From the office of Senator Anthony D. Galluccio

The
call was brought to Brickbottom's facility manager Bob Martel's
attention by the description of a "vagrant" that was outside of the
building who allegedly witnessed the activity. Somerville police
officers searched the entire area sealing off the premises.

The situation is still under investigation.

Without
much notice, Somerville is becoming one of the more innovative schools
systems in the U.S. That is the subject of this series. Recent
gatherings involving some of the nation's leading thinkers on the
future of education provided evidence of the depth and value of
Somerville Schools' innovation.

Alan November was the keynote
speaker at a national conference on visual literacy. "Visual literacy"
means recognizing how a message is shaped by the medium that is
delivering it. Alan describes a phenomenon that will transform K-12
education as we know it. With the proliferation of digital technology
and media as educational tools, schools will become the equivalent of
one-room schoolhouses, where everyone learns from everyone else, and
the teacher is more coach and choreographer than attendance taker and
grader.

A diverse group of Somerville High kids were the only
actual K-12 students at the conference. They deeply impressed
conference goers by presenting videos that they had created. They
discussed the videos' style and substance with greater sophistication
than could be managed by a number of the graduate-school students in
the room. In so doing, they proved November's thesis.

In our
last column, we discussed how Somerville Schools have reduced by 50% in
one year the rate at which they hold back students in grades
1-through-8. So I (Joe) was fascinated to hear Jay Smink, director of
the National Dropout Prevention Institute, when some Somerville School
staff and I attended a workshop on the subject in Worcester.

Jay
emphasized the critical role of identifying students who are
struggling, and the areas in which they are having a hard time. He says
that such assessment can begin as early as the third grade. He
advocates a range of interventions-projects, after-school programs,
summer school, mentorships – to change a dropout pattern into higher
achievement. Any of them is more effective than "retention in grade,"
that is, holding a kid back for more of the same thing that didn't work
in the first place. In other words, he advocates the innovations that
Somerville is already successfully implementing.

Smink's theory
and Somerville's practice are consistent with some compelling insights
that emerge from exhaustive research conducted by John Hattie. Hattie
was the Chairman of Educational Research Methodology at the University
of North Carolina and is now based in New Zealand. He examined
thousands of studies and compared the results of fifty years of
evaluations and experiments in K-12 schools.

He identified 138
practices used by teachers, schools, and parents, and compared their
effects. Some of the practices were conscious methods, like teaching
kids to assess their own work. Others were simply behaviors that had an
affect on kids' ability to learn, like families moving so often that
they didn't establish social networks. You can take a look at this
research at
http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/staff/j.hattie. On
almost all points, his conclusions coincide with Smink's-retaining kids
in grade is an educational disaster, with no educational justification
whatsoever.

Last week, I spent two days at meetings in Boston
with a team from the US Department of Education (DOE) that is planning
the development of Race-to-the-Top assessment methodologies.
Race-to-the-Top is the new program that offers competitive grants to
innovative schools and educators. It's funded by $4.3 billion in
stimulus-package money, $350 million of which is for new assessment
methods.

Part of the conversation involved the use of
"portfolios." These are collections of papers or projects that a
teacher and student believe are noteworthy. They accumulate in a file,
or more recently on a CD Rom, over the student's middle- and
high-school years. The Massachusetts' 1993 Education Reform Act that
created MCAS also authorized the use of portfolios as an alternative or
supplement to MCAS. There is even a budget line item for it.

If
America and our children are to be successful in the world in which we
now live, we must teach kids how to think, rather than what to know.
What is important to know is constantly changing, so they need the
capacity to think effectively about any situation in which they find
themselves. The factory jobs that could pay a living wage have been
vanishing for decades. Increasingly, the only economic sectors in which
the U.S. can be competitive and that provide jobs with a future are
those that require critical thinking, defining objectives, problem
solving, and the skills needed to work well with others.

Assessments
like the MCAS don't measure these capacities. Instead, they measure
knowledge and some fairly trivial skills. Organizations like FairTest
and elected officials like Carl Sciortino have been working to get
policy makers to recognize this for years.

Better assessments
would lead to more interesting teaching and smarter kids. That was the
point made by the consultants who were at the Race-to-the-Top event. In
response, the DOE officials seemed cool to the idea of portfolios. And
Massachusetts has done little to develop the practice, despite its
recognition in legislation.

