Community Voices
Barbara Fields, Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts, and retired BPS administrator and educator
“I think we are not at the same place with providing quality education as we had gotten to back when the judge was sitting.”
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Carmen Pola, Mission Hill activist and community elder
“I felt that it would improve the conditions for our children. I felt that it was overdue.”
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Paul F McDevitt, President, Modern Assistance Programs, and Member of Boston School Committee, 1968
We weren’t able to audio record Paul, but he did send us some thoughts, which we’ve posted below, and plans to sit down with us to be recorded soon.
“We would do well to recall that the order did not come out of the blue. It was the end result of a suit in Federal Court which alleged racial discrimination in student school assignments in the Boston Public School System. One of the remedies sought by the plaintiffs was busing to achieve an equal distribution of all students across Boston.
I was therefore, not completely taken off guard by the ruling. I was surprised by the fact that the ruling was not more encompassing. Shifting kids out of poor schools is a good idea. Leaving some behind in that school is a bad idea. Shifting some kids from a “performing” school to a school already judged to be under performing is a bad idea.The winners are the kids shipped to a good school and those remaining there. The other kids are losers.
Integration is a good idea, but it is not an educational panacea.
The cost of school integration was paid to no avail as the schools are in as bad shape as pre-busing. If the schools were better we would not have Charter Schools and parents would not be paying astronomical tuition for private schools
It is as if we put a large down payment on a house and then lost the money because we did not complete the sale. There are many other aspects to the order that I would like to reflect upon but I simply do not have the time today. I look forward to continuing the conversation in the future.” Paul McD
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More voices will be added in the coming days. Want to include what your thoughts on the Morgan V. Hennigan decision? Email us.
Truth, Learning, and Change 