Long Struggle Ahead for School Budget

Thanks to a one-time infusion of $10 million from the city’s reserve funds, the Boston School Committee approved an $827.5 million budget with words of relief and praise for Mayor Thomas Menino. Despite requiring some cut-backs and new cost-savings, the budget figure for the next school year was still higher than the current figure by 5.7%. While budget-watchers see the potential for more savings in facilities and transportation, new plans to help students—sometimes by expanding services—are up against the growing pressure expected in coming years to hold the line on spending.

School officials say more than half the budget increase over the coming year is for personnel costs and other non-discretionary costs such as utilities. Almost one-quarter of the increase is for the cost of programs originally funded by other sources, such as paraprofessionals in kindergarten, family and community outreach, and the summer school transition program. A smaller portion of the increase is for new spending and expansion in areas such as K1, K-8 schools, advanced placement, “international Baccalaureate,” and dropout prevention and recovery.

Because student enrollment has declined over the last five years by close to 10%, the Boston schools are getting less money from the largest source of federal funding, the Title I program. Over the last two years the decrease was $7.8 million, and next year’s reduction is expected to be $3.6 million. For the coming year, officials expect a slight increase in the state’s Chapter 70 funding, to about $173.4 million.

The School Dept. acknowledges that some of the drop in enrollment is because of families choosing other options, such as charter schools. But officials also cite a change in Boston’s population mix—up in recent years by 30,000, though with a decrease in the total number of school-aged children. What officials say has not changed is the share of the city’s school-aged children attending the Boston Public Schools—about75%.

At the March 26 School Committee meeting when the budget was approved, Supt. Carol R. Johnson said there was “excess capacity” in elementary and middle grades, and that officials would have to look at consolidating services.

“The budget challenge we’re facing tonight is not a one-year challenge,” she said. “It is a multi-year challenge where we will be forced to look at savings in the future.”

The decrease in Title I funding and student enrollment was noted last year by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau.

“They’ve got buildings that are underutilized, underperforming, and yet resources are going into them,” said Municipal Research Bureau President Samuel R. Tyler.

“If they don’t go forward and make the kind of changes they have to make,” he said, “the next time around it’s not going to get any easier.”

In his state of the city address in January, Menino strongly urged cost-saving in transportation. Though he promised to maintain service to students with special needs, he said the School Dept. could “save significant money on the majority of transportation costs,” or else see them increase by 50% over the next five years.

But decision-makers are also concerned with other numbers, starting with dropout figures. In 2006-07, the Boston schools had 1,659 dropouts, with an annual rate of 8.9%. That was better than the figure for the year before, 9.9%, but still only down to the second highest figure since 2000-01. Last year’s figures from Boston show continuing disparities by race and gender, with a dropout rate for Hispanic students at 11.9%, black students at 8.7%, white students at 6.9%, and Asian at 3.3%.

In her memorandum to the School Committee on January 30, Johnson drew attention to other sub-categories—the graduation rates for the two largest groups of male students in the Boston Schools: 45% for Latinos and 48% for African-Americans. Another challenging figure is the almost 20% of the students in special education. Johnson maintains one part of that total is caused by an “over-referral” of students of color. And special needs students, according to statewide figures, are also the most likely to drop out.

The state’s second highest category of dropouts is English Language Learners (ELL), and in Boston they account for 18% of the students.

“There is not an adequate range of programs for ELL students, and there is not enough support for these students in their schools,” Johnson wrote. “Exacerbating the problem is a shortage of qualified, certified English as a Second Language teachers. Finally, families are often confused or uninformed about the choices available to them, resulting in their children not receiving appropriate language services.”

Johnson’s memorandum also drew attention to the call for quality in the schools, and it follows a request for proposals to set up more innovative pilot schools. And, as her message to the School Committee noted, her agenda depends on new revenue and collaborations.

After the budget vote, Johnson spoke of budget needs and the importance of keeping students engaged.

“I don’t think we can get the kind of excellent opportunities for all children that everybody wants,” she said, “without some added resources.”

Carney Recommendation Stirs Opposition

State Attorney General Martha Coakley is meeting with strong community opposition to the call for an end to acute care at Carney Hospital in Dorchester.