But-you guessed it-Somerville High
School has been compiling portfolios for some time. That's the good
news. The bad news is that the portfolios have never been used. The
other good news, though, is that there is now a committee in the high
school reviewing how portfolios might be made more useful.

Mayor Joseph Curtatone's
Youth Somerville Advisory Group (YSAG) held its annual report and
recommendation meeting at the Armory, as part of its ongoing efforts to
involve and give voice to Somervillians aged 25-42.

"Somerville
is a great place to live, with a great location, great restaurants,
great people, and a mayor who cares about our point of view," said
James Stark, 31, YSAG's co-chair. "We want to ensure that we keep it
that way."

And it's not news to anyone that Somerville's young
population is growing. The Ville is often touted as the new "hip" burb
of Boston, admired for its diversity, creativity, affordability, and
proximity to the highway. In fact, 42.6 percent of Somerville's
population is aged 25-42-the highest concentration in the Boston area
(see box below), according to 2000 census figures compiled by the city
(the most recent youth stats data).

YSAG, which formed two
years ago, is comprised of 20-30 members at any given time and meets
with city officials twice each month. The group's mission is to learn
more about ongoing and new efforts to improve city services, and to
give voice to an age group that is typically not so active with town
government.

The group's recommendations were gleaned from
routinely surveying the city's young population via Google surveys and
during community events like ArtBeat and Riverfest. A few highlights of
the top priorities are as follows:

o Continue to work to
implement a single-stream recycling program in Somerville. This means
allowing people the flexibility to lump paper and canned goods into one
recycling tub to make it more convenient for everyone to recycle. The
city should also include recycling information and the benefits of
doing so in resident tax billings.

o Use code enforcements as
a tool to increase revenue, while keeping Somerville clean and safe.
Such efforts might be directed at rental residents and those property
owners (often absentee landlords) who are not maintaining the upkeep of
their property; including those who don't shovel their sidewalks in the
winter.

o Encourage developers to increase the number of
affordable sale and rental properties, as well as discouraging them
from converting properties into condos in order to retail sufficient
affordable rental units.

o Develop a first-time homebuyers course for young residents.

o Increase the basic requirements for Shape Up Somerville-approved restaurants to improve the health of residents.

o
Create long-term off-street parking lots or spaces where residents
without driveways can safely leave their cars for one to two weeks, at
a reasonable fee.

Establishing a strong presence in the community will be a primary focus in the upcoming year, YSAG members say.

Some
other issues posed by members include adding more bike lanes, bike
paths, and bike parking areas, said Jon Pettit, 30, who works in alumni
relations for Harvard University. "I'm interested in alternative forms
of transportation," he said.

Pettit heard about YSAG shortly
after buying a condo here two years ago. He grew up in Amherst, a
community that was active in local government, including "involved town
meetings," he said with a chuckle. It was only natural for him to join
YSAG.

"Engaging people in our age group is often difficult to
do," said Matt Hartman, 28, a first-year law student at Suffolk
University. "As a group, we have progressed to all sorts of issues that
have come up, like improving communications with the city."

YSAG
co-chair Lauren Tulp, 25, who works for a philanthropic consulting
firm, said young people do want to get involved with politics, but
oftentimes don't know how to go about it.

"This has been a great
learning experience," she said. "I've learned about the structure of
city government, how it works, what to take advantage of. There are so
many opportunities for us out there."

YSAG would also like to
reach out to the community and work with organizations that serve the
homeless, for example, said Stark, a project coordinator for the
state's Executive Office of Public Safety.

Members are really
excited about the possibility of creating a first-time homebuyers
class. Carrie English, 28, who works for WGBH, ended up buying a condo
in Somerville after learning through being a part of YSAG about the
resources available to young people like herself.

"Somerville has progressive affordable housing programs that many people do not know of," Pettit said.

YSAG
members acknowledged that membership was mainly reflected in the
college-educated, Caucasian, working professional. They are working to
become more diverse by printing flyers in Creole and Portuguese and
increasing their outreach into the immigrant population.

Visit www.somervillema.gov/youngsomerville for more information about YSAG.

The motorist, Syed Hague, shakes hands
and offers an apology to accident victim Ray Carre with passenger Syeda
Akater in background. All three exchanged phone numbers and made plans
to go for coffee before the holidays!

