Any effort to expand diversity would be an improvement
Re “A better way to admit students to Boston Latin” (Editorial, Feb. 22): I went to an exam school in Detroit in the late 1950s, and it changed my life. The reason was not the advanced academic instruction there, which was excellent — and as an avid reader and very good test taker, I would have done well in any high school. Rather, the reason was the exposure I received by attending school outside of my homogenized, white, middle-class neighborhood.
I went to school with students from every city neighborhood, from diverse ethnic and racial and religious backgrounds, from every socioeconomic background, who had broad interests and a wide range of political views. As a 16-year-old, I was active in the early civil rights movement, the peace movement, and the movement for women’s rights.
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Any effort to expand inclusion and diversity in the exam schools will have a positive impact. However, it still doesn’t resolve the issues of segregation by neighborhood, widespread poverty, and poor-quality schools in the rest of the system.
Marilyn Levin
Arlington
Families who stay in the public system should get bonus points
Your Feb. 22 editorial on changes to the admissions policy for Boston’s exam schools notes that “plenty of research” confirms “how much a young person’s neighborhood and family situation can shape their destiny.” Certainly young people’s early school experience is also vital in shaping that destiny.
Many more affluent families have opted out of their local Boston Public School, and chosen private or parochial schools, until they can access the prestigious and desirable exam schools for their children. Not only does this possibly benefit these families but it also potentially weakens the public schools, especially in the early grades, by removing academically proficient students and decreasing racial diversity.
I believe that bonus points in the exam school admissions process should be given, regardless of income, to any student who received their early education from the Boston schools.
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I am, incidentally, a proud mother of two graduates of Boston Latin School (and the wife of a third), who benefited from spending their entire academic careers in the public schools.
Jane Siegel
Boston
The state’s ranking system is a racist measure
In “A better way to admit students to Boston Latin,” you claim that “while the rest of Boston’s high schools often struggle academically, the high-performing exam schools are the best the city has to offer, offering students who make it through the admissions process a solid, academically rigorous path to college and career.”
The exam schools are ranked by the state as high-performing not because they offer students a better education but because they admit only students who perform highly on tests in the first place. The editorial board should dig deeper to compare the growth scores of different Boston schools and look at other metrics, such as the school quality measures found on the website of the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment.
At the end of the editorial, you write, “There is plenty of research at this point confirming what we’ve long known about how much a young person’s neighborhood and family situation can shape their destiny.” If the editorial board wants to follow the research to argue for more equitable schools, then please follow the research that has shown our state’s ranking system to be a racist measure that rewards exclusion and perpetuates segregation.
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Natalia Cuadra-Saez
Roslindale
