I want to thank you, Aislinn, for your comprehensive, fact-based overview. Again! You do real civic work: you clarify what’s actually happening, ground the discussion in evidence, and make it possible for non-specialists to engage meaningfully with K–12 issues that are often reduced to slogans or budgets.
Reading this also made me reflect on a comment I recently shared with a member of the School Committee, and I wonder whether it might be useful as part of the broader School Committee discussion emerging from the current K–3 focus.
Specifically, I wondered whether there is an opportunity for the School Committee to help identify a small, disciplined set of “upstream measures that matter” — factors and metrics at the City level that strongly shape K–12 outcomes but are not visible as civic priorities in Council meetings. Pre-K participation rates, for example, intuitively feel like a powerful indicator, given their relationship to early regulation, screening, and readiness for structured learning.
I appreciate that the City’s fiscal constraints are real, and I’m not suggesting directives or critiques of existing efforts. But it seems that even naming and tracking such upstream measures publicly — perhaps alongside their associated costs — could add real substance, transparency, and accountability to the City’s strategic goal around education. If the School Committee were able to agree on a small set of these indicators and communicate them clearly, it might give the incoming Council and City Manager a shared frame of reference as they consider FY26 priorities.
Put simply: even identifying not “what should be,” but “what is” — the critical upstream signals where early alignment and support are most likely to yield downstream dividends would be valuable, perhaps enabling, for the City. Having those signals prominently visible, perhaps on a City website, could keep the score top of mind not only for policymakers, but for residents too.
I offer this in the same constructive spirit as the K–3 discussion itself: as a way of using the current focus to clarify how the City, working alongside the schools, might best support student success beyond state formulas, facilities, and transportation.
I want to thank you, Aislinn, for your comprehensive, fact-based overview. Again! You do real civic work: you clarify what’s actually happening, ground the discussion in evidence, and make it possible for non-specialists to engage meaningfully with K–12 issues that are often reduced to slogans or budgets.
Reading this also made me reflect on a comment I recently shared with a member of the School Committee, and I wonder whether it might be useful as part of the broader School Committee discussion emerging from the current K–3 focus.
Specifically, I wondered whether there is an opportunity for the School Committee to help identify a small, disciplined set of “upstream measures that matter” — factors and metrics at the City level that strongly shape K–12 outcomes but are not visible as civic priorities in Council meetings. Pre-K participation rates, for example, intuitively feel like a powerful indicator, given their relationship to early regulation, screening, and readiness for structured learning.
I appreciate that the City’s fiscal constraints are real, and I’m not suggesting directives or critiques of existing efforts. But it seems that even naming and tracking such upstream measures publicly — perhaps alongside their associated costs — could add real substance, transparency, and accountability to the City’s strategic goal around education. If the School Committee were able to agree on a small set of these indicators and communicate them clearly, it might give the incoming Council and City Manager a shared frame of reference as they consider FY26 priorities.
Put simply: even identifying not “what should be,” but “what is” — the critical upstream signals where early alignment and support are most likely to yield downstream dividends would be valuable, perhaps enabling, for the City. Having those signals prominently visible, perhaps on a City website, could keep the score top of mind not only for policymakers, but for residents too.
I offer this in the same constructive spirit as the K–3 discussion itself: as a way of using the current focus to clarify how the City, working alongside the schools, might best support student success beyond state formulas, facilities, and transportation.
Not a bad idea. I’d love a public dashboard like that. And thanks, as always, for reading!