Students, young professionals, families - and schools
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Eva Webster
Nov 13, 2008, 4:22:28 PM11/13/08
to AllstonBrighton2006
BCNF (the Boston College Neighbors Forum) has been having an interesting discussion that is relevant to the entire neighborhood. I wrote a posting that largely reflects that entire discussion, and thought that folks on AB2006 may be interested as well...
------ Forwarded Message
From: Eva Webster <evawe...@comcast.net>
Reply-To: "BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com" <BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:45:48 -0500
To: "BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com" <BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [BC_Neighbors_Forum] Re: Students, young professionals, families - and schools
I was thinking the same thing as Howard and Sandy — that the quality of any given public school (as measured by results) does not depend solely on how good the curriculum, the teachers, and the buildings are, or how much money the City spends on schools.
It also depends, and in large measure, on the domestic environment in which the children are raised.
Parents who are educated and economically stable are more likely to emphasize the value of education to their children — though, of course, some poor parents can and do a good job with respect to that too, but it’s less common (because parents preoccupied with economic survival don’t have the time and patience it takes to be effective, consistently attentive, stable/loving; in many cases they themselves suffer from depression or addictions).
So if a child lives in a neighborhood where there are no role models of people who are educated and detectably successful (and I don’t define success just by wealth, but also by what is vaguely called “class” and the general outlook on life) -- then such a child usually doesn’t aspire to anything different, and sees no reason to discipline him/herself to excel in school.
This brings me to the key conclusion: to have good public schools in every neighborhood, you have to have economically integrated neighborhoods (i.e., people of all classes and different levels of wealth living close enough that children can have friends from households that are on different economic levels). To put it simply, let the kids from wealthy homes associate with the less affluent, even poor -- and vice versa.
Now that I look back, I realize that is the way my neighborhood and school (in the country where I grew up) were when I was a child. Kids in my school had parents who were university professors, doctors, newspaper editors, accomplished writers, military officers — but also low level office workers, plumbers, drivers, and cleaning ladies. Those kids were all friends together and would visit one another’s homes after school. Life-long friendships were established among kids from very different backgrounds.
This is the kind of desegregation that has not fully happened in Boston — and the way development happens around here (outside Boston too) tends to reinforce economic divisions. Affluent areas get quality housing aimed at affluent buyers, and less affluent areas (from middle class, all the way down to the poor) tend to get the kind of development that reflects what’s already there.
I think that the BRA, not just the Boston Schools Department, has a role to play in improving public education in Boston. If you develop economically integrated neighborhoods, the schools in those neighborhoods will get a chance to be truly integrated too — with all the positives that it brings.
We would also have less crime because communities that have affluent residents are generally inhospitable to crime (affluent people feel empowered enough to send a loud message on every level that crime will not be tolerated).
Our struggle to keep Allston-Brighton attractive to families hinges on preserving, and creating the kind of housing stock that is suitable to raising families. Small apartments do not lend themselves to raising kids in them. Siblings sooner or later need separate bedrooms, and family life leads to accumulation of possessions that cannot be stored in a +/- 1000 SF condo or apartment.
It bothers me that all new residential construction in A-B consists of apartments that can only be inhabited, more or less comfortably, by singles and couples without children. Developers bring projects consisting of such units because it makes most money for them — and from what I know, the BRA doesn’t specifically ask for family-size units/homes.
Throughout the years, the City has also allowed many previously family-size houses in A-B to be chopped up into small condos. Altogether, I think that’s the number one reason (in addition to off-campus student disturbances) why many parts of our neighborhood are inhospitable to families.
So when people in the neighborhood think/say that it’s the institutions (BC, Harvard, BU) that kill our neighborhoods attractiveness to families — I don’t see it that way. Colleges provide many good, stable jobs - not to mention sustaining culture in our society -- and can attract families, too, of those who work for them, or those who like the atmosphere of a vibrant “college town”, with the bonus of downtown Boston nearby.
As long as colleges house their students, I see almost no ill effects from them -- assuming their buildings close to homes and parks are properly designed, and traffic volumes and circulation are worked out in a thoughtful way. (The huge BC football stadium, built years ago, is an example of how an institution can indeed negatively affect the neighborhood — by crippling traffic in the area on game days. But a much smaller stadium that spectators reach mostly on foot may not have the same effect — though that needs to be analyzed. In either case adequate Police presence is needed.)
