About 70 people rallied this morning on the steps of Boston Latin School in support of keeping an exam to help determine who gets into Boston's three exam schools next year, while across Avenue Louis Pasteur, about 20 people held a counter-protest saying it's time to ditch the test as a legacy of Boston's racist past.
The pro-exam protesters were almost entirely white and Asian-American; the anti-exam protesters were almost entirely white. Mostly missing on either side: Blacks and Hispanics, who make up the majority of BPS students.
The School Committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a proposal by School Superintendent Brenda Cassellius and an exam-school working group to ditch exams for Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and the O'Bryant School of Mathematics for next year.
Instead, 20% of the roughly 900 exam-school seats for seventh grade would be offered to students with the highest grades citywide while the remaining seats would be offered in several rounds based on Zip codes - the students with the highest class rank in each Zip code would be offered seats, but with preference given to students from lower-income Zip codes.
Protesters chanted this would ruin the exam schools because too many "feeder schools" suck and that that's not fair to the kids in Zip codes that traditionally supply a disproportionate share of exam-school students. "Fix the feeder schools!" they chanted at one point.
They also alleged the proposal is itself racist because it would limit the number of students from Chinatown.
"Don't bring back the quota!" they chanted at one point, referring to the busing-era system BPS used to assign some seats at the exam schools, until a white parent from Hyde Park sued and won in 1996. They also demanded the School Committee schedule a public hearing on the issue before taking any vote. Some questioned why the whole thing isn't being put to a public vote.
Instead, they want BPS to test students who want to go to one of the exam schools with a test called MAP. BPS chose MAP in July to replace the ISEE, which it abruptly decided to stop using in February.
On the other side of the street, protesters pointed to the fact that Boston Latin School in particular has demographics nowhere near those of the rest of the BPS system and that several years of attempts to change that have not worked:
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Comments
BPS current plan has the right balance
By Cutter
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 1:03pm
BPS is set on starting with the new exam next year, one that's more fair to public school students than the private school oriented ISEE was.
I don't know if the district could pull off a safe exam this fall. But they shouldn't be forced to try, given how much else they are dealing with.
I actually think this is a good opportunity to see what a different kind of system would look like, and it's certainly no less fair than the current one. Worth remembering that in this plan one of the qualifying factors for BPS kids is scoring proficient on the MCAS. So it's not like there's no selectivity at all.
Online exam
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 1:19pm
One of the selling points of the MAP exam (BPS' new vendor) was a flexible format - apparently, it had been extensively administered on computers. Internet and computer access shouldn't be an issue since BPS has provided Chromebooks to anyone who wants one, while Comcast's Internet Essentials ($10/month) is offering 3 months free for low-income families. Yes, proctoring may be an issue, but webcam recordings may work (there wouldn't be an active monitor, but the recordings can be viewed after the fact if there's something suspicious). Content-wise, the MAP exam should be able to accommodate the testing of 4th grade standards instead of 5th grade standards, i.e. to capture pre-pandemic learning.
It's not that hard - BPS can have the vendor figure it out...
It saddens me that our city
By Anom
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 6:36pm
It saddens me that our city only has a limited number of seats at quality high schools. We should be asking ourselves- why has the administration failed so bad at improving the quality of our schools? Instead they come up with a plan that divides the city. There needs to be better solutions instead of tearing apart the few high performing schools that exist in BPS. The tone of BPS leadership and the school Committee has to more inclusive of all BPS students and not make assumptions based on race. The district has already made its students take remote standardized tests this year. There are ways it could be done or at least do a city-wide lottery for all kids who meet the baseline gpa criteria. We are stronger as a united city. The zip proposal just divides us. It has us fighting over crumbs in a broken. Let’s figure out how a non-exam schools like Boston Collegate are providing high quality education and try to replicate it. Let’s expand the capacity at the exam schools. We need more high quality high schools but we always just focus on the few seats at the exam schools.