The recommendation was part of a report for the Attorney General on providers affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in the Caritas Christi Health Care System. The 197-bed community teaching hospital has been serving Dorchester and surrounding areas since 1863. Long a fixture among the mostly Irish-American population in Dorchester and surrounding communities, the Carney has increasingly been used by the current local population, much of it people of color and immigrants.

The Carney has also for many years been one of Boston’s leading providers of care to needy patients and the uninsured. The consultants for the Attorney General, Health Strategies & Solutions, say the Carney Hospital has “a long history of poor financial performance financial problems, low inpatient occupancy, and an aging and out of date physical plant with pent-up capital needs.”

In her letter accompanying the report, Coakley wrote, “Carney’s future should be based on current community need, not on historical service lines. Accordingly, acute medical-surgical inpatient hospital care may not be the appropriate future for Carney. The growth areas of health care are almost universally found in ambulatory settings and Greater Boston has no shortage of medical-surgical inpatient beds.” Coakley also wrote that the Carney’s dependence on state funding was of “significant concern.”

A director of the Health Reform Program at the Boston University School of Public Health, Alan Sager, calls the recommendation for the Carney “shocking.”

“There’s not another hospital in the city of Boston whose removal would tear more of a gaping hole—geographically—in the fabric of care,” said Sager.

“The Carney serves people who, if displaced, would be vulnerable to deprivation of needed care,” he said.

Sager says the effect on other hospitals could be destabilizing.

"If the Carney closes," he said, "the financial problems associated with its patient mix will migrate to other hospitals."

The recommendation is also meeting with strong opposition from administrators of Dorchester community health centers. They say the change would disrupt care for patients served by health center physicians with admitting privileges at the Carney.

“If the Carney closes, we would have to re-route a significant part of our patients,” said the president and CEO of Harbor Health Services, Daniel J. Driscoll.

He says the Carney is important for patients with chronic disease and substance abuse problems who occasionally need hospitalization.

“This is not the time to be cutting back on a low-cost community hospital that has both an emergency room and an inpatient psychiatric unit,” said Driscoll.

“Hospitals, doctors and patients live in a very complex ecology, and uprooting one of the three components disrupts the other two very badly,” said Sager.

“This is a great blow,” said Driscoll, “to the ability of Dorchester’s community health centers to care for the community in an effective and cost-efficient manner.”

Sager says the end of acute care at the Carney would force patients to use other teaching hospitals that are more expensive, thus increasing pressure on the costs to HMOs.

“If the Carney is closed as an acute care hospital,” said Sager, “people in our state will be propelled farther and faster toward unaffordable hospital care.”

Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney says the recommendation adds to uncertainty faced by hospital staff and the community. Feeney also represents the part of Dorchester where the hospital is located.

Coakley noted there could be more need for inpatient specialties that could provide the Carney with more fiscal and operational stability. She also said any long term plan for the Carney would have to address the availability of emergency services and include “substantial input from the Dorchester community.”

But Feeney says making the Carney a behavioral health services facility would be a “disservice to the community.”

“There is little doubt that Carney faces challenges,” Feeney said in a statement issued today. “I recognize that continuing to operate as is and under the current structure of Caritas is not a viable option. However, I am unconvinced that the future of Carney does not include acute care. It is clear to me and our local elected leadership, that this community needs the services that Carney provides. I believe that we do need a complete and comprehensive community needs assessment to more fully understand the ways in which Carney can continue serving the communities of Dorchester and the wider metro Boston area.”

Consultants also recommend that governance of the entire Caritas system have more independence from the Archdiocese of Boston. They say strategic, operational, and financial matters should be controlled by an independent board of governors, with matters of religious direction left to the Archdiocese.

Consultants also recommended that St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton should continue realignment as a community teaching hospital competing in two or three service areas.

Also see coverage in the Dorchester Reporter.

Home Searches for Guns Meet Resistance

When she got up to speak at a “town hall meeting” February 21 in Dorchester, Isaura Mendes didn’t have to mention that two of her sons had been murdered.

“If you have little children, before they go to school—search their bag,” she told a packed room of more than one hundred people at the headquarters of the Mass. Assn. of Minority Law Enforcement Officers.

“If they have a little room,” she said, “then don’t let them lock their door.”