Of course, the moment an institution starts gobbling up neighborhood houses, the residential component shrinks, and that is dangerous (because contiguous residential parcels can be added and converted to institutional use as it happened on Foster Street).
Sorry for making this such a long posting. I just wanted to demonstrate that all those issues — student housing, the presence of institutions, the type of housing that is created, economic diversity, and quality of schools — are all closely connected.
It pays off to have these discussions because when residents (and city and state decision-makers) think about these things more deeply, and see how they are interconnected, we can hope to have a better neighborhood.
Also, I’m currently engaged in a battle to defeat 51 small apartments that would be built outside of zoning, and together with oversized retail on the ground floor cripple traffic on a narrow, but hugely important transit street. Excessive congestion pushes families out too — so that’s another piece of the puzzle that needs to be properly managed.
Eva
------ End of Forwarded Message
------ Forwarded Message
From: Eva Webster <evawe...@comcast.net>
Reply-To: "BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com" <BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:45:48 -0500
To: "BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com" <BC_Neighb...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [BC_Neighbors_Forum] Re: Students, young professionals, families - and schools
I was thinking the same thing as Howard and Sandy — that the quality of any given public school (as measured by results) does not depend solely on how good the curriculum, the teachers, and the buildings are, or how much money the City spends on schools.
It also depends, and in large measure, on the domestic environment in which the children are raised.
Parents who are educated and economically stable are more likely to emphasize the value of education to their children — though, of course, some poor parents can and do a good job with respect to that too, but it’s less common (because parents preoccupied with economic survival don’t have the time and patience it takes to be effective, consistently attentive, stable/loving; in many cases they themselves suffer from depression or addictions).
So if a child lives in a neighborhood where there are no role models of people who are educated and detectably successful (and I don’t define success just by wealth, but also by what is vaguely called “class” and the general outlook on life) -- then such a child usually doesn’t aspire to anything different, and sees no reason to discipline him/herself to excel in school.
This brings me to the key conclusion: to have good public schools in every neighborhood, you have to have economically integrated neighborhoods (i.e., people of all classes and different levels of wealth living close enough that children can have friends from households that are on different economic levels). To put it simply, let the kids from wealthy homes associate with the less affluent, even poor -- and vice versa.
Now that I look back, I realize that is the way my neighborhood and school (in the country where I grew up) were when I was a child. Kids in my school had parents who were university professors, doctors, newspaper editors, accomplished writers, military officers — but also low level office workers, plumbers, drivers, and cleaning ladies. Those kids were all friends together and would visit one another’s homes after school. Life-long friendships were established among kids from very different backgrounds.
This is the kind of desegregation that has not fully happened in Boston — and the way development happens around here (outside Boston too) tends to reinforce economic divisions. Affluent areas get quality housing aimed at affluent buyers, and less affluent areas (from middle class, all the way down to the poor) tend to get the kind of development that reflects what’s already there.
I think that the BRA, not just the Boston Schools Department, has a role to play in improving public education in Boston. If you develop economically integrated neighborhoods, the schools in those neighborhoods will get a chance to be truly integrated too — with all the positives that it brings.
We would also have less crime because communities that have affluent residents are generally inhospitable to crime (affluent people feel empowered enough to send a loud message on every level that crime will not be tolerated).
Our struggle to keep Allston-Brighton attractive to families hinges on preserving, and creating the kind of housing stock that is suitable to raising families. Small apartments do not lend themselves to raising kids in them. Siblings sooner or later need separate bedrooms, and family life leads to accumulation of possessions that cannot be stored in a +/- 1000 SF condo or apartment.
It bothers me that all new residential construction in A-B consists of apartments that can only be inhabited, more or less comfortably, by singles and couples without children. Developers bring projects consisting of such units because it makes most money for them — and from what I know, the BRA doesn’t specifically ask for family-size units/homes.
Throughout the years, the City has also allowed many previously family-size houses in A-B to be chopped up into small condos. Altogether, I think that’s the number one reason (in addition to off-campus student disturbances) why many parts of our neighborhood are inhospitable to families.
So when people in the neighborhood think/say that it’s the institutions (BC, Harvard, BU) that kill our neighborhoods attractiveness to families — I don’t see it that way. Colleges provide many good, stable jobs - not to mention sustaining culture in our society -- and can attract families, too, of those who work for them, or those who like the atmosphere of a vibrant “college town”, with the bonus of downtown Boston nearby.
