Kay Lazar’s article “As Metco turns 50, students find promise, but also pain, in their suburban schools’’ (Page A1, July 23) captures the essence of a desegregation program that asks children to bridge a racial divide that they did not create but have been expected to remediate. Of course, the full story is much more complex.

Meeting those objectives today provides a much greater challenge than 50 years ago. Then, the civil rights movement was at its peak and the country was stretching to achieve the best ideals of a multiracial society. Currently, we are confronted with the peak of a nearly 50-year backlash to that era.

Today, Boston students entering these white suburban schools face escalating overt racist behaviors within institutions that are run by white educators who likely possess no inherent connection to the world that created Metco. Also, white faculty and students were raised in the so-called post-racial world that trained whites to be silent on race issues. It should be no surprise that these schools are ill-equipped to handle the challenges of this program.

All the students in the program deserve better. Suburban schools need to adjust to the realities that come with the complexities of race if educators truly wish to make good on the promise of Metco.

Daniel Frio

Sharon

The writer is an educator and the author of “Classroom Voices on Education and Race: Students Speak from Inside the Belly of the Beast.’’