Joelangie Arias Soto
Senior Thesis | 2024
The Ethical Dilemma of Busing in Massachusetts:
Interrogating The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity
Joelangie Arias Soto
Senior Thesis
Boston University Academy
Apr. 12, 2023
The Massachusetts education system is one that perpetuates inequalities due to its vastly different resource distribution based on district–inequalities that become more obvious in secondary education. The inequalities that occur in secondary school affect students’ trajectories for the rest of their lives as their postsecondary plans are shaped by the opportunities they are offered and feel prepared for during their high school years. This paper will identify various inequalities within the Boston Public School (BPS) system, which led to the creation of the busing program known as the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO). METCO is a program that takes students that are residents of Boston, and if selected, allows them to attend school in a more resourced district in a suburb of Massachusetts. Many different towns outside of Boston are participants of METCO and open their doors every year to students from Boston. Most of whom are students of color. Not only has the creation of METCO brought to light the issues of BPS in the time when it was created,
but interestingly the concerns that led to the creation of METCO continue today.
There is also a question that has been raised of whether a busing program like METCO is worth it when it comes to the amount of money it removes from the district’s funding, and its negative effects on students psychologically and emotionally. Students and their families must decide then to prioritize the academic success that can be achieved or the sense of belonging they’d have if they were to matriculate at a school in BPS. There is also the fact that for METCO to succeed in providing its students with resources and academic opportunities which then lead to the possibility of economic mobility, there must be students who aren’t given access to the program and who must continue to be part of an under-resourced district. In other words, for there to be innercity children who have the privilege of attending METCO and in a way be “saved,” there must be even more who receive a subpar education and are the “damned.” At its core, the dilemma lies in
this choice. Choosing who deserves a chance at an education that is well funded and has the resources necessary to get students to fulfill their potential. Those who are damned must work to do well despite their circumstances as BPS students unlike their counterparts in suburban schools who succeed because they’re given the tools to do so. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate METCO and its success as well as the ethical dilemma it poses. This will highlight the stagnation of BPS with its lack of solutions to long-standing problems; both of which perpetuate educational inequality in the greater community of Massachusetts.
I will first work backward because to properly contextualize the effects of METCO as an academic system it’s necessary to get to know its history, the goals that were set, and to acknowledge that this program was never meant to be permanent. I will then dive into the source of the resource inequality, funding. I follow that by exploring the exchange of perspectives that occurs between the students participating in METCO and those from
receiving districts, as well as looking at the data difference regarding college readiness between BPS and METCO. Following this, I consider the ways in which METCO is a successful program, and what it provides. Finally, I examine both BPS and METCO’s flaws which are fairly similar, causing the reader to reflect on the necessity of addressing these inequities.
History of METCO
The METCO program in Massachusetts was created as a temporary solution to the issue of inequity between districts in the state based on race and the fact that district funding is based on revenue from property tax. The inner city (Boston) contained mostly low-income families of color, while suburban districts contained middle-class, and upper-income White families. While people in Boston were and still are primarily renters, those in the suburbs are homeowners. Therefore the public district in Boston was disproportionately under-resourced in comparison to smaller districts in the suburbs of Massachusetts. The council was created
in 1965 as part of “Operation Exodus”, a result of Black parents boycotting their children’s assigned schools, which were described as “decrepit” (METCO, n.d.). School leaders from suburban districts were inspired to aid the parents in their search for justice and equitable schooling for their children, so they opened the doors to their schools for students of color who had been part of underresourced schools in the city up until that point.
In 1968 state legislation (Racial Imbalance Act) was passed that officially institutionalized METCO, and made the Commonwealth of Massachusetts financially responsible for busing students from the inner city, less-resourced schools, to suburban, highly-resourced schools. This solution that was once thought to be temporarily needed is still in place 58 years later, without a plan of ending any time in the foreseeable future, largely because of resource inequities.
Funding of METCO: Furthering Inequality Gaps
The existence of METCO has been controversial since its founding due to the question of money and the false belief that students going from the Boston district to suburban METCO schools would somehow take money away from the suburban schools. This is a huge misconception because it is the sending district, Boston Public Schools, that pays for these students’ schooling. The funds that are expected to be used on a student while they are in a Boston public school get transferred to the receiving district. There is also an additional stipend given to receiving districts of about $4,000 per pupil. This transfer of funds can be beneficial for receiving districts because on average the Boston public school district spends more money per pupil than almost all of the suburban districts that are a part of METCO, with the exception of the Lincoln-Sudbury district.