As long as colleges house their students, I see almost no ill effects from them -- assuming their buildings close to homes and parks are properly designed, and traffic volumes and circulation are worked out in a thoughtful way. (The huge BC football stadium, built years ago, is an example of how an institution can indeed negatively affect the neighborhood — by crippling traffic in the area on game days. But a much smaller stadium that spectators reach mostly on foot may not have the same effect — though that needs to be analyzed. In either case adequate Police presence is needed.)
Of course, the moment an institution starts gobbling up neighborhood houses, the residential component shrinks, and that is dangerous (because contiguous residential parcels can be added and converted to institutional use as it happened on Foster Street).
Sorry for making this such a long posting. I just wanted to demonstrate that all those issues — student housing, the presence of institutions, the type of housing that is created, economic diversity, and quality of schools — are all closely connected.
It pays off to have these discussions because when residents (and city and state decision-makers) think about these things more deeply, and see how they are interconnected, we can hope to have a better neighborhood.
Also, I’m currently engaged in a battle to defeat 51 small apartments that would be built outside of zoning, and together with oversized retail on the ground floor cripple traffic on a narrow, but hugely important transit street. Excessive congestion pushes families out too — so that’s another piece of the puzzle that needs to be properly managed.
Eva
------ End of Forwarded Message
John A. Yannis
Nov 13, 2008, 11:01:26 PM11/13/08
to AllstonBr...@googlegroups.com
I know this is dealing with only one part of what Eva wrote about. But it is an important (and also common) misconception, so I'll take a moment to try and steer you right. It has been widely accepted for years that "people preoccupied with survival" have little or no ability to raise children who succeed in school, but recent information indicates that this is overly simplistic. Maybe you think it is because the "preoccupation" means there is insufficient time in the day to do what is necessary for success. This is tempting because it seems logical. But it is wrong. It turns out that the amount of time that is required is not very much . . . It is much more to do with disseminating the information to the places it needs to get.
If this interests you, check out the first segment of this podcast:
Act One. Harlem Renaissance.
Paul Tough reports on the Harlem Children’s Zone, and its CEO and president, Geoffrey Canada. Among the project’s many facets is Baby College, an 8-week program where young parents and parents-to-be learn how to help their children get the education they need to be successful. Tough’s just-published book about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem's Children Zone is called Whatever It Takes. You can see a slideshow of more photographs from the project here. (30 and 1⁄2 minutes)
John Yannis
|
Joan Pasquale
Nov 14, 2008, 11:16:49 AM11/14/08
to allstonbr...@googlegroups.com
The most important thing is Quality versus Quantity time.
Joan
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:01:26 -0800
From: yann...@yahoo.com
Subject: [AB2006] Re: Students, young professionals, families - and schools
To: AllstonBr...@googlegroups.com
Joan
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:01:26 -0800
From: yann...@yahoo.com
Subject: [AB2006] Re: Students, young professionals, families - and schools
To: AllstonBr...@googlegroups.com
joh...@comcast.net
Nov 15, 2008, 2:22:57 PM11/15/08
to AllstonBrighton2006
Eva, Where does one begin to point out the false or inaccurate
assumptions. Education begins in the home. Poor people can make the
time if they want to. The housing market has changed because families
have moved out. Families moved out because of busing. You are correct
when you say that Brighton needs BC. How does 7 football games a year
affect the quality of life for the people of Brighton?
John Thompson
Market St.
Brighton
On Nov 13, 4:22 pm, Eva Webster <evawebs...@comcast.net> wrote:
> BCNF (the Boston College Neighbors Forum) has been having an interesting
> discussion that is relevant to the entire neighborhood. I wrote a posting
> that largely reflects that entire discussion, and thought that folks on
> AB2006 may be interested as well...
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Eva Webster <evawebs...@comcast.net>
assumptions. Education begins in the home. Poor people can make the
time if they want to. The housing market has changed because families
have moved out. Families moved out because of busing. You are correct
when you say that Brighton needs BC. How does 7 football games a year
affect the quality of life for the people of Brighton?
John Thompson
Market St.
Brighton
On Nov 13, 4:22 pm, Eva Webster <evawebs...@comcast.net> wrote:
> BCNF (the Boston College Neighbors Forum) has been having an interesting
> discussion that is relevant to the entire neighborhood. I wrote a posting
> that largely reflects that entire discussion, and thought that folks on
> AB2006 may be interested as well...
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
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