The headline in the Boston Globe magazine read Civil
Rights groups urge state to change ‘discriminatory’ vocational school
admissions policies to lottery. I had to read it. I was a Civil
Rights Specialist with the Massachusetts Department of Education 1978-1980. I
had a role in reviewing the admissions policies for the public regional
vocational-technical high schools.
At the time, many of the VocTechs had a set of hoops
students had to go thru to get accepted. One was a Differential Aptitude Test
(DAT). At the time, the test had
separate scoring for males and females. It had been normed by having adults in
a variety fields take the test and then creating profiles for them. It was
never designed to be a screening test. That it had separate norms made its use
questionable. That it was never designed to predict success in a field made its
use questionable. That it had been normed on adults rather than junior high and
senior high school students made its use questionable. As a result we said the
DAT could not use as part of the admission screening process for VocTechs.
The Massachusetts Department of Education had a role then, in
working to ensure that VocTech admissions were free of bias. We worked with
those programs to ensure that all programs were open without regard to
student’s race, sex, color, or national origin. The department was also working
to ensure that students with IEPs were not arbitrarily excluded from admission.
At the time I was with the Department Greg
Anrig was the Commissioner, and he wanted the Department to monitor LEA
compliance. That approach didn’t sit well with the Superintendents who were on
having to ensure that their programs were in compliance with state and federal
legislation. The next Commissioner had been a Superintendent and was determined
to take the Department out of the role of compliance monitor.
I believe that empowered Superintendents and significantly
undermined the role of the Department. And, looking at the Globe report, I’d
say the Dept of Education has continued to avoid protecting students of color, low-income students, students with
disabilities,
and English learners.
