The English High School of Boston

[eevee]

Originally Posted by Urban Peasant

Oracle at Delphi is kind of right. I am a fourth year substitute teacher of the Boston Public Schools having worked at Boston English, Boston Latin Academy, Jeremiah Burke, Dorchester, and numerous middle schools. From my experience, the students in the districts schools for the most part HATE their schools. Many continuously tell me they are not getting a good education and really prefer to be elsewhere. These same schools are losing students by the handful year after year and several face closure due to lack of enrollment. Whereas at Latin Academy, 8 out of 10 kids love the school and believe they are getting a good education and it is PACKED. Teachers have to teach 5 classes of 25 -30 kids at BLS and BLA as opposed to 3 or 4 classes often with fewer than 25 students at the district schools. There is definitely room for a 4th college preparatory examination school and there is no better candidate than English because of its once great reputation.

When I took the entrance exam for Boston Latin back in the early 1990's, I remembered it was already very competitive and it has gotten even more competitive now to get into the 3 exam schools. I bet if BLS, BLA, and the O'Bryant had a waitlist, it would number in the hundreds and that is not including the numerous suburban families who want to send their kids to those schools but cannot due to residency requirements. What's more, independently run charter schools are choking off support for government run education and the city ought to use examination schools to counter that alternative. If they make English an examination school, it would definitely offset the city's blunderous decision not to make it back in 1972 and catapault its status upwards again. Keep in mind, English ought not to be treated like any ordinary school as it is now because it is the oldest public high school in the nation and an icon of Boston just like Fenway Park.

I am not against arts and crafts, in fact I wish that Boston Latin had offered courses like Home Economics that are practical to balance its college preparatory classics curriculum. It is no use however, in saying that making one more exam school will make regular district schools "bad" schools, believe me, most of them are already bad schools.

very true. however, I just feel bad for the kids who don't test well but are still very intelligent or missed a seat in an exam school by a few points and whose only option (other than sometimes equally competitive charter schools, expensive private schools or moving to the 'burbs) is to go to a crappy public schools. there doesn't seem to be many options in the middle, it's either excellent, top notch exam/charter schools or crappy, bottom-of-the-barrel public schools. of course, this seems to be the fate of many public schools in large cities like Chicago and NYC

[tooldude]

wow, so the abandoned building that was across from BLS was old english?

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by tooldude

wow, so the abandoned building that was across from BLS was old english?

Yep. Its no longer abandoned though as Harvard Medical School acquired the building, fixed it up, and added a new frontside annex with a glass facade. It looks gorgeous now.

Take a peek at English High's old website if you can find it in Yahoo or Google and click the tab titled "previous locations". You will see that a neo-classical yellow brick building with vines and a beautiful front lawn and fence once stood at the exact same location. This was an ideal school building. Then the idiots of the 1970's tore it down and replaced it with a monstrous 10 story building that proved to be mercifully inadequate and might I say inappropriate for a high school. The city should now feel really shameful for getting rid of the old yellow brick building.