Dear Mayor Walsh, Superintendent McDonough, Chief of Education Dorsey and the School Committee, I write to express my concern about the direction and future of Madison Park Technical Vocational High School (“MP” as we affectionately refer to it), the only vocational high school in Boston. I graduated from MP in 2002, went on to graduate from Boston College in 2006 and Boston University School of Law this past May. I also spent five years as a teacher, three of those years at the Edwards Middle School in Charlestown. I have seen faculty turnover and periods of disarray. Madison Park, however, is in crisis. So I ask, what is the long-term plan for the school? How are the recommendations from the audit going to be implemented? How are we going to build coalitions with the trade unions and city-institutions to give MP’s current students excellent job training, the opportunity to make some money for their family, and a pathway towards a career and out of poverty? By no means do I claim to speak for all MP students and alumni, but I can’t help and think, how great MP would be if it created pathways out of poverty, expanded its Co-Op programs so that more students could work while going to school, increasing graduation rates, decreasing student poverty, and decreasing student drop out rates in the process. One of MP’s major groups of students are immigrant students from all over Latin America, Cape Verde and Haiti, and these students have language difficulties, and many of them drop out to work. How life changing would it be if they could learn a trade at their school and get an entryway into a career? How ideal would it be if all of our MP students, the vast majority of them low-income, could find a pathway towards a career during high school, while making money participating in Co-Op? How desirable would MP be to parents and students if Co-Op were a part of the MP education and curriculum? Speaking of Co-Op, where is Northeastern University on this? When will Northeastern, a nonprofit university that revolutionized Co-Op and sits on Roxbury land, be sought as a collaborator? Now, some vocations do a great job at placing students, but such success is not shared by all the vocations, and that needs to change. We also need some new, 21st Century vocations, like biotech, science lab technicians, pre-engineering, forensics, and coding, as well as vocations whose absence raises larger questions---like MBTA driver, entrepreneurship, law enforcement and firefighter vocations. When is Madison Park going to get a civil service vocation that teaches students the fundamentals of the civil service exams to become Firefighters and Police Officers? Is this even in the works? If it’s not in the works, why not? We have a city that is majority minority, yet both the Boston Fire Department and Police Department are overwhelmingly white. What better way to increase diversity than to create a civil service vocation at MP to help the almost 100% minority population school funnel in great candidates, trained to take the exams and join the academies. Madison Park needs a 21st century update, and the students need technical education now, more than ever. With minimum wage jobs on the increase, a sustainable and clear path toward a trade as early as high school, places MP students on the path to a middle class life, while strengthening our city’s economy. The problems that plague MP are not the result of the students and the community. MP has suffered from a lack of attention by the City of Boston, constant turnover, and a severe lack of vision and direction. So I ask again, what is the 5-year plan? What is the 10-year plan? What can MP alumni do to help? Respectfully, E. Peter Alvarez, ‘02 Madison Park Technical Vocational High School Editor in Chief of the MP Cardinal Newspaper (’01-’02) Cosigned, Shona Jackson, ‘86 Madison Park Technical Vocational High School President, Madison Park Technical Vocational High School Alumni Association
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:56:31 +0000
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