At school focus groups, parents voice concerns, call for more input
They wanted to know how plans to merge schools would affect their children, what it means to have an effective principal and quality teachers, and whether administrators could limit the number of times students have to change schools.
Scores of parents detailed their frustrations and hopes for Boston Public Schools at 14 focus groups around the city yesterday, organized by administrators to solicit input about school closings, program changes, and other plans for the district.
At one early morning gathering in Roxbury, about a dozen parents met with school officials and said they hoped their concerns would not go ignored.
Tomas Gonzalez, 39, a Hyde Park father of two children in Dorchester schools, said he has been frustrated with confusing mailings from the district. His main priority, he said, is for school officials to hire and train effective teachers and
In this Thursday, June 24, 2010 photograph young people march during a demonstration in Paris. They are students, from college and high school, who haven't entered the job market yet but are already worried about what happens when they leave it. Welcome to France, where workers' rights are so much a part of existence that schoolchildren are as unsettled as their parents and grandparents about plans to raise the retirement age to 62. Workers around France went on strike Thursday to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age to 62. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)
French youths protest over higher retirement age
In this Thursday, June 24, 2010 photograph young people march during a demonstration in Paris. They are students, from college and high school, who haven't entered the job market yet but are already worried about what happens when they leave it. Welcome to France, where workers' rights are so much a part of existence that schoolchildren are as unsettled as their parents and grandparents about plans to raise the retirement age to 62. Workers around France went on strike Thursday to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to raise the retirement age to 62. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)By Christina Okello and Angela Charlton
Associated Press Writers / June 27, 2010
Associated Press Writers / June 27, 2010
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PARIS—The front lines of the latest French protest against raising the retirement age revealed a remarkable sight: Not the slightest wrinkle, not a single gray hair.
Brandishing "Save our Pensions!" banners, students who haven't even entered the job market yet are already worried about what happens when they leave it.
Welcome to France, where workers' rights are so deeply entwined into the culture that even teenagers are unsettled about plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, which is still among the lowest in Europe. The reform protest brought nearly a million people out into the streets across the country Thursday.
Young people fear they will lose the most from President Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reforms, which aim to cut France's ballooning deficit and make the money-losing pension system break even starting in 2018.
Despite the protest's colored balloons and jovial atmosphere, Julie Mandelbaum, a 23-year-old geopolitics student from the prestigious Institut de Sciences Politiques, was not in a party mood.