A BIAS complaint against the Boston Public Schools by the Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts and civil rights attorneys misses the overarching point of Superintendent Carol Johnson’s plan to close or merge 19 schools in the fall. The goal of this restructuring is to close persistent achievement gaps and expand opportunities for every student, all at a manageable cost to taxpayers as costs rise and the number of students declines. The plan will mean changes for a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic students, but that isn’t itself a sign of bias; as it stands, minority students are disproportionately assigned to poorly performing schools.
According to the complaint, 46 percent of the students who will be affected by upcoming school closures are black, 10 percentage points higher than the proportion of black students in the school system as a whole. Latino students, who comprise 41 percent of the district, are also disproportionately affected by the closures. The complaint further alleges that the closures create the potential for overcrowding and unequal transportation burdens for many minority students.
But the status quo is a proven inequity — and a far more damaging one. The district faced a $63 million deficit and declining enrollment, and the Boston School Committee responded by approving Johnson’s plan to close nine schools and merge 10 others. The schools were culled from a larger list of about 30 schools that suffered from low academic performance and low demand by families. In making their final decisions, school officials also assessed factors such as safety records, building conditions, school culture, potential cost savings, and likelihood for school improvement. The criteria, like the outcome, made sense.
Johnson understood that many of the schools facing the stiffest challenges had disproportionately high populations of black and Latino students. For that reason, she took careful attention to ensure that these students would have an opportunity to attend stronger schools in the same attendance zones. Several well-regarded schools in poor neighborhoods, for example, will be expanding under the plan. Johnson and her team are taking similar pains to move special-needs students and non-native speakers as a group to minimize the pain of transition. Her focus is where it should be: on finding the fastest, most cost-effective way to close the achievement gap between minority and white students.
The complainants, including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association, are hopeful that the US Department of Education will step in and prevent the closures. Such an unfortunate outcome would not only trample on a carefully crafted plan but force school officials to make across-the-board cuts that would cripple any hope for lasting classroom improvements in Boston.