In the fiscal year of 2021, Boston public schools had an average expenditure per pupil of $24,020 (Massachusetts
Department of Education, 2022). Boston’s expenditure is about $5,000 above the state average of $18,733, and over $10,000 above the national average of $13,494 (United States Census Bureau, 2020). It can be deduced that the reason Boston’s district has to spend more money on its students, is because they can’t afford the necessary resources and tools to achieve their education on their own. An example of this is technology. With the growth of technology as an educational tool, and it becoming an expectation for students to have access to laptops, BPS then has to provide this for their students. This is something most suburban schools don’t have to do. This became obvious during the Covid pandemic especially when BPS had to purchase laptops to supply their students with so they could continue learning while at home. This is not to say that suburban districts don’t provide the same resources to their students, but most students belonging to the districts aren’t in need of such support. They already tend to own technological devices that they are able to use for academic
purposes. The surplus funds that schools receive when allowing BPS students to attend their district allows for more investments in the schools. These investments don’t just help the BPS students, but the entire student body. They also perpetuate the cycle of suburban districts having more resources, because they have more funding that isn’t going towards direct pupil expenditures, but towards things like athletic programs, facilities renovations and updates, the hiring of more qualified faculty, and overall upkeep of their schools. Many Boston public schools are in older buildings and when they receive additional funding through grants the money is used for student resources, or more pressing issues like the removal of asbestos which is a big issue in many school buildings (MASSGIS, EOLWD Asbestos In Schools [map]). These financial benefits demonstrate that METCO’s existence is helpful for both parties involved. The data showing that involvement in METCO is beneficial to the receiving districts financially is what
has allowed the program to continue to exist, and grow for almost six decades, as more districts have become interested in joining.
Exchange of Perspectives as a Result of METCO
METCO’s success is a two-way street, where both the disadvantaged students from Boston, and those residing in the suburban districts can learn a lot from one another. In the case of the students from Boston, their experiences in both the city, and “WASPy” suburbs, allow them to learn how to “code-switch” in order to be able to connect with multiple types of people (Semuels, 2019, p.3). The flexibility these students gain from being able to code-switch open up many doors for them because they are able to transition in terms of vocabulary based on who they are talking to. Inner city students also get certain experiences normalized, that may not be normalized in their home community. In the case of Semuels’s friend Eddie she writes, “...but being surrounded by kids in Belmont, where college was a given for just about everyone, made that path seem readily accessible” (Semuels, 2019, p.3).
There is also of course the fact that the graduation rate of students that are part of METCO is about 30% higher than that of Boston students that stay within the BPS district, and those who plan to attend college are also about 30% more (Semuels, 2019, p. 4). That in combination with college becoming a real possibility makes it so that METCO students have a greater likelihood of socioeconomic mobility. This difference in graduation and college attendance is huge as it means that there are many more lowincome students coming from under-served communities with the opportunity to have high paying careers that will provide their families with financial stability they may not have. This also means that 30% of these students are breaking cycles that exist within their communities. Whether those are cycles of lack of education, or poverty, they are being broken due to the resources students are given while attending suburban schools.
While the Boston children are learning multiple valuable things, the suburban children learn cultural competence which is a
very important skill. The educational leaders originally joining METCO were aware that majority white suburban schools weren’t providing a good education to children when it came to preparing them for the real world where the lack of diversity wasn’t reflective of what these students would encounter in the future (Semuels, 2019, p. 4). Even now the way that METCO is framed to prospective districts is as follows, “We’re bringing you diversity, richness, an urban experience, an urban relationship that you wouldn’t otherwise have” (Semuels, 2019, p. 15). The districts that join METCO are looking to diversify their schools and provide their students with cultural competence that will allow them to connect with an increasingly diverse world. Currently it is highly valued for leaders to be culturally competent people that understand the perspectives of others. Therefore, meeting and interacting with students from the city with different backgrounds is an asset for the suburban children of the receiving districts. The students that are a part of METCO share their cultural knowledge,
as they become teachers to their unaware peers, and in the process, receive a higher quality education than they would if they remain in BPS. Both parties are equipped with valuable skills that can be used as tools for them to become leaders after they leave their secondary institutions.
