02.14.2025

State treasurer fights to hold back records on cannabis chair firing | Top legal eagle flies coop at MassDOT | Another legal challenge brewing in Boston exam school fight | Compromise eyed in dispute over multibillion-dollar reconstruction of Turnpike in Allston | Mancuso: Mass ed standards out the window after MCAS repeal |

News tips? Story ideas? Email us at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com

New year, same old battle: Frustrated BPS parents eyeing another challenge to warped exam school admissions system

The battle over racial gerrymandering at Boston’s elite exam schools isn’t over yet.

A group of parents is working with a national law firm on another lawsuit challenging Boston’s dramatic revamp of admissions to Boston Latin School and the city’s two other exam schools, Contrarian Boston has learned.

The parents suffered a setback last December when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to an earlier version of the new admissions policy.

The current policy now divides applicants to BLS, Boston Latin Academy and the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science into a series of tiers, that, in theory anyway, are based on socioeconomic factors.

Boston Latin School

In practice, traditionally white sections of the city, like West Roxbury, are jammed into a single tier or two where demand for seats at these schools is the highest, critics say.

The number of seats is then capped at a level that is nowhere near enough to meet demand, leaving students with stellar grades and nearly perfect scores with rejection letters.

Parents frustrated with the new exam school admissions policy say it has done a poor job of actually screening for economic factors, such as family income.

But the new system appears to track race rather accurately. That impression was reinforced at last Wednesday’s Boston School Committee meeting in which BPS officials displayed a chart showing a dramatic shift.

Over the past five years, the percentage of acceptance letters sent to white students has dropped to 25 percent, down from 40 percent previously, while rising to 22 percent for Black students, up from 13 percent, BPS officials said. The percentage of students at the city’s exam schools that BPS classifies as Latinx rose to 26 percent, up from 21 percent.

Let’s say we wouldn’t be surprised if some of the parents gearing up for another court battle over the city’s exam school admissions policies were watching that presentation and taking notes.

Chart shown at recent Boston School Committee meeting

The solution is not to take away seats and opportunities away from students from Dorchester or Roxbury - because arguably no one wants that - but rather to simply increase the overall number of spots available in the city’s exam schools.

Then again, that might dilute the diversity stats that BPS seems to care about more than anything else. And we can’t have that.

Another shakeup at MassDOT: Top legal eagle at state transportation agency leaving post