Massachusetts vocational school admissions ‘moving in the wrong direction’: Legislators push leadership to nix selective criteria

Gateway cities’ legislators are railing against the selective criteria in vocational school admissions, urging Gov. Maura Healey and her administration to follow up on “inadequate” efforts to address inequity in the competitive process.

“We write today to ask you to direct the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) to prohibit selective criteria that discriminates against disadvantaged 8th graders and inhibits their social and economic mobility,” 26 members of the Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus wrote in a letter to Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll.

“We believe children who grow up in poverty in Massachusetts — thousands of whom live in Gateway Cities — deserve the same opportunity to attend a vocational school,” the lawmakers added in the letter.

Many advocates have long argued the 2003 decision to force vocational schools to implement selective criteria in their admissions discriminates against against students of color, students from low-income families, English language learners and students with disabilities — and ends up sending more students to college instead of the trades.

In 2021, BESE approved changes allowing vocational schools to adjust their admissions policies away from the mandate, and prohibited consideration of a student’s minor disciplinary infractions and excused absences.

Still, 26 of the state’s 28 schools continue to rank applicants. The schools consider applicants’ middle school grades, recommendations and record.

“In last year’s admissions cycle however, two schools adopted a lottery for the first time — Assabet Valley and Worcester Tech — and meaningfully closed opportunity gaps in admissions between protected classes of students and their peers,” the letter states. “Lotteries worked to create an admissions standard that is fair to all students of all backgrounds.”

The representatives’ appeal to state leadership follows stalled legislative pushes to return vocational schools’ lottery admissions. Groups of parents and advocates have also filed pending complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Admissions to vocational schools have been highly competitive in recent years, with only about 8,000 of 18,000 applicants gaining admission in the 2021-22 school year.

In the most recent admissions cycle since the BESE change, the marginalized students were admitted at an even lower rate and opportunity gaps widened, the legislators wrote.

“In every measurable equity metric, the Commonwealth is moving in the wrong direction,” the letter argues.

“We respectfully request you mandate lottery admissions at vocational schools to hold these institutions to the same equity standard our charter schools have successfully met for the past three decades: a standard where every applicant within a municipality, regardless of race, national origin, disability, or household income, has the same chance at admission to these public high schools,” the legislators urged.