The words could have been advice to the family of LaQuarrie Jefferson, the 8 year-old boy who was accidentally shot at home in Roxbury last June, while playing with a 7 year-old cousin.

The boy’s death led to a fierce public debate, with elected officials and community leaders decrying the easy access to illegal guns. On the other side of the debate were the commentators who blamed adults in the family. Aside from having criminal records, some family members even tried to mislead the police by initially reporting the boy’s death as the result of a home invasion.

For Boston Police officials, the death of Liquarry Jefferson is a reason to move forward with a search program known as the “Safe Homes Initiative.” The initiative is partially based on a program in St. Louis that is credited with extracting 510 guns over 18 months during the mid-1990s. But, after months of planning and discussion with the community, the program still faces strong criticism from most of Boston’s African-American elected officials.

As described by the Police Dept., the searches would be done with the consent of parents. Homes would be chosen for visits on the basis of referrals from schools, community organizations, parents, clergy, or anonymous tips. Police making the home visits would be officers assigned to the Boston Public Schools. There would also be follow-up visits to help families with needs for social services. Officials say any gun found in a teenager’s room would not result in illegal weapons charges, since their aim is get guns off the streets.

At the community meeting in Dorchester most of the panelists were raising concerns about the program. They warned about the effect on relationships between parents and children, the possibility of legal problems, and the potential for information to be shared with other authorities.

“When we let the police officers into our house, it creates a problem with the parents,” said Mendes.

Also getting up to criticize the program at the meeting were four of the city’s seven African-American elected officials.

“If you snitch on your son, you’ve got to live with that baby,” warned State Rep. Gloria Fox.

“If the parent calls the police,” she said, “and if they don’t refer her to the wrap-around services she needs for her son, what will she have done?”

“This is not about us turning our children over to the police,” said State Senator Dianne Wilkerson.

“It’s not supposed to be where they start,” she said. “It’s supposed to be where they end up when everything else fails.”

According to a description of the initiative by the Boston Police Dept., parents can refuse a search, limit the areas of the search in the home, or call for a stop at any time. But legal experts and elected officials at the meeting said parents would feel pressured.

“Is that a situation in which they can make a free and clear and intelligent decision?” asked City Councilor Chuck Turner. “I would say ‘No.’”

A staff attorney with the Mass. American Civil Liberties Union, Sarah Wunsch, called the searches “inherently intimidating and coercive.”

“The only reason to show up on someone’s doorstep is that it’s intimidating,” said Wunsch, “and people are likely to open the door and allow a search.”

Councilor Charles Yancey said no program should go into effect “without the full support of this community.”

“We should not support this program of having police coming unannounced to investigate what’s going on in your son or your daughter’s bedroom,” he said.

A panelist at the meeting who strongly advised against giving consent to home searches was defense attorney and civil rights activist James S. Dilday.

“The problem is this, ladies and gentlemen: you as the parents, as adults, cannot think if you allow a police officer to come in and search your child’s room that everything is going to be fine,” he said.

“All I’m telling you, ladies and gentlemen, is--don’t give up your rights,” said Dilday. “Do I like what some of these little assholes are doing? No. Do I think it’s worth giving up some of your constitutional rights? Absolutely not.”

The Boston Police Dept. has a long history of conflict with the black community over searches. There was the stop-and-frisk campaign seven years ago that many community leaders said was applied too indiscriminately. There was the misdirected drug raid that led to the death of a 75 year-old minister, Rev. Accelyne Williams, in 1994. There was also the search in 1989 for the black suspect falsely accused in the murder of Carol Stuart by her husband and likely killer, Charles Stuart.

“If you don’t have a relationship, a positive relationship with people in the community,” said Turner, “you’re not going to be able to solve crimes.”

But police say the search program will expand positive relationships by directing families to social services. One of the leading planners of the “Safe Homes Initiative,” Deputy Supt. Gary French, says consenting to search of a room could also help families avoid legal problems. He cites a recent case of a parent who called about a gun kept by her 15 year-old son. After police arrived, they eventually found the gun in his possession, leaving him to face criminal charges and a criminal record.

“It’s the type of situation when that program would have been ideal for that particular family,” said French, in an interview on Neighborhood Network News. “It would have gotten the gun out of the street, provided some services into the family, and would have stopped the situation from developing to where now the kid is under arrest—he’s looking at a severe sentence.”

