Comments on the exam school

By now you will have seen the announcement of the special committee to look at an exam school and International Baccalaureate program in Worcester. Mayor Petty has asked me to serve as chair. Per the mayor's announcement:

The special committee will study and report to the School Committee on the feasibility of establishing a school for 200 – 300 high achieving students in grades 9 – 12 to develop and promote academic excellence and leadership relevant to success in the 21st century.  Additionally, the special committee will explore an International Baccalaureate (IB) program for students in Worcester to help develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn, and work in a rapidly globalizing world. Included in the report will be an analysis of potential risks and benefits of such a school, a recommendation for a school focus, recommended criteria useful for identifying students for admission, and projected costs. 

My comments from the press conference after the break:

 You can't live in the city of Worcester and be around education for any length of time without sooner or later getting involved in a conversation around an exam school (Sometimes this goes by “Why don't they bring back Classical High?”). I want to commend Mayor Petty today for taking that conversation out the diner counters, ballfield sidelines, and T&G comment thread, and putting it in the hands of people who can actually do something about it.
Make no mistake: that takes some courage, because we may actually get an answer.

    I also want to call your attention to the make-up of this committee as thus far appointed: there are four members of the Worcester School Committee. That's a quorum. As such, this committee is subject to open meeting laws. That's another brave choice; all of these conversations will be public.

    As chair of this committee, I am taking my cue from that and putting out our invitation now: We want the public involved in this. Write to us, call us, email us, message us on Facebook or Twitter, grab us at the grocery store, but let us know what you think. It is crucially important that this be not our committee or even the mayor's committee, but Worcester's committee.

    As Dr. Mulqueen mentioned, one of the great strengths of a district the size of Worcester's is we are able to offer our students options. We can give the choice of bilingual education, an arts magnet program, and extended day programs. Our innovation schools have only added to that. I'm also always proud to say that we have the only in-district vocational school in the state. This school may not be for everyone, but it will be another choice for students in Worcester to have.

    As I said in this morning's paper, we are going into this with our eyes open. We have the advantage of the experiences of other communities as we put this report together. We know, for example, of the pitfalls the New York City public school system has faced as it uses a single exam for admissions, and thus has exam schools that do not reflect the sending population. We know of the lawsuit Boston faced as a result of admission quotas. We know only too well what it does to the rest of a system to have schools that skim off top students. We not only have the experience of those in the city who have an international baccalaureate program: we have surrounding communities that are going through the process of implementing one now.
   
    None of these are insurmountable barriers, nor are the charges of the committee mutually exclusive. It is possible, I believe, to have a school for our brightest students that is just that: for our brightest students, not for those of a particular race or class or, even, political insider status. If that is what Worcester wants and needs at this time, and what it would mean to implement that, is the charge of this committee.

I look forward to continuing to work with Mayor Petty, my colleagues, the school administration, and, most notably, the rest of the community as we do the work with which we have been charged.