BPS v. METCO on Post-Secondary Preparation
On the other side of things are the students that stay in the Boston public school district and are not equipped with the tools they need due to a lack of diversity. Despite the diversity within the system overall, Boston is highly segregated, and the demographics present in individual schools tend to be monolithic. Semuels writes, “In 1974, the Boston School Committee was found to have taken actions that intentionally segregated schools in the area (2019, p. 4). This segregation is prevalent today in schools like Josiah Quincy School, which based on its location is predominantly Asian, or Rafael Hernández Dual Language K-8
School which has a majority of Latino/Spanish speaking immigrant students.
There are also exam schools that are meant to be the best within the Boston district, and these also have certain demographics which dominate the student body. The data proves, “The large majority of exam-school students are white and Asian” (Semuels, 2019, p. 13). The concept of the exam schools already disproportionately affects students who are low-income and attending schools with less resources, because they are less likely to be prepared enough to get the score necessary to be chosen for an exam school; and also less likely to be prompted to take the exam to begin with. This issue is something the district has attempted to address by removing the entrance exam and creating a new system based on academic track record, parental income, area of residence, and a point system which students can have eligibility for based on other factors (Vaznis, 2023, p. 2). Although well intentioned this system still leaves out many deserving students
because of ineligibility for additional points. Points can be given for going to an under-resourced school, but if a student that fits all the other criteria except for that applies, it’ll be the student attending the under-resourced school that will gain admission to an exam school. This pushes being low-income into a monolith narrative. It is possible for a low-income student to attend a school with more resources simply due to a lot of hard work, and they shouldn’t be at a disadvantage because of that. This lack of awareness and diversity continuously holds students back, taking away the many opportunities they could have if they were to attend schools that reflected both the city and district’s diversity.
This new system’s issues when it comes to missing the nuance of being a low-income Boston resident are similar to those that people experience when applying to METCO. Deserving students are being left behind. Mantil writes in her article about METCO and its admissions process how the targets placed by METCO staff for Latino and Asian students’ admissions can
hinder the admission of a Black student who applied earlier (Mantil, 2022, p. 131). In this case the Black student would be more deserving based on the first come first serve basis of the program, but wouldn’t be chosen due to not being part of the desired demographic. Attempting to diversify the receiving district or school in both the cases of METCO and public exam schools in these cases would result in the discrimination of another student. It seems that the system is trying to fix its previous mistakes of primarily admitting wealthier students from wealthier schools into the exam schools resulting in a lack of socioeconomic and racial diversity in these schools. Unfortunately they aren’t being as successful as they hoped due to a detrimental flaw. Vaznis (2023) reported that the new system allows middle-class students attending high poverty schools to be eligible for extra points, but not the low-income students attending wealthier schools, unless they live in specific neighborhoods. The district’s attempts have caused a case of overcorrection, where those that are meant to be
taking the most away from the restructuring, are now, once again left behind.
When it comes to the quality of education of the Boston district, its results are lackluster. Most public schools in Boston are test centers and offer an SAT test date during a normally scheduled school day for their students. This would make one believe that the students would then be more successful due to the ease with which they can take the exam, yet they’re ill prepared and don’t score as well as expected. In 2019 68% of seniors in the Boston district took the SAT at some point during their high school career, and the average score district wide was 987 which is lower than both the state and national average (BPS, 2019). The highest scores were found in students from the three exam schools, who were the only ones scoring above 1000. Since then, the average has risen with students scoring an overall average of 1025 in the 2022-2023 school year (BPS, 2023).
With the SAT being a big factor in college admissions for most elite schools, this would mean that the average BPS student wouldn’t have the scores to get into an elite college or university. 81% of Boston students graduate, which counteracts the data from 2019 that says that only about 70% of students were graduating (Department of Education, 2023.). Still, there is a gap as over 90% of METCO students graduate high school. The rate of students attending higher education is about 50%, which is actually lower than what was reported in 2019, by over 10% (Department of Education, 2019). There can be many factors that are contributing to the decline in college attendance, but BPS is supposed to be bettering itself and the opportunities it offers for students so they can lead successful lives. Despite a growth in graduation rates there is a decline in college attendance, begging the question of whether the system is being successful when it claims its goal is college readiness.
