City schools challenged by shifting ethnic mix

In the district's annual student head count, Latinos accounted for 38.1 percent of all students, surpassing African-Americans, who comprise 37.9 percent of the student body, according to data posted on the state's education website. The change follows decades of steady growth among Latino students and more than 10 years of declines in the percentage of African-Americans, according to state enrollment data.

The rising ranks of Latinos - a phenomenon mirrored in school districts across the country - could ultimately redefine the public image of a school system still often seen through the prism of the 1970s clash between black and white families over desegregation.

"Boston itself is changing, and the black-and-white Boston of the past is now embedded in a multicultural international city," said Neil Sullivan, executive director of the Private Industry Council, a public-private partnership between the city's businesses and the schools. "You are always going to see a demographic shift first among the students in schools."

While this shift has been years in the making, with the percentage of Latinos steadily rising nearly every year, some argue that Boston school leaders have not done enough to serve this growing population and have been too quick to blame the achievement gap on poor language skills.

"I think it's a pattern we saw coming in the early '90s," said Myriam Ortiz, acting director of the Boston Parent Organizing Network, an advocacy group. "What I'm outraged about is that the district still has not caught up with the trend of having more Latino students - providing the support mechanisms for students and changing the perception that as soon as you say 'Latino' you think 'English language learners.' That's not the majority of Latino students in the district."

Just how much the district has fallen short with some of these students was made clear last week with the release of the state's annual high school dropout report. More than 10 percent of Latinos in the city's high schools dropped out last year, the highest rate for any racial or ethnic group, and about 2 percentage points higher than the statewide average for Latinos. The overall dropout rate for the state was 3.4 percent.

"It is evident that Boston is struggling to serve Latinos well, not just those who are English language learners, but Latinos overall," said Miren Uriarte, senior research associate at the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, which released a report this month showing the district's shortcomings with English language learners, most of whom are native Spanish speakers.

Boston schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson has acknowledged the need to bolster programs serving Latinos and pledged to improve their achievement. Next year, she notes, the district has plans to expand Boston International High School and open another program in which Spanish-speaking and English-speaking students learn subjects in both languages.

"Our agenda around English language learners, cultural competency, and diversity are connected to how we want to work with and communicate a welcoming attitude to these families," Johnson said. "Public schools, particularly urban public schools, have been a major gateway for many of these students entering the country. . . . We have to make sure we have the resources we need to invest in the supports for these students and their families."

The changing face of the city's schools reflects a surging immigrant population across Massachusetts, which would have probably experienced a population decline without the influx of foreign-born residents.

Some students, newly arrived in this country, have trouble in schools becoming language and cultural barriers. In response, the city this year opened a Newcomers Academy for high school students who do not speak English well, if it all, and lag several grade levels behind.

Other children are born here to recent immigrants and grow up in households where only Spanish is spoken. They often pick up English from watching television or through English-speaking friends or neighbors. Less than half of the students who are native speakers of Spanish currently require tutoring in speaking English.

"A lot of families have not had formal education," said Claudio Martinez, a School Committee member. "In many cases, it's the first time these kids are going to school and they have little support."

Each October, school districts are required to review each student's registration form and note their demographic background in a report prepared for the state. This year's results, including the shift in Boston numbers, were posted as a routine update this winter.

Johnson last week cautioned against describing as Latinos the largest student group in Boston, saying there are different ways to crunch the raw data from the registration forms. For instance, she pointed out that the state labels students who identify themselves as both black and Latino as only Latino. Boston has about 4,200 such students.

But the growth in the Latino population is indisputable, increasing in number nearly every year for the last four decades, according to state and city data. By contrast, the number of black students, who became the largest student group in the late 1970s, has been declining over the past decade.

The shift aligns Boston with Lawrence, Chelsea, Holyoke, Springfield, and Lynn, where Latinos already represent the largest student group.

The increase in the number of Latino students is particularly striking at some Boston schools. Just 15 years ago, Latinos represented 31 percent of the student body at Ellis Mendell Elementary School in Roxbury, while blacks made up 61 percent. Today, the statistics have flip-flopped, with Latinos filling 63 percent of the 183 seats.

Latinos make up more than half of the student body at about a quarter of the district's schools, located predominantly in East Boston, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and the South End.

Understanding the cultures of the new wave of students coming into the schools is the key to the system's future success, said John Mudd, senior project director for Massachusetts Advocates for Children, an advocacy group that works on behalf of disadvantaged students.

"We've gotten beyond certain kinds of issues in the city - the clashes of the desegregation area - but we have a whole set of new issues we have to face," Mudd said.