Supporters of the program say it could also deter older, hardened criminals from storing guns with juveniles. A juvenile caught with a gun would face less serious charges. But an older person with a gun might be more reluctant to pass it on, if it seemed more likely a juvenile’s room would be searched.

“We’re interested in getting that child with a young age,” said French, “a kid who’s not a fringe player in a gang, but maybe thinking about getting involved in a gang, or maybe holding a firearm for a gang member, getting that gun away from the child, and protecting and helping him out.”

Also in dispute is whether information connected with a search could be shared with other authorities. The Police Dept. says school or public housing authorities would get information about recovery of a weapon only if were “necessary to protect public safety.”

“This is a confidential program,” said French. “The records are going to be kept in the School Dept., in the School Police office. It’s not going to be shared with the individual headmasters. We have no interest in notifying (immigration authorities) or any other agency. What we are interested in doing is getting the firearm off the street and pumping services into that family.”

But Wunsch emphasizes the possibility of information being shared.

“They’re hanging on to the right to inform school officials about what they find in the home,” she said.

The Police Dept. has been planning to introduce the initiative in four neighborhoods which have been affected by gun violence in recent years: Bowdoin-Geneva and Franklin Field-Franklin Hill in Dorchester, Grove Hall, and Egleston Square and “5W’s” in Roxbury. The populations in these areas are primarily black, Latino, or Cape Verdean. Community leaders criticizing the initiative say the target areas are another example of racial profiling. But even they acknowledge that public agencies and people in the community should be able to identify a family that needs some kind of intervention to prevent violence.

While there’s agreement on all sides that Boston needs something more than another gun buyback program, some question whether intervention should take the form of a house call by police.

“All they really need to do,” said Wunsch, “is publicize a phone number to call and a person to call.”

French says weapons recovery requires expertise.

“We prefer to recover those guns for public safety purposes,” he said.

Even without the search program in affect last year, the Boston Police recovered 800 firearms. In 2006, the total was 805. And critics of the initiative argue that it concentrates on only a small part of a much larger problem.

“This would be like trying to fix a leak in your sink by putting a bucket there to catch the water,” said Wilkerson.

“We have to have a working, effective law enforcement authority in this city,” she said. “It’s not their job to be raising our children.”

And Turner says the problem of violence in Boston goes beyond “just a few thugs.”

“If you have 11,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are out of school and out of work, you’re going to have crime and violence,” said Turner.

"The only way to begin to solve it,” he said, “is to create a relationship with those young people who are out of work and out of school first.”

One speaker at the meeting who brought up the case of LaQuarrie Jefferson was retired Boston Police Superintendent Bobby Johnson.

“We do have to think about the civil rights of our kids, but sometimes we have to go one step further,” he said.

“I would think that if this panel could blow up the plan that Gary French has,” he added, “they can go one step further and craft a plan that’s good for the community.”

Also: see video report on "Safe Homes Initiative" by NNN reporter Joe Rowland.

Mapping Foreclosure: By Waves, By Dots

From a distance, the Boston housing market looks more like a wave, or one of many troughs in a receding tide. Some parts of the city are further down than others, just as some tidemarks around the country stretch farther out to sea. Up close, the steps backward or forward are small, like the fitful trudge of horseshoe crabs.

At a meeting of Mayor Menino’s Foreclosure Intervention Team Wednesday morning, there were some steps forward to report from an especially beleaguered area around Hendry Street in Dorchester. A tenant facing eviction from a house recently in mortgage trouble was about to sign a one-year lease. The city was offering to buy five three-decker condos that were taken by foreclosure. There was an offer to buy a three-decker beset with mortgage trouble and a legal dispute. And the city was in discussions with the US Dept. of Housing & Urban Development over a vacant property around the corner on Coleman Street. Buyers had agreements to buy two other houses on Hendry Street and Clarkson Street. And one more three-decker on Hendry Street would soon be up for auction.

The Hendry Street area was also getting attention from the police, as well as outreach to property owners and tenants. And, to help break the deadlock on foreclosed housing throughout Boston, the Mayor’s administration had also filed a home rule petition to impose a surtax of 10%.

The rest was putting the numbers in perspective.

