The city is trying to improve racial diversity at Boston Latin School, but it’s keeping one hand tied behind its back. Not surprisingly, the results so far have been disappointing: Despite stepped-up efforts to help prepare black and Latino students for the school’s entrance exam, this year’s incoming class of seventh-graders is still overwhelmingly white and Asian. The class is only 8 percent black and 14 percent Hispanic, compared to 31.8 percent and 41.8 percent in the district’s student body as a whole.
Moving the needle in a more dramatic way will require the city to confront a delicate political issue: reforming the school’s entrance requirements. Admission to the “crown jewel’’ of the Boston Public Schools is based on grades and test scores, a system that has some fierce defenders among parents and alumni. Changing that admissions policy appears to be a third rail in Boston politics: When word got out last year that a working group was simply looking at changes, Mayor Walsh quashed the idea. “I don’t think it’s the right time to be talking about it,’’ he said.
The city’s answer instead has been to boost exam-prep courses offered over the summer, which are intended to help poorer families level the playing field with wealthier parents who can pay for private tutoring. The city not only increased the size of the free two-week program, but it also achieved more diversity: Out of 646 students enrolled in the Exam School Initiative last year, 21 percent were black and 26 percent Hispanic, compared to 10 percent and 14 percent in 2014. Still, the admissions numbers barely budged.
The central role of the test — and the particular test the city uses, known as the Independent School Entrance Exam — is one area of potential reform. “There is simply nothing meritorious about a public school admissions policy that favors those who can pay for private test preparation,’’ said Matt Cregor of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice. Naturally, students whose families can afford to hire private tutors to prepare for the entrance exam are the ones with a higher shot at admission to Boston Latin School.
Other changes suggested by civil rights groups include factoring a student’s neighborhood or their parents’ level of education, or guaranteeing some number of seats for the top students at every public school and in every zip code in the city. They also called for the city to ensure that when it looks at applicants’ grades from district, charter, and private schools, it’s making an apples-to-apples comparison: Grading standards may vary among schools, potentially putting some applicants at an unfair advantage.
There may well be other ways to spot promising students, and it’s a discussion that needs to happen in order to bring Boston Latin School closer to the meritocracy it should be. The Exam School Initiative is worth continuing, too, but a two-week program isn’t going to make up for deeply rooted inequalities. Changing the way the city admits students to its most desirable school might be difficult, but this is the right time to be talking about it.
