inside this week:
Health & Wellness special advertising section pg B7
A&E
business news:
ERIC DEAN SEATON DIRECTS THE SHORT FILM ‘LEGEND OF THE MANATAMAJI’ pg B1
Local Food Festival focuses on sustainability pg A13
plus Maya Lin’s memorial will tackle climate change pg B1 Concert review: KING opens the RISE series pg B2 Thursday, October 1, 2015 • FREE • GREATER BOSTON’S URBAN NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1965 • CELEBRATING 50 YEARS
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BPS parents discuss charters NAACP forum explores effects of charters on district school funding By YAWU MILLER
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Chinatown residents demonstrate against rent increases and other economic pressures they say are forcing residents out of the downtown neighborhood. In the background the 60-story Millennium Tower is nearing completion with multi-million dollar luxury condos.
With a lawsuit, a ballot initiative and legislation filed by Gov. Charlie Baker all aimed at lifting the state’s cap on charter schools, district school supporters are sounding a note of caution, warning that new charter seats will siphon public education dollars away from Boston’s schools. At a meeting sponsored by the NAACP Boston branch Monday, speakers said expanding the number of charter schools seats available in Massachusetts without additional funding from the state will increase inequality and cut deeply into the Boston school department’s resources. Education activists, parents and a handful of students crowded into the basement of the 12th Baptist Church in Roxbury for the NAACP meeting and listened to a panel discussion on charters. Representatives of the pro-charter school groups that are pushing for lifting the cap on new charters were not represented on the panel.
BY THE NUMBERS
126 24 57,000 8,500 $200 49 51
District Schools in Boston Commonwealth charter schools Students in BPS district Students in Boston charters million: Estimated Chapter 70 state funding allocated to Boston for 2016 percent: Amount of Chapter 70 state funding that goes to charters percent: Amount of Chapter 70 state funding that goes to district schools City councilors Tito Jackson and Charles Yancey and state Sen. Pat Jehlen attended. Boston Branch NAACP President Michael Curry said his organization put together the discussion to better inform community residents of the issues involved in raising the state-imposed cap on
See CHARTERS, page A8
Life at ground zero in Boston class war
Chinatown being squeezed by luxury highrises By YAWU MILLER Walking through the shadows of the brick row houses that for decades have housed Chinatown’s low-income residents, several dozen protesters carry signs and brightly colored banners with the words that make up the Right to the City’s slogan: “remain,
reclaim, re-build our community.” In the row houses, struggling families are seeing their rents double and triple, as well-heeled professionals seeking proximity to their downtown jobs rediscover city living. Looming above the warren of narrow streets are new steel-and-glass luxury towers, including the Millennium with its $37.5 million 60th floor penthouse.
The struggling Chinatown residents, many of whom earn $20,000 a year working long hours in the local restaurants, stand in stark contrast to the mostly-white professional class that is encroaching on their neighborhood from all sides. If Boston — as the Boston
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Parent activist Heshan Berents-Weeramuni makes a point during an NAACP forum on charter schools. Looking on are Mel King, Harneen Chernow and Odette Williamson.
The Bay State Banner 50th Anniversary Celebration will take place at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute on November 10, 2015 Visit www.baystatebanner.com or email sandra@bannerpub.com for ticket information