Title: Boston's Lewenberg Middle School Delivers Success.
Abstract: Several Boston schools are reaching lofty educational goals against incredible odds. Mr. O'Donnell describes one of them here. Ready for some good news about an inner-city public school? In the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston is a school that everyone interested in urban education should know about. City schools everywhere in America are beset with myriad problems. daily obstacles urban educators face are formidable. However, with the vision and inspired leadership of dedicated people, some of our inner-city schools are achieving success in spite of incredible odds. This is the story of Boston's Solomon Lewenberg Middle School, and it is a story with a happy ending. More than two decades ago, in June 1974, federal court Judge Arthur Garrity issued his historic ruling in Morgan v. Hennigan, the Boston school desegregation case. decision changed the history of schools in Boston. Judge Garrity found segregative intent on the part of the Boston School Committee and ordered the Boston Public Schools to be desegregated root and branch. Mandatory busing of students was part of the original school desegregation plan, and the ruling in Morgan began 20 years of federal court supervision of the Boston Public Schools. Although the 1974 ruling and its subsequent school desegregation plans prompted a period of unrest in the Boston schools (since many parents, teachers, and community leaders opposed mandatory busing), Judge Garrity's decision also planted the seeds of excellence in Boston's schools. During the decades following the ruling, the court encouraged, supported, and funded a variety of efforts to improve the quality of Boston's schools. Innovative administrators and teachers were free to try anything that seemed likely to make the public schools more successful and attractive. In a speech given in Chicago in 1988, Judge Garrity stated, The status and future of public school desegregation seems to be well settled in Boston. process whereby the schools were desegregated was difficult for all and resented by many, but the requirement of equal educational opportunity is accepted generally as a fixture for the future. My optimism is based on many divergent factors - some, but not all, peculiar to the Boston experience.(1) Much has appeared in the popular press and in education literature about the negative impact of the Morgan decision on the Boston school system and on the Boston community. Relatively little has been written about the many positive changes that have occurred as a direct result of Judge Garrity's supervision of the city's school desegregation process. Lewenberg Middle School is an example of a school that has benefited from the encouragement and support of the federal court. In 1984 the Boston School Committee considered closing the school. It was a troubled school in a troubled neighborhood. Now, just over a decade later, Lewenberg has become one of the best schools in Boston. Once a school that no parents wanted their children to attend, Lewenberg has become - thanks to word of mouth advertising - a school that is overchosen by parents. During the 1960s and 1970s, Lewenberg became a neglected school in a changing neighborhood. As white residents moved to the suburbs and greater numbers of minority families moved to Martapan, the Boston Public Schools paid less and less attention to Lewenberg. On the grounds outside the school, the overgrown bushes gave cover to muggers, and the school property had become a dumping place for old car batteries, discarded appliances, and assorted junk.(2) Inside the building, teachers and administrators struggled with discipline problems and lack of support from the parents, the community, and the Boston School Committee. Standardized test scores declined each year, and white enrollment dropped steadily in the years following Boston's real estate block busting in the 1960s and 1970s. By the early 1980s, Lewenberg had become one of the least-chosen schools in the city. …
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot