The Dearborn Hijack

Faced with losing a new $70 million school, Roxbury residents fight a charter takeover

By Chris Faraone

Originally published in DigBoston (August 2014)

It’s crazy that in 2014, in one of the most prosperous cities in America, another fall semester looms in which the hope of every Boston Public student having a computer remains a pipe dream. Even worse are troubling developments ranging from surprise budget cuts to a dizzying number of last-minute transfers. All this as Madison Park High School, the city’s flagship vocational academy, has a debilitating teacher shortage.

Of all the institutions facing hardship, the Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury may be the most embattled. Among its problems:

• The Dearborn’s building, located in the Moreland Street Historic District, is slated for demolition to make way for a new $70.7 million facility that will serve middle and high school students. But since said funding was secured through the city and state, a loud gaggle of neighbors now oppose the razing of the century-old structure.
• With construction happening one way or another, Dearborn students and teachers will be temporarily moved the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester starting this year. The only catch is that there’s been some tension in the past between cliques at the two schools, which is causing some concern about potential violence on campus.
• Most notably, due to a risk of the state taking control of the under-performing Dearborn, Interim BPS Superintendent John McDonough is proposing to hand over the upcoming $70 million science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) school to a nonprofit that hopes to re-boot it as a charter academy. Since that would mean Roxbury families lose automatic access to the new state-of-the-art Dearborn, locals are intensely pissed.

Dozens of impacted parties gathered in the finished cellar of the Roxbury Presbyterian Church in early August to address recent news out of the Dearborn. After even those who follow education matters closely learned about the charter proposal in a Boston Globearticle last month, it was easy to lure a veritable Ocean’s 11 of area activists. The huddle included delegates from Jobs with Justice, Citizens for Public Schools, Mass Advocates for Children, QUEST, CVC Unido, the Black Educator’s Alliance of Massachusetts, and the NAACP Education Committee. They were joined by working and retired Dearborn teachers, some of whom helped write the original STEM proposal that secured funding for the planned facility.

The friends of Dearborn need an army if they hope to counter the powerful players plotting against them. McDonough is specifically pushing for the charter to be set up under BPE, a nonprofit best known for its Boston Teacher Residency program, an affiliate of AmeriCorps that trains and places educators, as well as for its Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School, which serves students in grades kindergarten through three. For anyone wondering how plans for the Dearborn were fast-tracked behind closed doors, it helps to acknowledge the BPE Board of Trustees. Among its members: two Bank of America executives; an IBM corporate community relations manager; a senior partner of the Boston-based Parthenon Group, which advises companies that sell services to public schools; a venture capitalist; the CEO of Suffolk Construction; Charles Street AME Church Reverend Gregory Groover, who also sits on the Boston School Committee; and John Barros, the Hub’s chief of economic development.

At the early August gathering, anti-charter organizers addressed student achievement at the Dearborn — they’ve in fact improved in math, science, and English since 2011 — and discussed challenges. The school enrolls a number of kids for whom English is a second language, including a significantly large Cape Verdean population. All things considered, Yvonne Powell, a volunteer at the Dearborn, pledged to fight McDonough’s plan. “I am tired of having public resources given to [private] institutions,” she said. Roxbury City Councilor Tito Jackson jumped on the pile. After all the noise and dust of knocking down a building, said Jackson, “The biggest thing for me is that this doesn’t turn into a charter school.”

The same choir returned to Roxbury Presbyterian last week for a BPS hearing on the issue. Only this time they were upstairs with a couple hundred more crusaders packed in tightly from the rear pews to the pulpit. Reverend Liz Walker opened the dialogue: “Our intent,” she said, “has always been to have a public STEM academy for the children of this neighborhood.” From there, the microphone was passed to McDonough, a listless stiff who CommonWealth magazinedescribed as “a bean counter with no teaching experience.” The interim school boss conceded that the Dearborn has shown “some growth” and done “some incredible work,” but said students “have not demonstrated the progress expected.” He added that while there may be options other than the charter plan, he’s “not convinced” the state would find them adequate.

From there, McDonough launched into a sales pitch on behalf of BPE, describing the organization as “a strong fit” for the STEM academy. That despite the nonprofit lacking experience in upper grade-level administration. In a Q&A session that followed, McDonough gave answers that were at best incomplete and at their most horrendous insincere. Asked about the potential for territorial disputes when Dearborn students move to the Burke school in Dorchester, he suggested the problem will be solved with preemptive meet-and-greets. As for Roxbury kids who will lose access to the Dearborn if the Boston School Committee approves the charter grab next month, McDonough urged everyone to lobby for a change in laws that mandate such academies to serve the whole city.

In his turn, BPE Executive Director Jesse Solomon offered a generic spiel about being a dad and a former classroom teacher. He believes every child should have access to a free quality education, and yadda, yadda, chahtah. As he stood there unloading presumptions, smiling at rows filled with confused and angry families, Solomon admitted things were “not off to a great start,” and acknowledged a general feeling that “something has been taken away.” For that brief moment and not a second more, the folks in the pews nodded at the guy who is apparently trying to screw them.