New exam school policy divides parents
‘The school system is no good’
A new bonus system that helped more low-income students get into Boston Public Schools’ three prestigious exam schools this fall is dividing parents.
Many have praised the new policy, which aims to increase the socioeconomic, geographic and racial diversity of students invited to attend the schools in the fall.
Forty-five percent of admission offers went to economically disadvantaged students — 10% more than two years ago, according to district officials. And some parents call that long overdue.
“I spent the past six years reviewing exam school admissions data in depth on committees inside and outside of BPS,” said Linda Green of the Boston Coalition for Education Equity and the mother of two students who were admitted to Boston Latin School. “It quickly became obvious that the old exam school admissions process was designed to disproportionately provide access to students from the handful of Boston neighborhoods and schools with the greatest access to money and resources — and completely shut out students from neighborhoods and schools with the greatest need.”
Adding bonus points for students who often don’t do well on standardized tests or who can’t afford tutoring is one way to make the admissions process fairer, district officials say.
Students from a school where 40% or more of their families receive some form of government assistance get 10 bonus points. Of Boston’s 125 public schools, nearly all qualify.
Homeless students, students in the care of the state Department of Children and Families and those who live in public housing qualify for 15 bonus points.
Kaiyan Jew of West Roxbury said her son is a 6thgrade, “A” student but hasn’t gotten an admissions invitation from any of the exam schools. He isn’t even on any of their waiting lists, she said.
“My son asked me why. Now anytime I mention school, he says, ‘Leave me alone,’ ” Jew said. “We love this place, and we don’t want to move. But the school system is no good.”
Darragh Murphy, the sister of City Councilor-atLarge Erin Murphy, said she’s firmly opposed to the bonus point system, even going so far as to call it “immoral.”
“It’s both grade inflation and deflation,” Murphy said. “Almost all BPS students got at least 10 points tacked onto their GPA. If you didn’t, your chances of getting into an exam school are basically zero. Those students got crushed because a student with a 92 got 10 more points and beat the student who had a real 100.”
Rather than sending their children to what they see as subpar Boston Public Schools, she said, people who can afford it will enroll their children in private school.
“This matters to people,” Murphy said. “It’s six years of at least $10,000 a year per child.”
But Michael Maguire, a Boston Latin Academy teacher and West Roxbury father of an 8th grader and a 10th grader, said he thinks that both sides are having the “wrong conversation.”
“I’m for not limiting seats,” Maguire said. “Why are we limiting who gets a robust, college-prep education?”