Why Eugenia

Eugenia is a former public high school teacher. She has lived in Cambridge with her now-husband since 2006. They are the parents of a 1st and 3rd grader in the public schools (at Baldwin).

Eugenia came close to winning when she ran last cycle under the tag line, "Eugenia Schraa Huh rhymes with Algebra." (She was the most likely to replace an incumbent if a replacement was needed.) In both cycles, the Cambridge Advanced Learners Association has endorsed her.

Eugenia went to Harvard, and met her husband Ming-Tai when he was a student at MIT. They met at River Gods in Central Square. Ming now owns a number of independent Cambridge restaurants, including Puritan & Co, Cafe Beatrice, and Amba.

Besides teaching high school in the Bronx, Eugenia also headed the Rikers Island Juvenile Education Program at Fordham Law (working with young men ages 16-18). Most recently, she was the Head of Constituent Services in Cambridge, working on all sorts of resident issues, including families facing threat of eviction and experiencing homelessness.

Eugenia gets results. She successfully advocated for an additional 170 afterschool seats (a ~20% increase) and to raise afterschool teacher pay. You can learn more or subscribe for updates at her substack on afterschool.

She writes a weekly newsletter on school issues (see recent issues), which brings attention and media coverage to important concerns at Cambridge Public Schools (CPS).

The problem with our schools

The optics of equity keep winning over making sure students actually learn.

CPS teaches all kids at the same level, regardless of mastery. This is to avoid rigid “tracking,” which unfairly labels kids smart or not. But we need flexibility. Even the best teachers can’t differentiate in classes spanning 6+ grade levels.

Lumping kids together hurts those who are behind.

All 8th graders are taking Algebra I this fall, even though almost half are below grade level. Allowing kids to be demoralized and lost in a class they're not ready for is far less equitable than working to meet them where they are.

Holding back advanced learners hurts all kids.

It sends the harmful message that academics aren't worth pursuing with excellence.
Worse, when CPS blocks advanced pathways, "in-the-know" families find ways to access advanced coursework (inside or outside the system), while other families are left out.

Our countless "equitable processes" are meaningless if they don't improve outcomes.

Only ~25% of low-income students meet expectations in Math and English, grades 3-8. This is a scandal that requires our full focus. And shows that many CPS "equitable processes" do not actually produce equity.
While CPS's racial education gap has grown wider since the pandemic, our local charter schools are outperforming CPS with the same demographic groups that we are currently failing. It is possible to do better. We need the will to break with feel-good orthodoxy and deliver actual results.

What we need from School Committee

We need leaders willing to call out practices that sound nice, but don't result in student learning.

School is about preparing kids to succeed in the tough real world after graduation. School Committee must be willing to end practices that make the grownups in the building look good, without delivering actual results for students.

One example is unleveled math classes with students spanning 5 grade levels (the current Algebra I). Another is "Grading for Equity," a high school program that means students can't earn below a 50% in a course — even if they don't show up. (This goes against actual best practices around absenteeism, a serious concern on which many families need CPS to step up.)

We need leaders willing to put in the hard work to create programing parents want.

The only reason we don't have more of the programs parents want — the excellent Montessori program at Tobin or the bilingual programs at MLK (Mandarin) and Amigos (Spanish) — is lack of political will. (It's not lack of will on the part of families.) Expanding or duplicating these programs won't be easy, but it is what our students deserve.

We need leaders willing to ask for proven educational practices, not new initiatives with "equity" in the name.

There is high-quality, robust research on public education and economic mobility — much of it conducted right here in Cambridge, by economists at Harvard and MIT. But you wouldn't know it from the discussions at School Committee meetings.

Let's take one easy example. Economic research by Harvard economist Roland Fryer shows that students learn more when teachers receive regular feedback and coaching. (Not a shocker!) And, in the latest CPS survey, our teachers said they want more feedback and coaching — it was the area in which they expressed the most unhappiness. These two things go together! Improving teacher feedback and coaching should be a major CPS initiative.

We need more preparation against ICE raids (and telling families about it).

ICE agents came by the Amigos elementary school during the first Trump Administration. We have every reason to believe they will come by again. CPS should be taking actions to make schools as safe as possible — and telling parents what they're doing, so they can make informed choices.

We need to get ahead of tech — students shouldn't be outsourcing their thinking to AI.

CPS has to stop being years behind on adapting to technology. The "bell-to-bell" cell phone ban only began this fall at the high school. That is at least two years too late.

Generally, we should examine how much tech is in classrooms. While strong, proven computer programs can be a good thing, as a rule, tech should be minimized in favor of practical, real-world learning.

Currently, there is no district-wide policy on AI. (They are developing one.) But kids are using it rampantly, including in ways that will rob them of the ability to learn critical thinking skills. Teachers, families and students need guidance and safeguards now.