And a lot of people, even teachers sometimes label kids as, since you’re Spanish you’re like this, if you’re black you’re like this, so they don’t really see who you are, they just label you. – Caroline, Boston student

And they assume that they know you because of the way you act, but sometimes they don’t give you a chance. You might be having problems at home or anything and they don’t know because they don’t give you a chance to talk. – Anny, Boston student

The thing I like about this school is that the teachers here are really dedicated and they like to help out the students. – Leslie, suburban student

They really seem to care about education. They want us to do well. – Danielle, suburban student

Controlling or Teaching?

“Good schools, like good societies and good families, celebrate and cherish diversity.” –Deborah Meier

We don’t have that many rules that keep students down. A lot of other schools have really obnoxious rules that are just meant to keep the students down and keep them from not succeeding. – Rebecca, suburban student

They see “thugs,” and it’s not really like that. They see people dressed like that but when you go into the classroom they’re really intelligent people. – Fabienne, Boston student

Course offerings and availability

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William B. Yeats

We don’t have prerequisites anymore, so you can kind of take whatever classes you want. There’s a lot of freedom to move between the levels. – Rebecca, suburban student

I do feel that urban students are at a disadvantage. We have pretty generic courses, we don’t have any specialties in English or math or in science that you could really say, This is what I love, this is what I’m really interested in, and so I’m going to work as hard as I can. – Charles Skidmore, Boston Public School Headmaster

[I’ve heard that in suburban schools] they have smaller class sizes, they have more teachers, better programs.... They got chess clubs and glee clubs and drivers ed, all types of different stuff for their kids to get into.... I would play chess. – Ricardo, Boston student

For electives, we have a lot of really good English electives, we have a multicultural course, we have a Literature of War and Nazi Genocide course, we have journalism, mass media, creative writing, symposium for history, we have Vietnam...American TV age...Intro to Behavioral Sciences, a lot of really cool electives. - Rebecca, suburban student

We used to have an art class, we used to have theatre art class, but we had to cut them, unfortunately. We had a dance class here, but again we had to cut it. - Michael Fung, Boston Public School Headmaster

We don’t even have a music program here.... I’ve always wanted to learn how to play the flute. – Dana, Boston student

Quality of teaching

“The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau.” – Dan Rather

And then when you don’t get it they want to put you down sometimes. Oh you can memorize a rap video but you can’t memorize this? – Gregory, Boston student

Some teachers you definitely feel as though they are out to make you pass, and if you do not pass the class or if you do not do well, they feel as though they have failed too. – Ariel, suburban student

I expect my teacher to encourage me and tell me to do the best I can do—to at least challenge me. And give me some work. – Preston, Boston student

It helps you to learn if you have a teacher who’s open with you and willing to help, not there for the money or there just to be a teacher or whatever, [but] teachers who love what they do. – Susanna, suburban student

[At my school] teachers interact with each and every student, so they’re going to get results. – Ivan, suburban student

Do you believe in us?

“Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students.” – Cesar Chavez

You can fold your homework up and put it in your pocket. You don’t even have to bring a book bag to school. So when they just give me work to get by, I know it’s wrong but I kind of just don’t say anything. I think I fell into the system or something. It makes you believe that doing enough work to get by is okay, and that you shouldn’t challenge yourself, you should just do what they tell you to do so you can just hurry up and get out. – Preston, Boston student

The teacher will assign homework, and they’ll say, OK, this is what the homework is going to be, and if you do it tomorrow we’ll check it. There shouldn’t be an "if " there, but there always is. – Adriana, Boston student

They expect us to go far enough as graduation, but I don’t think they have too many high hopes, like Oh yeah I know he’s going to go to Harvard one day, he’s going to be great... I don’t think they have those expectations of us. If you have your teacher telling you—the people that taught you what you know telling you—you’re not going anywhere, you’re going to start to believe it. – Bohb, Boston student

In fact if you want to ask me, most of the kids are not prepared for college. - Michael Fung, Boston Public School Headmaster:

I feel more than prepared for college. – Alice, suburban student

What Can We Do?

It is exceedingly difficult to do what we ask our teachers to do—to help every student no matter where you get them, whether it’s five reading levels below grade level, or just from the Dominican Republic with no English skills and limited literacy in their own language. But what I fear is that we’ll decide it can’t be done without ever trying. Who’s to know?

But first of all, let’s get the school to where every teacher is held accountable, every teacher has high standards, and where there’s a procedure and, quite frankly, a consequence for people who do not hold that point of view.

...We certainly can be a quantum amount better than we are now. Whether we can meet all the needs of our students, I’ll admit that’s an unknown. But I think we can do better—and better might be phenomenal. It might turn out that if we can create a school where we are all in it together, we all feed one another, we all believe that these kids are capable of everything, and we come to school with that belief and then we try to actualize it by making ourselves as good as we can be—who knows?

- Kyle Dodson, Boston Public Administrative Intern

• More art, dance, theater classes
• More music classes
• More world languages
• More computer and technology classes
• More in-depth courses in literature, writing, sciences, social studies, and the humanities
• More physical education and health classes
• More rigorous and challenging classes

• A school culture and climate where students, teachers, and families work together. The more students are involved in improving their schools, the stronger the community will be.
• A school curriculum that offers more enriching, challenging, and interesting courses that explore subjects in more depth.
• Administrators and teachers who work together to raise standards in schools, who have expectations and recognize that all students have potential and want to learn.

Survey directions and questions

Equal Educational Opportunity Guideines

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