“We’re not as bad as ’93 and ’94, but we never want to get there,” said the mayor. “And all the predictions we get are the worst is yet to come.”

Officials say one sign that more trouble is on the way is that only 30% of the adjustable-rate mortgages they’re concerned about have jumped to a higher interest rate.

“Nine hundred eighty-two loans have already reset,” said mayoral advisor Pat Canavan. “We’re anticipating in the next few months, through April of ’08, 750. So, we’re not at the peak of this issue yet.”

Also growing is the percentage of properties for which banks fail to find a new buyer. That means the party holding the mortgage takes title, dotting the city’s map (above) with one more “Real Estate Owned Property” or “REO.” According to the Dept. of Neighborhood Development (DND), in 2005, 48% of the foreclosures in Boston ended up as REOs. In 2006, it was 81%. Last year, the figure was 93%. Currently, the city has 565 REO properties.

DND figures put the number of foreclosure petitions on Residential property in Boston at 2432, which is up from the 2006 total by 75%. There were 703 foreclosure deeds, which is up from the 2006 figure by 169%. According to DND’s Deputy Director, William Cotter, the totals are evenly split between property owned by occupants and investors.

Cotter says 76% of the foreclosed properties are in four parts of Boston: Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan and Hyde Park. In parts of those areas with concentrations of subprime lending and foreclosures, he explained, property values fell last year by 10-15%.

“There are other neighborhoods in our city that are not affected in any way,” he added, “but this value is directly related to the problem.”

City officials say their prevention programs reduced the number of potential foreclosures by 30%.

“This effort today,” said Cotter, “and the effort of the mayor is to stay ahead of those things—stay ahead of the REO properties and the abandoned and vacant property, so that we can minimize the overall impact. If we can do that, the decline may not be as low, and we can help the market recover more quickly.”

As in years of decline during the early 1990’s, early 1980’s and much of the 1970’s, a small amount of time could make the difference between a house fit to market and a house damaged by vandals or plundered for materials such as copper pipes.

Even if worse things have yet to strike the Boston housing market, it’s still possible to go from foreclosure sale to profitable investment in a single day, even when a property’s losing value. Records show that’s what happened January 31 with a three-decker on Armandine Street in Dorchester. One buyer purchased the three units from three different lenders for a total of $299,000. Then, in what might be called a condo deconversion, the whole house was sold the same day to a pair of buyers for $450,000, with a 10% down payment. The same three units sold in 2006 for a total of $810,000.

Hendry Street Foreclosures: Fluke or Portent?

When it comes to property owners around Hendry St in Dorchester, Leonard Habiyakare, Jr. is an exception. While some have sold out over the past few years, and others succumbed to foreclosure, Habiyakare has been struggling to keep his three-family house, which is at the end of the street. With help from ACORN, he managed to get his mortgage modified, but he still has trouble finding tenants.

“It is very—I have to say—very strange,” he said in a recent interview on Neighborhood Network News, “because you walk down the street, and there’s no neighbors. Actually, I only have two neighbors—like down the street. I have two houses next to me, and the others all have plywood.”

When Mayor Thomas Menino announced a foreclosure intervention plan for Hendry Street last Thursday, things were still going downhill. Officials at the announcement stood in front of four three-deckers in a row that were vacant and boarded up. The house across the street—though still occupied—had a “for sale” sign. And, before the announcement was over, a tenant in Habiyakare’s house, Donia Jefferson, came out to say the company servicing the mortgage wanted her out by Tuesday.

To break the chain of foreclosures on Hendry, Coleman and Clarkson Streets, the city plans to invest in fixing up buildings and take legal action. During most of Menino’s tenure, the city’s housing strategy has mainly been to use a modest public investment for leveraging more units in private ownership, preferably with owner occupants. The strategy on Hendry Street is dramatically different: a heavy public investment, with outside ownership likely for what officials can only hope will be the short term. The city’s plan includes taking at least five properties for back taxes.

“This is a special project are for us,” said Menino, “and we’re going to work to make this neighborhood what it was four years ago, where people wanted to live and raise their children.”

But even the best of times on Hendry Street are part of a long, troubled history. The street has been periodically infamous for crime problems, going back at least to the anti-drug campaigns led by Georgette Watson in the mid-1980s. And the rash of foreclosures—at least 12 properties on Hendry, Clarkson, and Coleman Streets counted by city officials—quickly spread through an area dominated by absentee ownership, much of it by a trust for one family.

