The meeting started with a presentation by Dr. Tayfun Sönmez, an economics professor from BC on the effects of walk zone priority. A study by professors at BC and MIT and others shows that walk zone only results in slightly more students ending up in walk zone schools than an algorithm that doesn't give any walk zone priority. Their research was on K1 and K2 seats assigned in the first assignment round from 2009 through 2012. For K2, they find that 48.5% of kids assigned to schools live in the walk zone. If BPS eliminated walk zone priority, 47.3% would come from the walk zone. This is a suprisingly small difference. K1 also shows a very small difference.

This phenomenon is due to the order in which walk zone and open...

The EAC met last night to continue editing their memo detailing recommendations to the Superintendent. The meeting started with some planning for future meetings. The committee will meet next Monday, 1/14 to hear a presentation from BPS on details of the current assignment algorithm. They will meet again on 1/23 to hear a presentation from the technical team on the "demand model" which will attempt to predict how parents would choose schools under various plans. An additional meeting might be scheduled for 1/28 or 1/31.

The EAC is now planning to vote on a final recommendation the first week of February. Most likely 2/5 or 2/7.

The meeting then moved on to further discussion of the memo the committee is working on with their...

There's been a lot of talk during the school assignment reform process about optimizing plans for various factors. These include equity, diversity, proximity to home, etc. One factor that hasn't been discussed very much is the optimal number of school choices.

The current assignment plan offers lots of choices. The average parent applying for K2 for 2013 will have around 30 schools to choose from. To me this seems like too many choices. Nobody is likely to actually visit 30 schools. I've spoken to a couple of people who actually tried to visit all of their choices, but didn't come very close.

On the other hand, most parents do seem to prefer having choices rather than a plan where you'd just be assigned to a nearby school based on your address. So what is the optimal number of choices...

As the number of charter schools increase, they become an increasingly large factor in public education in Boston. However, each charter school has its own lottery which any child in the city can enter. This makes it difficult for parents who want to apply to BPS and several charter schools. Parents must fill out one application for BPS and another for each charter school. It also means that a district school and one or more charter schools may accept the same child. This creates chaos when school starts and kids don't show up. BPS waits five days after school starts to start admitting kids from the wait list to fill slots left by children who didn't show. It also requires complicated and expensive busing to accommodate students from all over the...