What will it take to provide equity for Boston students? A veteran teacher’s view
By Garret Virchick
Forty-four years after the desegregation of its public schools, Boston has once again failed to create a school assignment plan that provides equal access to quality education for low-income students. In fact, as a recent study commissioned by Boston Public Schools details, the current home-based assignment plan has led to an increase in inequality.
Will the city’s leaders start addressing the real problems or once again simply rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic?
Assuming the positive intentions of our leaders, a good first step would be to start asking the right questions. The first question should be why Boston parents, in collaboration with the NAACP, brought the 1972 lawsuit that charged the city with racial discrimination in the public schools? The answer shows us that it was less about integration and more about having schools their children could attend that would ensure equity in the resources available for their education.
Boston parent and civil rights activist Ruth Batson was a leader in that initial struggle. “What black parents wanted was to get their children to schools where there were the best resources for educational growth — smaller class sizes, up-to-date books,” Batson recalled. “They wanted their children in a good school building, where there was an allocation of funds which exceeded those in the black schools; where there were sufficient books and equipment for all students.” (The Atlantic. “The Lasting Legacy of the Boston Busing Crisis.” Matthew Delmont. March 29, 2016)
Unfortunately city leaders such as School Committee Chair Michael Loconto missed the boat when the first things they pointed to after learning of the study were money and busing costs. Loconto rightly pointed out that Governor Charlie Baker is not going to provide more money, but he then excused city government because they already contribute a lot. But will cutting busing costs provide every child in the city access to a quality school with sufficient resources? My guess is Mr. Loconto would not be inclined to pose this question, knowing full well the answer is no.
The excuse that we keep hearing—that city government already contributes a lot—also misses the mark. Real leaders ask the right questions rather than give excuses. The question should be, is “a lot” really enough? But we won’t know the answer to that question until a complete and fair assessment is done that determines the needs of the students attending our schools.
How many social workers are required in each school? How small do classes need to be for students who are behind grade level? What about books, science supplies, computers, building repairs, and a host of other needs? I’ll go out on a limb and say that a true needs assessment, with the goal of bringing about equity in our schools, will tell us that the cost will be far more than the few dollars that could be saved by cutting bus routes.
One part of that equity is creating inclusive classrooms that bring together students with diverse needs and are sufficiently staffed to meet the needs of all. This is part of the aspirational vision put forward by the Boston Teachers Union.
But other leaders in our city, this time on the editorial pages of the Boston Globe, belittle this effort. While they do not deny the righteousness of this vision, they dismiss efforts to fully staff schools to meet student needs. “That’s an enormously expensive item in a budget that already tops $1 billion a year,” said a Globe editorial on August 16.
To be fair, $1 billion is more than the $800 million (adjusted for inflation) that was in the school budget in 1975, one year after court-ordered desegregation. And without any context, that indeed might seem like a lot of money. But Boston has many schools in dire need of repair. Only one new school has been built in the last 15 years. The computers and technology costs required for a 21st-century education are way beyond the costs of 16mm projectors, mimeograph machines, and one or two overhead projectors, which were the technological norm in 1975.
A typical budget in 1975 might include one or two guidance counselors and only in the secondary schools. But the social and emotional toll of 44 years of flat wages for families, a widening wealth gap, the war on drugs, the war on immigrants, and the mass incarceration of poor black and brown people demands millions of dollars for psychologists and social workers. And that money is only a fraction of what is truly needed.
Everywhere you look modern society costs more than it did 44 years ago. Instead of questioning most new initiatives that would increase funding to bring about equity in our schools, perhaps the editors of the Boston Globe should be asking much more fundamental questions. Why is the richest country in the world giving tax breaks to billionaires while its children attend schools where teachers have to supplement budgets from their own paychecks? Isn’t 44 years long enough to wait?
The purpose of schooling in a democratic society is another topic that needs to be addressed if equity is the goal. Students in Wellesley and Weston attend schools where they are taught to become tomorrow’s leaders. But in Boston and other cities, where poverty is the norm in the schools rather than the exception, classes that prepare students for leadership roles in society take a back seat to test prep classes.
Besides not asking the right questions about budgets, money, and resources, our city’s leaders still refuse to question the legitimacy of standardized testing. We know that children who grow up in poverty test lower than their peers. Yet these tests are used to call their schools underperforming. We know that students who are learning English test poorly on tests that are given to them in English. Yet these students are tested after one year of English instruction, and those low test scores are used to punish the schools and teachers who care for these children.
And we know that when test scores are used as a way to measure and rank schools and teachers, the curriculum is perverted; designing programs that might inspire our students becomes a fantasy that ultimately drives out many great teachers who are frustrated by the failure of leadership, whose only concerns are not rocking the boat and staying under budget.
The wealthy and the powerful send THEIR children to the best schools with the most resources and the smallest classes. If 44 years of school desegregation still has not guaranteed access to quality education, it is a crisis of leadership. Real leaders know, to paraphrase the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, that the wealthy and the powerful will never provide equity without a demand. Real leaders know that the power to change the world lies in the citizens. Real leaders know that when the right questions are asked the people will find the answers . . . and make the appropriate demands.
[Garret Virchick recently retired from the Boston Public Schools after 30 years teaching science. He worked at a variety of schools, including ABCD University Alternative High School, Fenway High School, and Brighton High School, and as a New Teacher Developer. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Boston Teachers Union.]