The family trust sold a home to Habiyakare in April, 2005. By early October, 2006, the trust sold three other properties on Hendry and Clarkson streets to a single owner. Within little more than one year, two of those properties had filings for foreclosure, as would another property purchased from the same trust on Ridgewood Street, Dorchester, in December 2006. A property sold by the trust nearby on Quincy Street would be taken by foreclosure in January of 2007, after yet another change of ownership.

The path to the foreclosure process was also quick at 19 and 21 Hendry Street. Both three-deckers were converted by the same buyers. The units for each building sold on the same day—in March and September 2006—and for the same price: $299,000. They were all on the way to foreclosure by the fall of 2007. And the last owner before the filing for foreclosure on 17 Hendry Street was involved in the conversion of a three-decker on Draper St, Dorchester. That conversion resulted in foreclosure filings on two units.

“You superimpose the housing stuff on top of all the rest of it, and that’s a recipe made for disaster,” said Davida Andelman, a community health organizer for the Bowdoin Street Health Center.

A neighborhood resident for 23 years, Andelman says it was difficult to organize Hendry St residents because fear and intimidation were “outrageous.”

“It really is crying out for owner-occupancy of the houses,” she said. “That would go a long way.”

City officials and people familiar with times of trouble for housing in Dorchester agree it will take more than market forces to fill vacancies around Hendry Street. Just across Hendry St from the four vacant three-deckers in a row is a block with 8 homes, all but two of them vacant. Still at least partially occupied is the two-family house at 27-29 Hendry St. A lender filed for foreclosure on the property more than a year ago, and the owner is also faced with foreclosure on another property in Dorchester, on Carlos St.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like this neighborhood, where in such a small geographic area there’s such a concentration of foreclosures,” said mayoral advisor Pat Canavan, in an interview on Neighborhood Network News.

Canavan said there will probably be two buyers salvaging the foreclosed houses, possibly as rental property until the neighborhood around Hendry St is stabilized.

“This is one situation where we think the private market will not work,” said Canavan. “Across the city, we don’t anticipate a whole lot of city involvement on foreclosed properties because we think the private market will take care of it.”

One observer who has been rehabilitating distressed properties in Dorchester since the late 1970’s, Patrick Cooke, agrees that it’s too soon to expect new owner-occupants to take on a home around Hendry St.

“Whoever buys it has got to be in for the long haul,” said Cooke, “and be prepared to lose money for several years.”

Though Cooke says the density and lack of open space around Hendy St would always make the area a challenge, he says the sharp rise and fall of the real estate market has also left other neighborhoods in Dorchester vulnerable.

“There are a whole lot more streets that will be as problematic as Hendry St,” he predicted.

While few streets in Dorchester have the same concentration of boarded-up buildings, signs of financial distress can be found as far away as Ashmont Street in Neponset and in the St. Mark’s area. In a conversion at 11 St. Mark’s Rd, three units that sold in 2006 for at least $325,000 apiece were all at least in foreclosure process by January of this year. And a condo in a three-decker on Ashmont St that sold less than three years ago for more than $400,000—with hardwood floors, marble countertops and Jacuzzi—is currently on the market for $250,000.

The transactions leading to foreclosure around Hendry Street also took place near the peak of a real estate market, when prices soared as multi-family houses were converted into condominiums. Though the market left many other properties noticeably improved, the flood of financing around Hendry St only made it possible for sellers to walk away before the next buyers defaulted.

“We went through a period in basically four years in which it made no sense to buy a three-decker as a three-decker. The people who bought three-deckers were in the market for a conversion,” said Cooke.

“If we don’t change the way of mortgage lending now,” he said, “this will be a way of life.”

For more coverage on foreclosures in Dorchester, visit the Dorchester Reporter.

Primary Impressions from Boston

There are two less than enchanted views of the Democratic presidential primary vote in Boston and across Massachusetts. One is that Barack Obama should have done better, and that his charisma and high-profile endorsements failed to meet expectations for votes. The other view is that Hillary Clinton’s advantage among Massachusetts Democrats was less about her appeal as a public figure than about campaign spending and organization.

