Three years ago, vocational high schools statewide were directed to create admissions policies that would ensure all students equitable access to education.
Now these schools are again the target of complaints that their admissions practices discriminate on the basis of race, income, special needs and English language skills.
The complaints are coming from a civil rights and education advocacy group as well as 20 Massachusetts school superintendents.
Greater Lowell Technical High School in Tyngsboro and Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School in Fitchburg have been identified as needing support from the state to address issues of equity in their admissions processes.
In 2021, the advocacy group Vocational Education Justice Coalition pushed for the use of lotteries to pick the student body. The admissions policies of the time were based on grades, attendance, discipline and guidance counselor recommendations. And most admissions policies are unchanged.
These policies amount to “cherry picking” students and are discriminatory, the organization said at the time.
In a letter to Gov. Maura Healey earlier this year, the 20 school superintendents said, “Selecting students based on grades, attendance, discipline, and subjective interviews is a flawed system.”
The practice also disadvantages public comprehensive high schools, the superintendents said.
“(The selection process) has furthered inequitable student outcomes in Massachusetts by choosing students that fit an antiquated educational model, instead of requiring vocational schools to meet students’ needs. All other public schools in Massachusetts need to adapt what we do to support the students we have,” the superintendents said.
None of the superintendents who signed the letter are from a Greater Lowell school district. Several are from Monty Tech districts, including Fitchburg, Gardner, Harvard and Lunenburg.
The state Board of Education responded to the 2021 complaints with a promise “to be very forceful” in cases where there was evidence of ongoing discriminatory practices. And it said it could “order changes to admission policies that may include requiring a lottery” at such schools.
Data released in early April by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education showed incremental progress at best, the VEJC charged. The coalition is now trying to work with legislators and is asking for a meeting with Gov. Maura Healey to intervene.
One leader of the VEJC coalition, Gladys Vega, said in a statement, “You can’t keep ignoring this data….3 years worth. The State/DESE is denying access to students of color and other low income students.
“How bad is that?” Vega continued. “Our kids get to fall through the cracks and others are chosen over them who go on to college and don’t use the vocational training that we are paying for. What else do they need to change this? You can no longer hide. You are forcing us to go to the streets to demonstrate.”
Greater Lowell Tech and Monty Tech are among four vocational schools in the state that will receive grants for technical assistance with recruitment and admissions policies. The others are the New Bedford Regional Technical High School and the Bay Path Regional Technical High School in Charlton.
Monty Tech was strongly criticized for its admissions policies. The data provided on DESE’s website shows that of the 360 students enrolled in this year’s class, only 97, or 26.9%, are students of color. Low-income students number 102, or 28.3%; students with disabilities, 40, or 11.1%; and English language learners, 3, or less than 1%.
“While we recognize the utility in the data reports, we continue to have concerns with how that data is gathered, presented and utilized,” Monty Tech Superintendent Tom Browne said in a statement responding to the criticism.
“For example, the report’s efforts to compare Population Trends properly speaks to a comparison of the school’s enrollment of specialized sub-groups to the overall enrollment of those sub-groups in the region, but the additional reporting of the (admissions tool) data does not properly account for the overall composition of the district’s enrollment,” Browne said.
He gave as an example the enrollment of English language learners. In 15 of Monty Tech’s 18 sending communities, no English learner applied. The admissions data tool, however, “simply speaks to the small number of students who applied without reflecting that only 17% of the district’s communities had an English learner who applied,” Browne said.
The numbers appear better for GLTHS. The DESE website shows that the racial composition of the GLTHS freshman class shows a high percentage of the 581 students, 380 or 65.4%, are students of color. The class also has 201 white students, or 34.6%.
But DESE’s data does show some areas that need work. Low-income students make up 48.2% of the class and moderate- to higher-income students 51.8%. Students with disabilities make up only 12.4% of the class and English learners just 11.4%.
A statement from GLTHS said the school “has already made great strides and is working directly with the state to ensure that we are at the forefront of providing equal access to high-quality career and technical education for all students.”
A lottery would leave the admissions process to chance and would be “counterproductive,” according to the statement from the school.
The statement continued, “Demand has soared in recent years for the high-quality education and experiential opportunities offered by vocational-technical schools. The reality is that more seats are needed statewide.
“Continued investment at the state and federal level in vocational-technical education must include plans to bolster capacity, expand access, and create genuine opportunities for all aspiring students. A lottery will not do that, and would only create new problems. We should not leave something so vital to chance.”
Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica and Nashoba Valley Technical High School in Westford were not called out in the most recent report from the state. Greater Lowell Tech was not called out in the 2021 report.