Improve Our Schools
By Anom
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 6:48pm
It saddens me that our city only has a limited number of seats at quality high schools. We should be asking ourselves- why has the administration failed so bad at improving the quality of our schools? Instead they come up with a plan that divides the city. There needs to be better solutions instead of tearing apart the few high performing schools that exist in BPS. The tone of BPS leadership and the school Committee has to more inclusive of all BPS students and not make assumptions based on race. The district has already made its students take remote standardized tests this year. There are ways it could be done or at least do a city-wide lottery for all kids who meet the baseline gpa criteria. We are stronger as a united city. The zip code proposal just divides us. It has us fighting over crumbs in a broken school system. Let’s figure out how a non-exam school like Boston Collegate is providing high quality education and try to replicate it. Let’s expand the capacity at the exam schools. We need more high quality high schools but we always just focusing on BLS.
I agree about the difficulties of COVID-19, but the issue is...
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 1:22pm
How do you know that BPS will have an exam ever again? In case you haven't noticed, all of the language coming out of the School Committee leave the door wide open for permanently removing the exam.
From the, er, voluminous BLS parent email group
By Parkwayne
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 11:09pm
.... someone pointed out that there wasn't an exam before the 60s and of course the school used to be only boys, so this freak-out about changes the rules of admission like it's one of the 10 Commandments are only relevant IF the standards of the school slip due to this, which is not clear at all.
And before the 60s...
By anon
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 9:40am
How fair were BLS admissions? And isn't the number of applicants (in relation to the number of available seats) much higher today?
BPS has paid a vendor for an "equity, guaranteed" exam -- all they have to do is use it. Chicago's using the same exam this year to admit students to their version of exam schools. If Chicago, with its daily tragedies disproportionately impacting low-income Black neighborhoods, is using it, why not BPS?
Yes, and those days, there
By hollydollydoo
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 9:03pm
Yes, and those days, there was also a Girls' Latin School. I am an alumna, and was fortunate enough to have some truly brilliant minds of the city - Black, Asian, Latina, Irish, Jewish, Italian.
It was one of the great accomplishments of my life to have graduated from there.
Okay. Here's the question
By Waquiot
Tue, 10/20/2020 - 7:05pm
How did they decide to admit you?
I mean, you were in 6th grade, so the minutia of how it happened was probably lost on you, but roughly, what do you remember?
I don't know if the district
By Refugee
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 1:24pm
Space students' desks farther apart while they take the test. It isn't rocket science.
Make use of the.....
By Bobby Sprowl
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 4:03pm
larger venues in the city BCEC, Hynes Convention Center, TD Garden) to administer the new MAP exam (which the Superintendent told us would address the diversity issue) to all students with safe social distancing.
Pretty of empty spaces in the city
By JoeMT
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 4:45pm
How about utilizing the Hynes and BCEC for exams? both convention centers are empty.
Money and
By Kathode
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 7:34pm
staffing.
Interesting
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 1:12pm
But there is a point on the pro-test side. BPS' own estimates (presentation at School Committee meeting, page 18) show a 25% decrease in the number of Asian students being offered seats at the exam schools.
Are Asian-Americans really so privileged in the City of Boston to the point that they can suffer from the largest percentage decrease of any demographic group? Go to Chinatown, or if you don't want to take the T, drive to the Vietnamese community in Dorchester - both will strongly reject the notion of privilege.
(Yes, Asian-Americans nationally have the highest average income of any demographic group. But those Asians are the skilled/professional class living in suburbs like Newton, Wellesley, Lexington, etc., not the ones working 12-hour restaurant shifts and living in housing that's only affordable because it's run-down...)
Convenient omissions
By Jose
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 9:48pm
Good points, but how could you have missed the challenges faced by the vast majority of the BPS’s student: Blacks and Latinos? Surely a concerned and honest soul such as yourself wouldn’t have intentionally missed Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and East Boston. We see through your racism. We also pay taxes and vote in this city and we demand equity for our children.
