In March, the Boston School Committee voted to change the way that students are assigned to schools. Donna and I followed this process closely and found that the most striking parallel between then and now is that parents and students continue to struggle for equity and quality, and school assignment continues to be an inadequate frame for addressing these concerns. BBDP learning network member Barbara McQueen weighed in in the Boston Globe:
For years, black students had been denied equitable educational opportunities. For the city and for individuals, discrimination and the violent response to desegregation efforts resulted in significant losses; for many, the traumatic effects linger. This legacy is an essential part of the back story to attempts to revise the student assignment plan.
The Union of Minority Neighborhoods’ Boston Busing/Desegregation Project aims to bring this back story to the front, and to continue the unfinished work of ensuring that all of Boston’s children have access to high-quality schools.
While Donna and I each read statements to the Boston School Committee expressing concerns about the deep underlying issues brought to the fore by discussions of school assignment but rarely addressed and concluding:
As the 60th anniversary of Brown vs. the Board of education and the 40th anniversary of Boston’s busing/desegregation crisis approach, BBDP calls on the School Committee and all of us committed to race and class equity, democratic access and demands for excellence to take the risks we need to take to get them.
Truth, Learning, and Change 