As a student and citizen of New
Bedford, I fully support education reform. I have an open mind. That said, I
share many of the same concerns as Mayor Mitchell. The 38% graduation rate of
City on a Hill’s 2008 class is highly troubling to me. Since 1995, City on a
Hill’s inception, they've graduated just 51% of their students. Frankly, we
already do enough of that in the New Bedford district.
While I’m
not the first to mention this, allow me to emphasize just one question. Why are
the students leaving the schools? If they aren't being pushed out by the
school, as City on a Hill claims, why would they choose to leave such a
“utopia” of education?
Furthermore,
in their own application, they cite the importance of hiring local New Bedford
teachers for the school, so they can develop trust and relate fully with the
diverse range of students they seek to serve. Why, then, should we be so
willing to allow City on a Hill’s board into our city. Certainly their fancy
Boston backgrounds, rife with rich corporate ties, are far from relatable from
our own.
City on a
Hill’s mission, as stated on page six
of their proposal, is that they “believe that “smart” is not an innate quality
that some students have and some students lack; nor is achievement a product of
luck, geography, race, or socio-economics. City on a Hill NB believes and will
explicitly teach that achievement is a product of consistently applied hard
work, sound study habits, and access to concrete academic and social supports.”
While this is admirable, we should note that this mission is nearly identical
to that of New Bedford High School – the existing choice in the city. In fact,
New Bedford High School seems very similar to City on a Hill, based on what we've heard from the alumni present this evening.
Well, I’m a graduate of New Bedford
High School, class of 2011. We, too, offer internship programs, college
readiness programs, dedicated guidance counselors, special ed and ELL support,
as well as “nutrition programming,” but
of course we simply call it what it is -- administration of the federal meal
plan.
I benefited from the hard work of
my teachers, who no doubt motivated me along the way, just as City on a
Hill’s teachers have done with the
alumni we've heard from. I graduated at the top of my class, not unlike many of
my friends that came from the same low-income families that I did. I, too,
applied to ten colleges, getting into many of them. I chose UMass Dartmouth, a
school that gave me a full scholarship. Because of my work in New Bedford
High’s AP and dual enrollment programs, I’m poised to graduate from a four-year
program in just three years.
The New Bedford system is not
without flaws – of that we can be sure – but it provides just as much as City
on a Hill does. We don’t need an outside group coming in to our district. We
need to re-commit our efforts to our existing schools, if I’m the exception, I shouldn't be, and we should continue to develop and support our public
district.
Thank you.
2 comments:
Cool.
I'm proud to say this successful college student was once a student of mine. Listen to the learners that have moved through our system with success. Listen to the learners that have stopped attending as well. The solution is with their experience-not with the false promise from outsiders.
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