I agree with the sentiment
By DaveInWestie
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 7:28am
But I know some of those people at the protest against removing the exam because they’re my neighbors. It seems like West Roxbury was well represented there on the side of keeping the exams. There were flyers around my neighborhood the day before. The biggest losers of this proposal will be the West Roxbury crowd with kids in private school just waiting until the day they place into Latin and living in houses that cost a $1,000,000.
I’m actually torn on the right approach. Obviously I think we need to keep high standards in that school because otherwise, what’s the point? I would much prefer to do something like free test prep city wide so that rich kids don’t get all the advantages while keeping the same high standards.
West Roxbury has never lost
By anon
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 10:39am
West Roxbury has never lost anything when it comes to privilege.
West Roxbury Privilege
By Misnomer
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 3:31pm
I grew up poor in West Roxbury. I own the house I grew up in because my parents died young: not because of economic privilege. And yes I do know that is privilege, too. What I didn't know- that I lived in such a hive-mind of racists- the neighborhood is more complex than that- if like everywhere, imperfect. Maybe, in working for racial justice for 35 years, me and my Irish/Haitian family just know a wider swath of people then you do who live in the neighborhood. Many of us from West Roxbury - yes, even those raised here who sent their kids to BLS- are not who you constantly frame us to be as there are more of us who share your values than you think, fellow commentators. Surprisingly perhaps, I don't call 911 on my Amazon delivery guys- funny thing a gentrifier new to our street did that two years ago.
And Adam, thank you for what you do to create this forum. You are the primary voice for survivors of Homicide Victims and I appreciate that very much.
There is the
By anon
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 1:30pm
Exam School Initiative which is free.
Can we just add more exam
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 1:22pm
Can we just add more exam schools with each using a different exam so that if a parent thinks one exam is biased they can elect to take the alternative? The city should have never sold off Boston English across the street from Boston Latin. Would have made all the sense in the world to have two exam schools across the street from one another so that they didn't need separate buses.
Boston has had 50 years to fix public schools and only has managed to break them even more despite more money, administrators, and teachers per pupil every year as enrollment has shrank. The administrators got a palatial headquarters while kids are still bussed around for hours to failing falling down non-neighborhood schools. Some of which are still full of lead paint, lead pipes, asbestos, mice, roaches, and have faulty heat. Kids deserve better than being shuffled around to superfund sites and taxpayers deserve to know where the Hell their money is going since it obviously isn't fixing jack shit.
Bingo
By StillFromDorchester
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 4:53pm
Our school system is an embarrassment.
We have a few good schools and the rest are crap.
Can someone explain
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 1:50pm
Why math is racist? Why entrance exams are racist?
It is 2020
By StillFromDorchester
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 4:15pm
Everything is racist. Asking why it is racist is racist.
Many feel a sense of power
By Republican
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 5:14pm
Many feel a sense of power and elitism by putting others down. By calling non racist things racist it allows the accuser to feel a sense of authority. It also creates a slight sexual satisfaction by calling anything and everyone racist.
Sure.
By MostlyHarmless
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 5:40pm
The only thing that standardized tests are good at testing for is how rich your parents are.
Sure?
By StillFromDorchester
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 6:16pm
Even if this were true how is it racist?
Two things
By MostlyHarmless
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 6:57pm
First, it is true, which is why universities keep dropping SATs.
Second, do I really have to explain, in this the year of our lord 2020, how the wealth disparity which exists in the US population is the product of centuries of institutionalized racism? This is such a basic fact about our society that I can't imagine anyone who questions it is doing so in good faith.
So poor people are dumb and
By Republican
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 7:18pm
So poor people are dumb and not capable scoring well on tests? Take your tin foil hat off you classist freak.
What?
By MostlyHarmless
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 8:07pm
I'm sure that follows logically from something, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. I already said standardized tests don't actually measure anything but wealth. That includes smarts.
