Paul Reville, the former Massachusetts education secretary, joined Boston Public Radio on Tuesday to discuss the disproportionate racial representation at Boston Latin school. The enrollment of Black students at the school is currently at 8%, contrasted with a 30% Black enrollment in Boston's public schools. Critics argue that the admission process into Boston Latin, which includes a test, is discriminatory towards minority and poorer students.
"The numbers are way out of whack now," Reville said. "It's always been the case that this school has an enormous following of very influential people who are in favor of the system more or less the way it is in terms of admissions."
Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius is targeting the testing aspect of admissions into Boston Latin, Reville said.
"[Cassellius] has to make a decision as superintendent what she's going to focus on, and from the beginning, to her credit, she's said this test is unfair, something needs to be done to rectify that," he said. "So she's hoping that she can tweak that part of the system and it will make a change."
Reville is a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, where he also runs the Education Redesign Lab. His latest book, co-authored with Elaine Weiss, is Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty.
