Boston's City on a Hill - City On A Hill Charter School in Boston, Massachusetts

Public Interest, Fall, 1996 by Sarah Kass

City On A Hill Charter School in Boston, one of the first 14 charter schools in Massachusetts, opened its doors to 65 ninth and tenth graders on September 5, 1995. It is the only charter public high school in Boston, and the only charter school in Massachusetts founded and managed by teachers. Its students come from all over Boston; they are selected by lottery without regard to past performance in school. Like their peers in other urban public high schools, City On A Hill students are predominantly African American (56 percent), Hispanic (9 percent), and Asian (6 percent), poor (54 percent), and reading below grade level (72 percent).

But, unlike their peers in other urban public schools, City On A Hill students are in small classes, are expected to demonstrate specific competencies in order to earn their diplomas, and are taught by teachers who are held accountable for their performance. Their school is open from seven in the morning to seven in the evening; they wear uniforms; and they receive YMCA memberships with enrollment. These 65 students are on the front lines of America's fourth revolution in public education.

The first revolution in public education made schools public and schooling compulsory, thus responding to the founding fathers' fears that, without an educated citizenry, democracy would be a prelude to farce or tragedy. The second put children on buses, on the assumption that racially separate public schools were inherently unequal and that the state knew a child's best interest better than his parents. The third initiated integration (or "mainstreaming"), so that there might be one-size-fits-all education. The fourth, the charter-school revolution, now spreading nationally state by state, stands for the proposition that different public schools can be equal and that the only way consumers of education (students and parents) can be served is if there is first a market for the producers of public education (educators) to create various options. It is a revolution about choice. But, unlike voucher proponents, the charter-school movement recognizes that, as ours is a society precariously balancing the rights of the few and the freedoms of the many, we cannot afford to be indifferent to the schools we choose for our children. These 65 students - my 65 students - are declaring a new kind of independence from the public-school establishment.

The making of a rebel

For me, the clarion call first sounded in January of 1992, when I began teaching in my old high school, a public school on the South Side of Chicago. All things considered, I had had a decent education there. I had studied calculus and taken four years of lab science. I had dabbled in journalism and debate, and had been on the swim team. I had taken cello, and learned to speak French fluently. True, my first-period cello teacher had shown up during second period most days, and my French teacher had tolerated "Uncle Samuel" as an acceptable pronunciation of "encore cinq minutes." But these experiences had also been an invaluable part of my education. It was only eight years later, when I came back there to teach, that those earlier frustrations acquired a greater meaning: Public school was preventing education.

There was the matter of getting certified. I had recently returned from Oxford University where I had completed a degree in English Language and Literature. Oxford, being a somewhat older institution, does not deign to give out transcripts with credits. "Well, honey," said the lady-with-the-tie at the certification desk at the Chicago Board of Education, "we just can't process you without that transcript. Now I'm sure if you write to them they'll get it for you." As if that wasn't enough, my undergraduate university (Yale) did not grant credits for physical education. I had swum every day in college and had even had a stint on the crew team. But I wouldn't be allowed officially to teach children unless the lady-with-the-tie saw a line on my transcript that said "gym."

I eventually managed to get a provisional substitute's certificate - which simply meant I had a heart beat and no criminal record - and a teaching spot. Later I would find a way for my Oxford degree to be translated into credits (and, miraculously, there were enough), and I would enroll in an independent-study physical-education class at a local community college, getting credit for jogging every day with one of my students. And, though no one ever watched me teach, I would eventually become certified. This would entitle me to a hard-won union wage, which I would get on higher and higher steps whether I pushed worksheets, read the newspaper, or actually taught my students.

Most pernicious was the persistent practice of confusing attendance for learning. Michael's grandmother wanted to know how I could have given Michael an "F" in my class. When I explained, as gently as I could, that Michael had not done any of the assignments and had not read any of the books (and could not read), she retorted: "But he was in that classroom every day. I do not see how you failed him." Andrea would be scheduled to take English 2 and English 3 during the same term, as if the double dose would make up for last year's failure. Jose would wait six months for a transfer from a math class he had already taken. Ultimately, I realized that the goal of a public high-school education was only a number. Four years of work had to add up to 23 units of credit: four English, three history, two math, one science, one art, one music, four physical education, and seven electives. Could he read? Could she write? Did he know how to calculate percentages? Did she understand the First Amendment? Were any of them going to vote when they turned 18? The diploma was silent on these questions.