Poor people, statistically, do not do as well on tests as those whose parents can pay for prep courses and tutors. This is a shock?
The Exam School Initiative,
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 9:51pm
which has been around since 2000, has been offering free test prep to students who may not otherwise be able to afford any other test prep course.
Yes, but ...
By adamg
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 10:39am
Until 2016, it was mainly a project of the Boston Latin School Association, overseen by somebody who didn't feel like alerting parents and students in heavily minority neighborhoods to its existence. So we, with a daughter in one of Boston's few white-majority elementary schools, which was one of BLS's traditional feeder schools in one of the school's traditional feeder neighborhoods (the Kilmer in West Roxbury) got alerted to it and drove her up to BLS for the class, while most parents in Roxbury were never even told about it.
What changed in 2016? Remember Black Lives at BLS? The national attention the school got? The investigation by the US Attorney's office? The resignation of both the headmaster and the assistant headmaster? That's what it took for BPS to begin widespread promotion of the prep class outside of places like West Roxbury and Roslindale.
Just curious
By anon
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 2:02pm
as to why you chose the "white-majority" Kilmer as opposed to other elementary schools that are closer to where you live?
Because it seemed like a good school
By adamg
Fri, 10/23/2020 - 10:33am
We really wanted to send her to a "local" school, i.e., one within walking distance, but the Conley just seemed like it was too small and cluttered. My wife didn't get a good vibe from the principal at the Mozart, he seemed too rigidly attached to structure and rote learning. To be honest, I can't remember what it was about the Bates my wife didn't like when she went on a visit there.
I don't know what it's like now, but back in the three-zone days, trying to pick a school for the lottery, and then waiting for the results, was probably one of the more agonizing things for a parent (followed only by the similar AWC experience a few years later), and we went on a lot of school visits (well, mostly my wife, since I was working in Framingham and Southborough at the time, which made getting to school visits difficult).
We were in the West Zone, where there was a group of parents with preschool kids that met weekly so we could compare notes on school visits and discuss possible strategies for winning the lottery (like "taking over" one school, where all the group members would try to get their kids into the same school).
And, yes, I am very aware of the white privilege in all this. Almost all of the members of the group were white, and the fact that my wife was at home meant she could probably go to more school visits than many parents.
Ok, but how is it racist?
By StillFromDorchester
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 9:13am
Are you saying only minorities are poor?
Now that is kind of racist if you say yes.
Plenty of working class kids of all races take the exam and do just fine, sure getting extra help is a bonus but it has nothing to do with race.
Sigh
By MostlyHarmless
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 10:31am
Minorities are disproportionately poorer than whites, wealth is a sliding, relative scale and not a binary, and occasional good outcomes do not militate against statistical trends.
Poor people tend to do worse than rich people on standardized tests. Because of systematic racism, black people are disproportionately poorer than whites. Thus, standardized tests reinforce racial disparity, which generally is what we mean when we call something "racist." This isn't rocket science.
I don't follow your logic.
By StillFromDorchester
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 11:15am
If systemic racism reinforce racial disparity in entrance exam grades why would a wealthy white kid need any extra help?
My kids are biracial and both took the exam for BLS and didnt score high enough to get in. Is it because of racism or maybe some kids are not as smart as other kids? They tried, and studied but just didnt have what it takes...I won't allow them to blame racism because they didnt score high enough.
Kids who go to private school for the first 5 or 6 years of school do better than most Boston public students, regardless of what skin color they have.
The education most kids recieve in Boston public schools is the problem, not racism, in my opinion.
Look, I don't know how to help you at this point.
By MostlyHarmless
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 12:23pm
Systematic racism is why white kids get extra help - because their parents tend to have the money to get them extra help. Or, better put, systematic racism is why black parents tend not to have the money to get their kids extra help.
Once again, looking at individual outcomes has nothing to do with statistical trends, or vice versa.