Buonomo,
57, plead guilty in October to 39 charges relating to both misuse of
campaign funds and stealing from the coin operated copy machines in the
Registry of Deeds basement, where he worked as the Middlesex County
register of probate.

Buonomo had served in the position since
2000, and while prosecutors saying it is unknown how much he may have
stolen security cameras filmed him breaking into the Cambridge
building's machines in 2008.

At the 2 p.m. sentencing Judge
Bruce Henry said he had considered appeals made by Buonomo's friends
for leniency, his admission of guilt and his lack of a criminal record.

"They are serious offenses," Henry said. "They are offenses which undermine the faith citizens have in their government."

"Somewhat to his credit, perhaps late in the game, he's taken responsibility for what he's done," Henry added.

In
addition to the prison term, Henry also ordered Buonomo to remain on
probation for 10 years and pay a fine of $102,792.15. Henry said the
"public humiliation" Buonomo faced from the ordeal was also a factor in
his decision.

Buonomo, who sat by himself before the sentencing,
displayed little emotion as he faced the judge and did not speak.
Immediately after the sentence was read, Buonomo was led away in
handcuffs.

Michael Natola, Buonomo's attorney, said outside the courtroom Buonomo will likely be eligible for parole in 15 months.

Buonomo is appealing a recent decision by the Somerville Retirement Board to repeal his $3,228.07 per month pension.

David McLean, the chain's
operations manager and Somerville location manager Mike Dunleavy told
the Board of Aldermen's Public Safety Committee that following the Oct.
11 assault and robbery of a woman in the store's parking lot,
surveillance cameras had been installed.

Ward 2 Alderman
Maryann Heuston had earlier criticized the store for letting chaos
reign in the perpetually full parking lot even as the store maintains
dozens of cameras inside.

Dunleavy explained that since the incident, high-resolution cameras had been installed to monitor the parking lot.

"I can look into Ceaser's [across the street] and see someone eating a slice of pizza," Dunleavy added.

Heuston
also pressed the representatives on the overcrowded lot and often
blocked fire lanes, which she said pose a safety hazard to anyone in
need of medical assistance – an assessment supported by a letter from
Fire Chief Kevin Kelleher at the Monday meeting.

"I'm hoping
there's a way we can come to an agreement here on making that parking
lot a more reasonable place," Heuston told the representatives.

McLean
said more lights would be installed in the lot and that they would
undergo a parking study to determine whether more spaces could be
added. The lot has an estimated 218 spaces, Dunleavy said.

"We've
got a $25 million road opening in the spring," Heuston said,
referencing the Somerville Avenue revitalization project. "Wouldn't it
be nice to have something more than a parking lot with carts and some
lighting in the middle?"

In the meantime, Alderman-at-Large Jack Connolly offered some shopping advice.

"We go early," he said. "I park on Church Street because I won't even attempt to go near the lot."

Committee
Chair Bill White asked the store to begin enforcing fire lane towing
and requesting a police detail to monitor the lot in addition to the
detail posted inside the store several days each week.

But why? She is, after all,
the leader of the House of Representatives, so that should mean
something. Pelosi may have no problem in her home district of San
Francisco, but she would find Massachusetts a bit less liberal-friendly
than most people assume.

And there is the rub – some say that
Pelosi transcends progressiveness and heads straight into the realm of
full-blown liberal. As progressive as Mike is and as progressive as Ted
was, they both know how to play to both sides of the aisle – full blown
liberalism wouldn't have played for either of them in the long-term.
Ever.

So she comes to town to give the nod to Mike. Political
proclivity and reality aside, for you and yours, that means that the
top of the leadership in the House has the faith in Mike Capuano to be
the next Senator from Massachusetts. There is a serious upside to this.

In
an era where political newcomers are still in vogue, the uphill battle
that Mike has in this election, outside of the shortness of time until
the Primary, is hammering into every voter's head that a Washington
insider is exactly what we need in our next Senator. Yes, you read that
right.

And that's why the voters of this Primary should be
impressed with Speaker Pelosi's endorsement of Mike Capuano for Senate
– because we need more than the regular flash in the pan candidate for
Senate – we need down in the trenches experience, period. Experience
that a hard working, intelligent and dedicated candidate who is already
way ahead of the others when it comes to political maneuvering in
Washington DC can deliver.