Monday, January 9, 2012

Revising the size of Boston school choice districts?

School choice in Boston mostly focuses on allowing families to choose a school in the school zone that they live in.  The Globe reports that the city is thinking of having more, smaller zones.

Boston careful in school-assignment overhaul: Prior 2 attempts faced heated public opposition

"The city is currently divided into three regions, providing parents and students a choice of roughly two dozen elementary, middle, and kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools. (High schools are open to students across the city.)

"When the three zones were implemented in 1989, replacing a court-ordered forced-busing plan to desegregate the city’s schools, the creators anticipated that as schools improved academically the three zones would be replaced in a few years with nine smaller assignment areas.

"But every attempt to create smaller zones over the last two decades has failed because there have not been enough high-quality schools to go around. Some neighborhoods, such as West Roxbury, have a strong selection of solid-performing schools, while Roxbury and some other areas have a concentration of the worst-performing schools in the state.

That reality will loom over the process as the School Department again assesses the feasibility of creating smaller zones."

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