Two Boston city councilors are calling for a hearing to evaluate admissions at public exam schools, following a report showing black and Latino students have a lower chance of admission.
Boston City Council President Andrea Campbell told WGBH News the racial disparity in Boston’s exam schools represents a larger problem with racial equity across the city.
“The frustration of folks in my district is that access — whether it’s to exam schools, Latin schools, jobs, unions, other things that you need to get ahead in the city of Boston — that it’s not equitable,” Campbell said in an interview with Boston Public Radio Tuesday. “We have a real opportunity here to talk about equity in a more significant way. We can start with the conversations around our schools and making sure that all students have access, and there are different proposals on the table, each of which need to be vetted before we decide we’re going to do something, but ultimately we need to vet them and we need to do something, because there are people waiting for government to move.”
Campbell and Councilor Kim Janey called for a hearing to evaluate admissions at Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and O’Bryant School of Math and Science — three schools they say are “not working for students of color.”
All three use the same exam that private schools use, even though a Harvard study suggests that black and Hispanic students don’t score as well as white students on the test.