There were 116,024 votes cast from Boston in the Democratic primary alone. That’s more than twice the number cast in a primary contest 8 years ago between Bill Bradley and a heavily favored vice president, Al Gore. The number of Boston votes in all parties yesterday was also about 70% of the total vote for president in November of 2000. Both comparisons are unfair, though they place the turnout roughly half-way between a typical Mass. presidential primary and a tightly contested final vote for President.

Obama’s win in Boston (with almost 53% of the vote) was as expected as Clinton’s win in Massachusetts. It was hardly surprising that Clinton carried South Boston, West Roxbury, Brighton, and (by a small margin) Dorchester’s Ward 16 (Neponset, Cedar Grove), along with the Savin Hill area (Ward 13, Precinct 10). She also carried the main precinct in Chinatown (Ward 3, Precinct 8) with more than 60% of the vote. Citywide, Clinton got a little over 44% of the vote.

Obama, as expected, had a decisive edge in Boston’s African-American community, in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. He carried the Back Bay, the Fenway, Jamaica Plain, and Mission Hill. He won some precincts in the South End, Roslindale (between Fallon Field and the Arnold Arboretum, and the Washington-Beech public housing and former High Point Village developments) and Hyde Park (mostly between the Neponset River and Hyde Park Avenue, north of Cleary Square; along with Sunnyside and Stony Brook areas, and neighboring Georgetowne). But Clinton won in other sections of Ward 18—Fairmount, Readville, and Clarendon Hills.

State Rep. Michael Moran said he was somewhat surprised by the breadth of support for Clinton in Charlestown. “She won the ‘Townie’ vote,” said Moran. “But the ‘Toonie’ vote went her way, too.” And Moran attributes Clinton’s win in East Boston to a combination of the older base of Italian-Americans and the newer base of Latinos, many of them recent immigrants. Clinton has enjoyed a solid advantage from Latinos in other states, especially California, but the advantage was less apparent from returns in Jamaica Plain, where all but a few precincts (such as Jamaica Hills’ Ward 19, Precinct 2) were carried by Obama.

To be sure, one factor in the Boston vote was the organizational help from Clinton supporters such as Mayor Thomas Menino and House Speaker Sal DiMasi. If it isn't necessarily fair to see Obama's win in Boston as a sign of weakness for Menino, the same goes for how Clinton's statewide victory reflects on prominent Obama supporters. Obama's margin of victory in Boston was much smaller than Deval Patrick's in 2006, but no one could say Kerry Healey's appeal to voters across the board in Boston was anything near the appeal of Hillary Clinton among the city's Democrats.


The total number of Republican votes from Boston in the presidential primary was less than the total for 2000. That could mean a drop in support for the party, though it also be the response to John McCain’s clear nationwide advantage over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But in the figures from Boston, the race was tighter than it was for the Democrats: McCain with 46%, Romney with 44%, then Ron Paul finishing 3rd with a little more than 4%. McCain did noticeably better in the Back Bay than in South Boston. That might be explained by a difference in reaction to Romney’s more persistent call for tougher control of immigration. The immigration issue might also explain McCain’s strong showing in Chinatown’s Ward 3, Precinct 8, where Republicans gave him 75% of the vote.

To invoke another unfair comparison, McCain got a bigger local share of the primary vote in 2000. That year, there were no other Republican candidates with anything like Romney's connection to Massachusetts, but there was George W. Bush. In the Boston total for 2000, McCain got 66.4% of the vote, while Bush got 27.7%. In South Boston the margin was even more lopsided, with McCain getting 72.1% of the vote and Bush, 24.1%. In the 2008 Republican primary vote from South Boston, Romney outpolled McCain by a count of 901 to 874. The difference between McCain results in the two Massachusetts primaries is partly about geography, but also about the relative discomfort with some of McCain's positions--a discomfort that could be rechanneled in November.

Road to Choice Through Community Learning?

When the Jeremiah Burke High School reopens in Grove Hall, students will come back to more than renovated classrooms. In addition to a new gym, there will be a new branch library, and a new community center, all in one setting.

The executive director of Project RIGHT in Grove Hall, Jorge Martinez, says he remembers when supporters of the library were nervous about giving up a safe haven on Crawford Street. More than a year after the groundbreaking for the $42 million project, says Martinez, the library’s friends group is enlisting members to share a new safe haven with students.

