Ray Mariano: Have I been too harsh on Worcester's schools?
I was having breakfast at the Parkway Diner (I recommend the Fenway — it’s incredible) and I noticed some old friends sitting at two different tables nearby. When I finished my breakfast, I stopped over to say a quick hello. After exchanging greetings, the people at both tables wanted to talk about my columns. They asked the same question: Are the schools in Worcester really that bad?
My most recent column, published just a few days before, focused on the school system and mentioned a number of serious issues, including a few assaults of teachers that happened during the school day. So, the question shouldn’t have surprised me. But when I got the exact same question from the second table of friends, it got me thinking. Have I been unfair or too harsh in my critique of the school system?
Are schools safe?
That night when I got home, I received an email from a grandparent who also wanted to talk about the Worcester schools. He was concerned for his granddaughter and relayed to me multiple instances that he had heard from her about serious fighting in her school that injured students and ultimately led to students assaulting teachers.
It’s not like this happens every day or in every school. But serious assaults that result in real injuries are happening far too frequently and, if you listen to the teachers that I talk to, the perpetrators are getting off without facing serious consequences.
The School Committee has kicked school safety officers out of the buildings and now schools have private security guards at the front door responsible to check mom and dad in when they show up for a meeting. When the fighting starts, it’s not their job to intervene.
I wish serious assaults of students and staff wasn’t happening. But they are. And if I don’t write about it, the public won’t know.
Trying to limit new School Committee members
Most of my criticisms of the school department have been of bizarre proposals from the School Committee — no homework days, allowing students to use cellphones during the school day, allowing students to pass without getting grades even remotely close to passing.
Even though several School Committee members were shown the door by voters, just as they were leaving they went out of their way to limit the new members from bringing some sanity back into school policy by changing the rules of the School Committee. And from what I can tell, the superintendent was an active participant.
Initially, they tried to limit School Committee members from attending school functions (they needed to be invited by the principal even to public events). The school department’s spokesperson said that the new rule proposed came as a result of a School Committee member’s direction. But that member told me that he proposed nothing of the sort. I also talked to the chair of the rules committee, who told me that the language limiting School Committee members from visiting school buildings came directly from the school administration.
Then I began hearing about a number of other rule changes, including one that limited the new members in what items they could propose for the School Committee agenda.
All of this is odd because rules that govern a legislative body are most often approved at one of the very first meetings of a new term — never at the last meeting as they walk out the door.
But the superintendent is facing a committee where a majority of the members will be new and conventional wisdom is that these new members won’t be the same rubber-stamp as the previous School Committee. If I don’t write about this, it will go unnoticed.
Hiring more administrators?
More than a year ago, I asked staff in the superintendent’s office to give me a list of all of the new administrators who had been authorized by the School Committee. I had already checked the records of the School Committee and had seen more than a dozen new administrative positions authorized costing somewhere between $1 million and $2 million of taxpayer dollars. More than a year later, I’m still waiting for the superintendent’s office to respond.
The list of new and, in my opinion, wasteful administrative positions is rather staggering. Still it’s hard to tell because the school department isn’t forthcoming. Some job titles have been changed, like the new Director of Strategy and Innovation. The school department says that this new title was simply a repurposing of an existing position. But unless you press them, they neglect to point out that this position and the one before it never existed until the new superintendent showed up.
Again, no one would know anything about these positions existing if I didn’t write about it.
A couple of weeks ago, on an entirely different topic, a reader emailed me suggesting that as a former mayor, I should be more of a cheerleader for things going on in the city. I wrote back and said that my job as an opinion columnist is very different from the role I played as mayor. I’m not the city’s cheerleader. Yes, I have written some very positive columns and I support a great deal of what is going on in the city. But my job is also to point out problems, inform readers and try to impact public policy. And what I see and hear relative to the schools is concerning.
As I think about it, I haven’t been too harsh. If I am being fair, I should have written about the problems more often.
Email Raymond V. Mariano at rmariano.telegram@gmail.com. He served four terms as mayor of Worcester and previously served on the City Council and School Committee. He grew up in Great Brook Valley and holds degrees from Worcester State College and Clark University. He was most recently executive director of the Worcester Housing Authority. His column appears weekly in the Sunday Telegram. His endorsements do not necessarily reflect the position of the Telegram & Gazette.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Ray Mariano on criticisms about Worcester public schools
