Progressives call for equity in school system

Progressives call for equity in school system

Yawu Miller

Metco Director Jean McGuire, slipped into a UMass Boston conference room, excuses herself for her lateness, explaining that she had been at the State House, weighing in on funding issues.

"I was trying to monitor the few sheckles they've allotted the program," she said wryly.

The activists gathered in the room nodded their heads knowingly.

Metco, a voluntary state program that buses Boston minority students to suburban school districts, has been level-funded for the last 17 years.

Like other post civil rights-era programs aimed at combatting segregation in public education, Metco has seen a precipitous drop in political support.

McGuire and the other progressive activists in the room came together last week for a brainstorming session to discuss issues of equity in the state's public schools in a discussion convened by UMass Boston's Trotter Institute, the Greater Boston Civil Rights Institute and the Equity Assistance Center at Brown University.

On the table were issues including MCAS testing, the Boston Latin School admission policy and funding for Boston schools. At the table were veteran civil rights and education activists from the Greater Boston area.

The activists agreed that many of the policies implemented in the 1970s to desegregate the public education system in the Greater Boston area and provide equal allocation of resources have come under systematic attack from conservative think tanks like the Boston-based Pioneer Institute.

And yet the response from the political left has been slow in coming, noted former Boston School Committee member Felix Arroyo, executive director of the Egleston Square Neighborhood Association.

"We've become fatalists," he said. "I've really become frustrated with the attitude people have assumed, which is that things are unchangeable."

Michael Alves, a senior desegregation specialist with the Equity Assistance Center at Brown University, said

"We have a lot of passion," he said. "But they are organized. As flawed as their papers and books are, they are read. They have a printing press. They don't have to worry about peer review."

Alves said progressives have to counter the steady stream of information coming from the right-wing institutions, if they are to mount an effective counter offensive.

"You've got to affect public opinion," he said. "You've got to publish. You've got to write. You need a progressive answer to the Pioneer Institute."

Jan Brown, of the American Jewish Committee, said progressives need to establish better communication to share information.

"We're supposedly among the most committed, we have the energy, and yet we're unaware of the information that's coming out of our groups," she said.

The activists agreed to form a Massachusetts Civil Rights Coalition that would work on issues of equal access and parity in public education. The group also agreed to generate publicity around the issues they work on, to develop new solutions and to collect data on conditions at schools.

The activists also agreed to work with like-minded individuals, including the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the American Civil Liberties Union.

"We should be able to invite all of the legal resources that are out there that can be brought to bear on these issues," said Alves.

Photo (Jean McGuire makes a point during a meeting)