Martinez calls the arrangement a “support network” that will provide students with “wrap-around services.” It’s also a change in the map of education, where the pursuit of quality and equity has often taken students outside their neighborhoods or outside the city.

“Adults need structure, but children even more so,” says Martinez. “If you provide the structure, plug in wonderful people who can be teachers, who can be mentors, you reach that equity piece pretty quick.”

In the State of the City address last week at the Strand Theatre, Mayor Thomas Menino referred to the same combination of services as “Community Learning.”

“Imagine if these facilities, their programming, and their personnel were all aligned, so that curriculum and after-school programming could be seamlessly delivered from morning to evening,” said Menino. “Imagine if your children had not just a teacher or two to push their progress, but a whole network of caring adults in a series of sites throughout your neighborhood.”

Combining schools with community centers in Boston goes back at least as far as the 1970s. More recent are some of the widely accepted ideas of what’s needed for quality education: longer school days, after-school programs run by public agencies or community-based non-profits, and stronger ties between schools and their students’ families. The innovations have also been reinforced by results from some of Boston’s charter schools, pilot schools, and district schools with extra time for learning.

Also changing is the use of the word “integration.” In the 1970s, the word usually meant relocation, whether through busing, or moving to a more affluent community. A long-time activist and Dean Emeritus of the Boston University School of Social Work, Hubie Jones, has been trying to close the gap between schools and human services since the 1980s. For him, “integration” means alignment between classroom learning and other kinds of help, whether social services or after-school tutoring.

“Everything we know,” says Jones, “tells us kids who are at risk--who’ve been traumatized--they and their parents have to have very good support services if they’re going to take advantage of the education that’s offered to them.”

Jones acknowledges this kind of integration “would make more sense if it was in your neighborhood.” And, in the same address last Tuesday, Mayor Menino spoke about exploring ways to at least slow down the rising cost of student transportation. He said that cost will increase by 50% in the next five years.

“I guarantee you,” said the mayor, “that we absolutely will continue to provide choice, but I believe that we can rethink our school assignment zones, continue providing children in every neighborhood with access to high-performing schools, and save up to ten million dollars of transportation costs.”

The mayor also called for rethinking student transportation four years ago. After a series of neighborhood forums, there were, aside from creation of more schools for grades K through eight, only minor changes in the assignment process. In his speech last week, Menino said Boston now has more high-performing schools, and he called for more programs to attract high-performing students. But some members of the City Council question whether Boston has enough options for quality to allow for a significant savings on busing.

In recent years, new options have sprung up in areas where many public school students live--in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan. But the state currently ranks 95 of Boston’s 145 district schools as needing improvement, corrective action, or restructuring. And the chair of the Council’s Education Committee, Chuck Turner, says the mayor should have been more explicit in calling for changes that would avoid a racial gap in access to quality schools.

“Yes, I want to see a plan that moves forward, that saves us money, that fits in with what we’re trying to do,” Turner said in a interview on Neighborhood Network News. “But that plan has to be fair for all.”

More receptive to the mayor’s remarks was a long-time supporter of walk-to schools, Council President Maureen Feeney.

“We must, at all costs, maintain choice for our parents and ensure that all of our schools meet the highest standards of quality education,” said Feeney, in a statement released by her office. “But having schools and children rooted in the same neighborhood contributes to the overall vitality of the community and enhances the overall educational experience.”

Councilor at-large Michael Flaherty says, under the current process, many students are assigned by lottery and forced to commute within a school zone for as much as three hours a day.

“Thousands of parents are not getting their choice,” said Flaherty. “And, technically, that may involve building more schools.”

Jones says Boston has a chance to get more funding for “Community Learning” from the state and federal government, as well as foundations. “The question is,” he added, “is the capacity there in terms of money and personnel.”

In his address, Mayor Menino promised the “Community Learning” endeavor would get $1 million this year from the city. A senior project director with Mass. Advocates for Children, John Mudd, says, given the amount of money so far, and the number of options for quality schools, it’s too soon for that many dramatic changes in student transportation.

One million dollars, said Mudd, said “could create some small models, but it’s not going to get wholesale change.”