Yeah, but kids who go to private school for the first 5 or 6 years tend to have one skin color more than the other, which is the point.
If you are the product of BPS, I can certainly see how there's room for improvement.
We all can't be as brilliant as you.
By StillFromDorchester
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 2:18pm
Stay Classy.
So you're saying that every
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 6:55pm
So you're saying that every kid that gets into BLS has rich parents? Interesting.
No
By MostlyHarmless
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 12:24pm
I'm not, that's pretty stupid.
One part of it is that rich parents
By Boston fun
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 7:53pm
hire tutors to prep their kids for the test. Tutoring starts in fifth grade, in some cases, and can cost thousands of dollars. Less, of course, than tuition at a private school, but so much more than a lot of families can afford.
There is also a whole system that some parents know about, and some parents. If you’re child goes to some specific schools, the teachers know the game. They offer test prep in class. They inflate grades. They know what parents expect. My child went to an elementary school like that, although we live in a low income community, and I was just flabbergasted at the effort, when our neighbors didn’t even know what Boston Latin School is.
Don’t penalize the current
By Poppy
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 2:08pm
Don’t penalize the current 6th graders for inequities of the past. Make a fair system for all. 20/80 plan is outrageously unfair.
You mean
By MostlyHarmless
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 7:02pm
don't penalize the 6th graders who look like you for the inequities of the past. Some of them are already penalized by the simple fact of their existence. How are you making that right?
You mean
By anon
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 9:42am
The Asian-American 6th graders who have been racially abused during the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic?
How is BPS making anything right for them?
No
By MostlyHarmless
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 5:39pm
No, I don't, because that's not the same thing and you know it.
Parent of a current 6th grader here
By anon
Mon, 10/19/2020 - 7:41am
I am a parent of a BPS 6th grader. This argument that the current 6th graders are "penalized" by the changes does not sit well with me.
The proposed changes are not unfair to (all) current 6th graders. They are only unfair to the well-resourced families who were already laying the groundwork to all but guarantee them a spot in the exam schools. For the majority of 6th graders who don't have access to those resources, it's leveling the playing field and giving them a fairer shot.
Think about the number of underserved students who were unfairly excluded from the exam schools FOR DECADES. If we don't change the system, it will continue to be unfair for the underserved kids. What's not fair is to maintain the status quo to be "fair" to the privileged few while continuing to be unfair to a greater number of underserved population.
In the ideal world we would love to find a process that is "fair for all," but that is never going to happen when there is a group of people who will do whatever they can to game the system to get ahead of others. Until we have an ideal world where everyone is willing to play fair, I think the proposed changes are a good compromise to achieve fairness for the majority.
Not that simple
By Alex Sm
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 2:09pm
The "Hey West Rox your racism is showing" sign is pretty tone deaf and clueless and says more about the sign holder than the issue at hand. That should be fairly obvious when you see a seemingly majority Asian crowd protesting this. Or a guy with a sign from zip code 02215, which is the Fenway area. The old Irish-Catholic conservative West Roxbury does not really exist anymore in any large numbers. Anyone who lives there knows that. I think the new plan is fair and well thought out, but people need to put aside their own personal grievances and think more broadly about who is affected here and why. This isn't about one neighborhood or group versus the rest of the city, far from it.
Um ...
By adamg
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 2:22pm
Many of those Asian-Americans were, in fact, from West Roxbury, where there is a growing Asian-American community. And one guess which supermarket in which neighborhood the anti-Zip people were standing in front of on Saturday, handing out ads for the rally (which made three points, one of them being that if the plan goes through, West Roxbury property values will plummet).
The flier.
Right...and?
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 2:53pm
Just because Asian-Americans have been overwhelmingly successful, does it mean that American society should punish them by making it harder for their next generation to succeed?
How do you know where those
By anon
Sun, 10/18/2020 - 3:40pm
Asian-Americans were from? Did you ask everyone who was there where they lived or did they have signs saying where they lived?
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