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Madison Park Vocational High School Under
Siege
By: Jacques Dady Jean
Boston, MA - Boston residents have been forced to sit back and watch helplessly while
the Boston Public Schools deteriorate. In search of a way out of this mess that they have
created, school officials are attempting to accuse the children, specifically Blacks and
Hispanics, of being incapable of grasping the most basic reading and math skills.
The plan began to develop quietly over the Internet by the publication
of a confusing report that many consider outrageous. This action raised a lot of suspicion
among students, as well as parents. According to the report, an average of 77 percent of
the entire student body at Madison Park Vocational High School has little or no mastery of
basic reading knowledge and skills. The report also states that an average of 95 percent
of the student body has no mastery of basic math knowledge and skills and that in the
eleventh grade alone 100 percent of the students has no mastery of basic math knowledge
and skills.
Although this report displays the critical situation within the
Boston Public School system, the community is beginning to question the intention of this
report; especially when the school officials carefully specified that only 7 percent of
the student body are whites. The school officials are finding it very difficult to explain
the failure of the system. Someone must take
responsibility for this failure, the children are certainly the victims.
Instead of initiating new strategies to bring education back to our schools,
officials are plotting to transform several of them into low-skill trade training
programs. Madison Park Vocational High is one of them. Plans are underway to eliminate the
academic studies in the school curriculum, purposely providing an obstacle to stop the
black children from going to college. The publication of this report over the Internet
constitutes a means of selling this unacceptable project to the community aimed at
convincing the public that the kids (Blacks) are genetically dumb and not capable of
learning basic reading and math skills. No one ever questioned the competence of the
school’s leadership. Those individuals are making between $80,000 to
$100,000 a year for doing absolutely nothing.
This disturbing report has only one meaning for this community, the
heads of Madison Park Vocational High must go. This is the only way to improve the
conditions of the school, because if they were working for the private sector, they would
have resigned before the publication of this report.
The report appears to be just as confusing as the reason why it was published
on the Internet in the first place. Who has the interest to advertise their personal
failure? The deficiency on the part of Madison Park High School to provide a
fundamental education to its students might cause shame for parents, students, and perhaps
the teachers. The community is questioning the motive of the publication of this
report on the “Information Super-Highway” for the entire world to see. So
far, the only satisfaction they have received is showing how eager they are to turn down
the black community. The Boston Public School system is in cardiac arrest, and the
situation can not be ignored. The fact that these officials are using their own
shortcomings to portray black and other minority children as incompetent is a crime.
The crisis that the Boston Public Schools is experiencing is racially and
politically orientated, and the analysis of the most recent circumstantial evidence is
proof that the city officials have no intention of improving the condition of the
schools. They are taking pride in a plight that could only hurt the city
economically as well as socially. Schools represent the foundation of any society.
Based on this disturbing report posted to the World Wide Web by the city of Boston, hub
kids go to school in a symbolic manner to accommodate themselves to the wills of society
and their government but certainly not to acquire any knowledge that will lead them to
success. To believe the report, the sole accomplishment of Madison Park Vocational High is
helping the kids to stay out of trouble by keeping them inside a building for most of the
day.
Throughout the last four years, many residents of Boston have preferred to move
rather than send their kids to Boston Public Schools, others engage in two full-time jobs
to pay the tuition in a private Catholic school. These parents made the decision to
sell their homes, with hopes that moving to another community outside of Boston will allow
their kids the opportunity to attend schools in a city
where officials truly care about education.
Many consider the action of publishing this confusing report on the Internet
as a deliberate attack against the black community and a step toward destabilizing the
school. Why else should they choose to display its failure to provide basic education to
the children? This report will certainly create a long-term negative impact on the
life of the students. Madison Vocational High is not the first institution in Roxbury to
face this kind of advertising. Roxbury Community College located across the street from
Madison Park High was also a target.
Though this report is both frightening and embarrassing, parents and students
have continued to show strong support to Madison Park High and its teachers. They consider
this school as the hope of their community. Mary Lee Jones a former school-teacher
said: "Children are not born smart, they get smart because they have the privilege of
being part of a smart school system, built up by responsible government
officials, educators and community leaders who care about them."
Unfortunately, this is not the case in Boston where
everyone is managing to preserve their paycheck and care less about the issues. Racial
prejudice seems to be Madison Park Vocational High’s biggest challenge, the least
unfortunate among its 1420 students are the 33 percent in the transitional bilingual
education program. From the day school opened in the beginning of September through
mid-October, many Haitian students couldn’t get into classrooms because they did not
have a schedule. Their guidance counselor, Mr. Jean Michel, claimed that his computer did
not work. As a result the kids were kept clowning around in the lobby for about six weeks
of the semester, while the problem was left untouched. The students spent day after day
sitting in the hallways or walking around, not one person paid attention to them or,
simply, no one cared about them because they are Haitian. Mrs. Diana Jones, the executive
director of the school, ignored them. The administration of Madison Park Vocational High
decided to place several Haitian students into a special education program: a program
reserved for children with medically documented learning disabilities and with the
approval of their parents.
These young people are devoted to their education. Every morning they
head to school with the hope of earning the education that will allow them the
capacity to compete in today’s world of technology. Their hopes have been
killed by the greediness of our leaders; their rights have been taken away from them by a
crappy school system.
Up until now, the eleventh grade students of Madison Park Vocational High
have not yet seen their health education teacher, a subject that is essential for our
teenagers. Last semester all the students ended up with a ‘P’ on their report
card, meaning what? Only the Madison Park leaders could answer that question. So far, the
only answer the school administration gave to the wary parents who tried to get some
explanation about this matter was “Call the Superintendent’s Office". The
parents were left with the impression that Diana Jones has given up her
responsibilities.
The school official’s report pertaining to the eleventh grade’s
failure in math performance is very questionable considering the successful accomplishment
of several students in trades that require a high level of math knowledge and based on
testimony from Madison Park Vocational math teachers about their students. According to
the report, 100 percent of the students has no mastery in math.
Even though Madison Park Vocational High occupies a large space on
Dudley Street, at least one of its math classrooms resembles a prison cell, a small dark
room with no windows settled between four cement walls. It is located on the
northeast side of the building where Mr. Fritz Dossous, a twenty-five year career math
teacher, is teaching math with high rate professionalism.
If the Boston Public School Department officials are trying to blame the
teachers for the failure of the school system, the teachers also have critical blame to
throw back on them.
Madison Park Vocational High, in failing to provide a unique opportunity for
all of its students, is in violation of its mission statement. The Haitian and Hispanic
transitional bilingual programs are being neglected. The evidence outlined above proves
that all of this talk about school reform is just a political strategy to distract
people’s attention, indeed none of them really care about the education of our
children. The attitude of the Boston Public School’s administration toward the
children is a wake up call to parents and community leaders to join in an effort to save
this most noble institution, our schools.