Voc-tech schools offer a brass ring to a good job — but only for those who get a coveted slot
It didn’t exactly have the drama of a Powerball drawing, but the YouTube video of the lottery drawing at Worcester Technical High School for the class of 2027 nevertheless had the power to change the lives of the 372 students who came out winners.
The lottery for spots at the highly regarded school is a new and welcome step, replacing what used to be an application process that weighed factors like grades and disciplinary records. Other vocational schools in the state ought to follow Worcester Tech’s example.
Lotteries were permitted in 2021 but only two vocational-technical schools stepped up — Worcester Tech and Assabet Valley Regional Vocational Technical.
As a result, both have already shown
An obvious long-term solution would be to simply expand the number of available seats by adding classrooms and building new schools.
improvement in their ability to enroll students of color, English-language learners, and those who are economically disadvantaged — the very students who stand to benefit from the kind of jobs available for people with the skill sets being taught today at those schools.
Those skills include traditional voctech classics such as auto repair, carpentry, and culinary arts, but also programs Worcester Tech offers in computer sciences, robotics, biotech, health-related fields, even veterinary assistance training in conjunction with Tufts Veterinary School. In other words, it offers training for the kind of jobs that can mean a comfortable middle-class income and the kind of jobs that are important to keeping the state’s economy growing.
The other 26 voc-tech schools ought to do right by those disadvantaged groups and adopt a lottery system — like the one currently used by charter schools all over the state.
They would have no choice, if one group of lawmakers get their way. In a letter to Governor Maura Healey and her administration, 26 legislators said that “The current selective admissions policies used by 26 of 28 of the Commonwealth’s vocational technical schools discriminate against students of color, students from low-income families, English language learners, and students with disabilities. We write today to ask you to direct the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to prohibit selective criteria that discriminates against disadvantaged 8th graders and inhibits their social and economic mobility.”
Similar allegations — with a wealth of data to support them — were raised in February in a federal civil rights complaint filed by Lawyers for Civil Rights and the Center for Law and Education.
In the 2022-23 school year, 20,583 rising 9th-graders applied for 10,321 available seats. There is a fair amount of anecdotal evidence that many of those successful applicants are college bound, looking for the advantages some of those voc-tech schools offer over the local high schools — better facilities, smaller classes — but not necessarily careers in the trades offered. And that disadvantages those students who really would be headed for apprenticeships and the working world right out of high school.
An obvious long-term solution would be to simply expand the number of available seats by adding classrooms and building new schools. It’s an approach Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration is seeking to take in its revamp and reprogramming of Madison Park Technical Vocational School — which is one of those rare examples of a voc-tech school students are not clamoring to attend. (About a third of its 1,100 students are “administratively assigned,” meaning they did not choose the school.)
Northeast Metro Tech in Wakefield, which routinely gets about 800 applications for some 330 seats in its freshman class, is committed to building a new school, but it’s currently slated to open for the 2026-27 academic year.
Old Colony Regional Voc-Tech got the go-ahead this summer from the Massachusetts School Building Authority for a feasibility study for an expansion — the beginning of a glacial process.
It’s why the Vocational Education Justice Coalition has pushed for $3 billion in targeted funding for new voc-tech schools.
“But it’s a process that takes five to seven years,” Lew Finfer, head of the coalition, told the editorial board. “And vocational schools are more expensive to build than regular high schools” with specialized labs and facilities adding to the cost.
“That’s why we’re looking for a lottery now,” he added. “It’s a basic civil rights issue but it’s also an economic issue” in terms of filling jobs the state needs filled.
And a recent analysis by the coalition provides ample evidence from the two schools using lotteries that they do work. The very existence of the lottery is credited with increasing the percentage of students of color and English learners by 15 percentage points and 17 percentage points respectively at Assabet. And the percentage of students of color, low-income students, and students with disabilities receiving offers of admission increased.
At Worcester the lottery succeeded in narrowing the application gaps between low-income and non-low-income students and between English learners and nonEnglish learners by 4 percentage points and 10 percentage points respectively. That’s just one year of progress.
There is legislation pending that would mandate the use of lotteries for voc-tech school admissions, but there is little faith among advocates that there is consensus on Beacon Hill to get it done.
“So it’s really going to come down to whether Healey will act,” Finfer said, and ask her education officials to step in — and step up on the issue.
“The Healey-Driscoll Administration is committed to ensuring equitable access to vocational schools in Massachusetts,” a spokesperson for the governor said in a statement. “We have received the outreach from state officials and have been closely reviewing their recommendations and engaging with stakeholders on this issue.”
A new generation of young people looking for a chance at the brass ring that a good job brings are waiting for an answer.