Boston Focus, 6.27.25

Summer reading and why Boston doesn't have middle schools anymore

With less education news and data during the summer, there will be less to share each week for a bit. You can expect some skips and shorter reads on Fridays, and at times I will devote more space to “Other Matters” (government/politics, housing, infrastructure, etc.).

This is one of the two times each year when I formally say “thanks” and ask for your support. The move from my former organization’s newsletter to Substack has been fun, expanding readership and creating even more engagement. I learn a lot when I write, and I learn more from your questions and responses. This unexpected aspect of my professional career has been a real gift - thank you for reading and thank you to all of who choose to subscribe.

Monday was the last day of school for Boston, but for one school, the Lilla E. Frederick, it was truly the last day. The middle school there is closing, making way for a new PK-6 program in the same building.

This Globe story paints the scene of the Frederick closing, reminiscent of when another middle school, the formerly nationally regarded Timilty Middle School, closed three years ago. Boston now has no public 6-8 middle schools.

Although the official record indicates that the Frederick and its fellow middle schools closed to facilitate the district’s move to a PK-6/7-12 portfolio of schools, it skips over what drove policymakers to come to this conclusion in the first place.

In 2008, Boston Public Schools (BPS) listed 19 schools serving just grades 6-8, enrolling nearly 7,000 students, 6 out of every 10 middle schoolers in BPS.

How did we get to zero so fast?

I am generally skeptical of proscriptions of “ideal” programs and grade levels at schools. I have been in (and worked in) phenomenal 6-8 middle schools. I have visited 6-8 middle schools that are chaotic and unsafe. Several Boston schools have made successful transitions to 7-12, while others have struggled. Some families and educators will cite the research and success of K-8s, while still others will explain why it is so important to have a single cohort PK-5. You get the picture.

As much as we like to cite pedagogy and child development, the reality is that people and capital are the forcing functions for which grades go in what buildings. Sure there were theories constructed for why middle schools could be good for kids, but it just so happened to gain prominence in the 1960s when hordes of Baby Boomer tweens needed somewhere to go to school.

Boston’s more recent baby bust and decline of the school-aged population certainly didn’t help middle schools’ fate; three policy decisions in the span of five years sealed it.

Under Superintendent Carol Johnson, a significant number of K-8 schools were created, including eight in 2008 alone. This meant converting some middle schools to K-8s (e.g., Umana in East Boston), but also fewer students now had to leave a school to enroll in 6th grade in a middle school.

By 2011, not only had the charter cap been lifted in Boston, but the first round of schools were authorized and opening. Every newly authorized Boston charter school added middle or high school seats.

Enrollment in Boston charter schools in grades 6-8 quickly outpaced BPS middle schools, passing its enrollment by 2015.

Lastly, in 2013, student assignment in Boston changed to what is now called the “home-base system." Overnight, middle schools like the Frederick went from being on a choice list for one-third of Boston families (the former system divided the city into three zones) to a much smaller number of families who lived closer to the schools. Given that the remaining middle schools were struggling academically, they were less likely to be ranked higher by families.

All this added up to a lot fewer kids.

With unsustainably low enrollment, the remaining middle schools - with their large, flexible-use buildings - were converted for new needs: PK-6s (Frederick), 7-12s (McCormack), and even new housing (Rogers).

I am not arguing or defending the closure of these middle schools. I am trying to paint a picture of the conditions and policies that made these closures basically inevitable.

In a school district with declining/flat enrollment, most moves are zero-sum. Without a true master facilities plan, the public has little understanding of what is gained and what is lost with Boston’s new grade configurations and new buildings.

We all know there are trade-offs in public policy. But the decisions made today create those trade-offs in our future.

Schools

Difficult, but necessary read: the family of Lens Joseph.

The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education met this week. Materials here. “Time out room” policies got some attention.

The Holyoke receivership officially ends next week.

Calling back to this week’s lede: what pedagogical theories is Pittsfield drawing upon in the creation of a standalone 5-6 school and separate 7-8 school?

With vaccine skepticism rising, Massachusetts considers new policies and some communities, like Newton, are not waiting.

Massachusetts rural areas, not just urban cores, are feeling the strain of declining enrollment.

Following my Substack last week, the Globe editorializes on the complicated exam school process in Boston. More simple, maybe; unchanging, unlikely. As long as access to those schools is politicized, change will come, just as it did in 1974, 1996, and 2020.

While Harvard languishes in legal limbo, Massachusetts community college enrollment is surging.

Medicaid and border policy are getting a lot of the attention in the “Big Beautiful Bill,” but it also features a new way to fund private school enrollment through the federal tax code.

Other Matters

Why is housing so expensive in Massachusetts? For one thing, there are more buyers than sellers. Facts - and Econ101 - are stubborn things.

The upstart win of Zohran Mamdani in the NYC mayoral primary this week has launched a thousand think pieces. While much of the coverage centers on whether the election is a bellwether in Democratic politics, it mostly misses the mark on how un-unique NYC’s issues are. Similar to Boston and many traditionally “blue,” left-leaning cities, it is really expensive, housing and transit are big deals, and there are big municipal finance storm clouds ahead with fewer and fewer children enrolled in schools.

Isn’t the story less about new, exciting leaders and more about old, boring issues so many cities seem to share currently?

Corrections: Two mistakes in last week’s Substack that were fixed online, but live on to remind me to write earlier and/or hire an editor. In the exam school analysis, I incorrectly posted the decline in White student enrollment at the exam schools (~500) instead of the total number (207). In “Schools,” it was Barbosa, not Polanco Garcia, who shared her decision to resign from Boston School Committee.