The
Massachusetts Asian American Educators Association (MAAEA) represents many
Asian American educators in the Boston Public Schools and around the
Commonwealth. The proposal to change admissions to the Boston Exam
Schools for the 2021-2022 school year is not perfect, but we support it as the
best option for this year, given the health concerns many families
have. More Asian families in BPS chose remote learning than any other racial
group. It is important to protect the health of our families and recognize the
disruptions that this pandemic has caused.
MAAEA
is a pro-access, pro-diversity, and pro-affirmative action organization. We
support increased diversity and equity of access to the exam schools, in which
Black and Latinx communities have been underrepresented. Fundamentally,
we want all students to have a high quality education regardless of the school
they attend, exam school or not. We recognize that BPS is stratified, and that
the exam schools, particularly BLS have many more resources than other Boston
Public Schools. Students who attend exam schools often have more opportunities.
The system that BPS has been using for exam school admission has the illusion
of fairness, but the reality is that family money and privilege give some
communities a unfair advantage in this system. It is imperative that
seats at the exam schools be distributed thoughtfully, with equity and
opportunity in mind.
We
want to share five concerns about the creation and implementation of this plan
as we look to the future.
First,
individual family incomes and other measures of opportunity should be used
instead of zip codes. We support the efforts that the committee has made
to increase diversity and increase access to the exam schools. However,
zip codes do not allow BPS to identify low-income families in highly gentrified
areas. For example, low income students living in the projects and public
housing of South End, Charlestown and Chinatown will need to compete with
students living in luxury developments and upscale condos.
Second,
seats should be reserved for students who attend BPS in elementary
school. It is inequitable to give so many exam school seats to private
school students who have opted out of the system and can afford to stay in
private schools. Seats should be reserved for families who cannot afford
private school tuition and have trouble navigating the complex world of private
school admissions and financial aid. It may be news to some readers, but
Asian residents of Boston, and by extension Asian families in BPS, have poverty
rates on par with Latinx families and median incomes on par with Black families
according to the Boston Public Health Commission. BPS Asian students are
generally not the children of doctors, scientists, and engineers. They
are the children of restaurant, hotel, home care, and nail salon workers.
Many of our families don’t have the resources, networks, or language skills to
navigate or even know about METCO or private, parochial, charter, pilot, or
innovation schools. According to the BPS 2019-2020 At-A-Glance report,
Asian school age children have the highest enrollment in BPS compared to other
racial groups at 87%, compared to Latinx families at 83%, Black families at 62%
and then white families at 58%. For many of our families, exam schools
feel like their only option for a high quality education.
Third,
our families have been left in the dark about this proposal and have been left
to get their news second and third hand. We understand that the proposal
was developed with severe time constraints in the face of a pandemic.
However, as we have seen too many times in the last six months, and uncountable
times in the last few decades, BPS treats non-English speaking families as an
afterthought, even though half of BPS families speak a language other than
English. We recently discovered that summary letters about this proposal
were posted on the BPS Exam School website a week ago, but no one in the
community that we know of has known about the letters. It's not enough to post
letters and expect for the non English speaking families to find them. Even if
outreach were sufficient, one week is not enough to understand this
proposal. BPS can’t call itself an anti-racist or culturally responsive district
if it continues this English-first mentality.
Fourth,
all BPS families have a right to know what is happening and to be part of the
decision making process. This includes the Asian community. Members of
our organization remember how the buses of Chinese students were stoned as they
were bussed from Chinatown to Charlestown. At the time, there was no
consultation or consideration for our community--we were left on our own to
figure it out. This pattern of BPS and Boston making decisions for
us without us has been continuing for decades.
Fifth,
a quality educational experience is not just about test scores and college
admission statistics. Most Asian students in BPS are concentrated in a few
schools. Despite having large numbers at these schools, too many feel invisible
and are not getting the help they need. In the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior
Survey Assessment data (YRBS), 82% of BPS Asian middle school students said
they rarely or never get the kind of help they need, 12 percentage points higher
than any other group. The same survey found that more Asian students
attempted suicide than any other group in BPS. This is a silent crisis that
needs to be addressed, a crisis that can’t be seen in test scores and
achievement data.
Our
families, like all families, want quality schools and opportunity for their
children. But they have been used, ignored, and rendered invisible for decades.
They have real needs that are going unaddressed. They want to be informed
and be part of decisions that affect them. They want to be seen and heard. Our
organization supports the proposal to BPS Exam School admissions for 2021-2022,
even though it is not perfect. We hope to work together with students,
families, and the Boston Public Schools to improve the educational experience
of all students in the Boston Public Schools.
Massachusetts
Asian American Educators Association
Endorsements/Sign
ons:
Asian
American Resource Workshop (AARW)
Asian
Community Development Corporation (ACDC)
Asian
Task Force Against Domestic Violence (ATASK)
Boston
Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC)
Chinese
Progressive Association (CPA)
Greater
Malden Asian American Community Coalition (GMAACC)
Revere
Youth in Action (RYiA)
South
Asian Worker Center - Boston (SAWC)
VietAID
