A federal civil rights complaint filed Thursday claims that the state’s vocational-technical schools use admissions criteria that inappropriately exclude students of color and those who are learning English, have disabilities or come from low-income families.
The complaint asks federal officials to investigate practices at the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and prohibit the use of “exclusionary” admissions criteria like grades, attendance records and interviews. Instead, students and advocates say these schools should use a lottery system when they have more interested students than available seats.
Lawyers for Civil Rights and the Center for Law and Education filed the complaint on behalf of the Vocational Education Justice Coalition and four students from Gardner and Chelsea who either were denied admission or did not apply to their regional vocational schools because of the policies that rank applicants and admit those with the highest scores.
Attorney Mirian Albert of Lawyers for Civil Rights said that if the department is found to be out of compliance with federal law, the government could withhold funding as a consequence.
Albert said one of the plaintiffs — identified as Juan Doe, a Latino student from Gardner who did not get into Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School — wants to follow in his uncle’s footsteps by learning carpentry and eventually opening his own construction business.
“He saw CVTE, or career vocational technical education, as the perfect vehicle to accomplish that, especially because he enjoyed the hands-on instruction,” Albert said during a State House press conference. “But that door was ultimately closed on him, not because he did not have what was necessary to succeed, but simply because other students might have ranked higher than him.”
The Vocational Education Justice Coalition, consisting of 20 community groups, unions and civil rights organizations, formed in 2019 to call for greater equity in public vocational school admissions. The coalition says the current policies lead to disparities.
The complaint says that this school year, 55% of students of color who applied to vocational schools received admissions offers, compared to 69% of white students. Admissions offers were extended to 44% of English learners, compared to 64% of students who were not English learners, and to 54% of students with disabilities, compared to 65% of students without disabilities.
Massachusetts shifted its approach to vocational school admissions in 2021, removing a regulatory requirement that grades, attendance, discipline records and counselor recommendations be used as admissions criteria and instead requiring each school to develop its own policy and submit it for state approval. Each policy must include "deliberate, specific strategies to promote equal educational opportunities," and superintendents must annually attest to the state that their policies comply with federal and state laws. But even though schools are no longer required to factor in grades and attendance, many kept such criteria in their individual admissions policies. The Vocational Education Justice Coalition says that only one of 28 regional vocational schools — Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School in Marlborough — has switched to the lottery model it prefers.
Steven Sharek, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators, said in a statement that vocational schools "are very serious about expanding access to a more diverse population of students” and are “committed to improving our admissions procedures.”
"Nearly 97% of the regional vocational-technical and agricultural high schools in Massachusetts have made changes in their admissions policies, practices or staffing," said Sharek. "We're seeing improvement. We need two things: (1) a bit more time to gauge what impact all these changes are making and (2) better access to middle schools so we can inform all students about the kind of education we offer."
Sharek said there are not enough seats in vocational schools and programs to meet the demand, pointing to a 6,000-student waitlist across the state. His association backs legislation filed by state lawmakers Rep. Frank Moran of Lawrence, Rep. Adam Scanlon of North Attleboro and Sen. Paul Feeney of Foxboro which would invest $3 billion into expanding vocational schools and building new ones to add capacity to the system.
Meanwhile, the Vocational Education Justice Coalition, making the case that the recent admissions policy changes did not go far enough, supports bills from New Bedford Rep. Antonio Cabral and Lunenburg Sen. John Cronin that would have all vocational schools use lottery admissions when they have more eligible applicants than seats.
Cabral's bill calls for the lottery to be "weighted towards protected classes, including but not limited to, students of color, economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and English language learners," while Cronin's proposes a "blind lottery."
“Our position is not radical,” Cronin said. “Public schools should no longer be able to use private-school admissions criteria to systematically discriminate and keep the most vulnerable eighth graders in our state out of our trade schools.”
