Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Nothing to Worry About East Siders!

Boston.com:

The US Department of Education is investigating a complaint that the Boston school system’s plan to close or merge more than a dozen schools to save money discriminates against black and Latino students and their parents.

The complaint was brought Jan. 25 by the Black Educators’ Alliance of Massachusetts and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association, alleging a significant disparity in the races of students who would be affected by the school district’s plan. The School Committee approved the plan in December as a way to help plug a $63 million budget gap.

I'm sure that won't happen here.

1 comment:

Jill Davidson said...

Hey Tom,

As people have noted elsewhere, how could Boston's school closures NOT adversely affect Black and Hispanic students given the schools' population? I'm not taking issue with the suit and agree that the same outcome is likely inevitable here if this isn't handled with skill that the city has yet to demonstrate. Nevertheless, the data show all schools in all Providence neighborhoods serve a large majority of poor children of color. I won't pretend for a moment that the East Side isn't bringing advantages that other neighborhood aren't, but our schools' students are definitely not from Easy Street nor even, in the case of at least 2 of the 4 schools, predominately from the East Side itself. At this point, I'd rather see us all pull together than fall apart. This is bigger than any neighborhood.

I am really appreciating all you're doing here on the blog. Thank you.