or bad, but I don't think anyone would argue that an improved social economic mix would be better for the boston public school system as a whole. Parents are looking for stability and certainty in their neighborhood. The lottery assignment system undercuts this stability, it can be like shifting sands as to which schools are doing well under the current system.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

As someone who initially helped take this thread on a great tangent by asking where were the jobs coming from to fill these towers most everyone seems to want, I'll make an observation and provide two sources.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Socio-economic trends in Boston:
http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/pdf/ResearchPublications//BostonEconomyDemographics.pdf

^^^ The table near the end screws up the poverty rates in several districts, probably by counting low/no income students.

Tables 15 and A-1 in the document below tell the tale of secondary education in Boston Public schools.

http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/files/Getting to the Finish Line.pdf

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Tables 15 and A-1 in the document below tell the tale of secondary education in Boston Public schools.

The whole argument has been whether or not schools have been improving recently, but that data is from kids enrolling in school in 1995. I agree, the school system wasn't great in the mid-1990's and cities were not as hot a place to live then.
But the school system is improving. And it's improving most dramatically at the primary level (which presumably translates to the secondary level 10 years down the road)

 

[kmp1284]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Sorry to hear about your sister's kid's experience. I heard about a kid who went to public schools in Wellesley and ended up being a heavy drug user. And another who only got into community college.

Metco

 

[TallIsGood]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

But what does "improving schools" mean? If you transport the student population from a BPS school to Wellesley, do you really think you'd see any measurable improvement in their performance?

Yup. I'm not trying to argue, just trying to give you the perspective of why I left and why a lot of my friends with kids left (one is moving next month from Charlestown to Dover with his 2 kids since the oldest is starting school next year).

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Another thread completely derailed.

 

[Lurker]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

We have reached the point of requiring iron fisted RR.Net style moderation.

 

[belmont square]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Yup. I'm not trying to argue, just trying to give you the perspective of why I left and why a lot of my friends with kids left (one is moving next month from Charlestown to Dover with his 2 kids since the oldest is starting school next year).

I understand the perspective and its still the dominant one. But I don't buy that its a school quality issue--its a school demographics issue. If you were still in Beacon Hill, and BPS had a student body that mirrored Wellesley's demographics, but the school system had other drawbacks (poor physical plant, lack of resources, programs) would you move your family to Wellesley just because of "school quality" if the school age population was 85% nonwhite and 75% free or reduced lunch? Particularly given that you seemed to like living in the city? I just don't buy it. Its not the schools people flee--its the demographics. People should just be more honest about it.

 

[davem]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

We have reached the point of requiring iron fisted RR.Net style moderation.

We just need more mods. Maybe two? They don't even have to be full fledged with banning powers, just have the ability to split threads and move posts when this happens.

I'm really interested in this school debate and the other one about the theories of Jane Jacobs and gentrification but I declined to comment because I didn't want to continue to derail the thread. More mods would help this a ton.

Most forums I post on have a moderator per category, so one for new development, one for design a better, and maybe a blanket one for the smaller categories?

 

[DominusNovus]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

I understand the perspective and its still the dominant one. But I don't buy that its a school quality issue--its a school demographics issue. If you were still in Beacon Hill, and BPS had a student body that mirrored Wellesley's demographics, but the school system had other drawbacks (poor physical plant, lack of resources, programs) would you move your family to Wellesley just because of "school quality" if the school age population was 85% nonwhite and 75% free or reduced lunch? Particularly given that you seemed to like living in the city? I just don't buy it. Its not the schools people flee--its the demographics. People should just be more honest about it.

You do understand that the issues are entirely interrelated, don't you? If a school district has many poor students, they're being funded by the tax dollars of poor parents. These kids aren't just forming out of the aether.

 

[kmp1284]

Re: Back Bay Garage Tower (Dartmouth and Stuart)

Basically he's the kind of prick who has no problem fucking over his kids to make some bizarre and largely irrelevant statement.