How METCO is Successful
There are resources available only to those bussed into suburban high-income neighborhoods because these resources are specific to the experience of living in these communities, and those resources are useful when in college. These resources that prepare someone for college aren’t always tangible. Students who join METCO can be thought to fall under the category of “privileged poor”, a term coined by Anthony Abraham Jack (2019). The resources they receive through their secondary education allows them to be prepared for college in ways that their inner city student counterparts aren’t. This is explored in Jack’s book The Privileged Poor. The resource that is most emphasized is cultural capital, which Jack writes, “Refers to the collection of taken-for-granted ways of being that are valued in a particular context” (Jack, 2019, p. 19). An example of cultural capital that is referenced by someone who was part of the METCO program is travel. In the case of Semuels’s friend Eddie, his interest in travel was piqued by
hearing others’ conversations on the topic of travel and their global experiences. Semuels remarks, “Going to school in Belmont, where kids would casually talk about skiing in the Rockies over winter break or traveling to Europe for the summer with their family, piqued his interest in travel” (Semuels, 2019, p.3). Had he not been exposed to the wonders of travel, Eddie wouldn’t know this is something he’s interested in.
Eddie also has cultural capital related to travel based on his knowledge of these places. Although he hasn’t had these experiences firsthand, he knows what a peer is talking about when they mention traveling to Europe, and therefore he’d be more comfortable in a space where this is a topic of discussion, than someone from Boston who doesn’t know anyone who has been to Europe. This cultural capital which improves comfort around high income people is a resource that makes fitting in easier in college, even if one doesn’t have the money other people on that campus have. The lack of alienation that a METCO student has when in
college allows them to integrate themselves socially which also would make it more possible for them to successfully network. In a world where knowing people and having connections can often take you further than your actual knowledge, this networking makes all the difference between someone securing a job before graduating, and someone having to go on a job search after graduating. The effect of cultural capital is just one example of a non-tangible resource that can grow into much more and gives METCO students an advantage over BPS students.
The Issues of BPS & METCO: How They’re Intertwined
METCO’s flaws and what make it an ethical dilemma for educational leaders in Boston are its exclusivity, and perpetuation of privilege. While meant to lessen the gap between white children and Black or other people of color, this busing program only solves the issue of inequity on an individual level. Resources are still disproportionately distributed; it just so happens that some of those resources are given to low-income students that are attending
schools targeted towards middle class and high-income families. This is why students that are admitted into METCO fall under the privileged poor category if they were to be studied by Jack. Despite attending a public institution prior to college their education is unparalleled. Massachusetts is already a state that has above average resources provided to its students, so the suburban districts going above and beyond means that these students are incredibly privileged in the education they are receiving. METCO is because of this an extremely exclusive program with a rigorous and competitive admissions process.
When Mantil explains this process she mentions that only about 4% of k-12 residents in Boston are enrolled in METCO (2022, p. 131). When it comes to the process of admissions, potential candidates receive referrals from teachers, then, spots are limited to the seats available per receiving district in terms of grade and gender, but there are also certain racial demographic targets some districts have in order to meet their goals (Mantil, 2022, p.
131). This admissions process is highly competitive and makes it so that being one of the select few is hard to do. Even when it comes to the original intentions behind the program, it was unbiased integration. Yet it has become a biased and hierarchical system. There is a racial hierarchy because many districts want a specific kind of diversity, and there is also the privilege that is necessary to have a referral.
Children that are deemed as “troubled” by their teachers don’t often get a referral, and therefore are also less likely to be admitted. There are also biases placed onto English language learners (ELL). Receiving districts don’t often have resources readily available for these students, so they don’t accept them. But what makes it an unforgivable issue is that these districts don’t plan to develop programs in order to be able to welcome ELL students into their schools. This leaves this group of students as outcasts with no possibility of bettering their education via METCO. There are many privileges that go into being someone
both eligible to apply, and accepted into METCO. The exclusivity of this program has rendered it problematic for those looking for an across the board solution for the educational inequity between Boston and suburban districts.
Despite the issues brought up by METCO’s existence, it is a necessary part of Massachusetts’s educational system due to BPS continuously struggling with a lack of resources and lackluster results in post-secondary preparedness. The successes students reach when given the opportunity and unlimited resources to explore their interests should not be exclusive to attending a school in a primarily white neighborhood, especially when considering that these districts on average spend less money per pupil than the Boston district. It also makes one wonder why it is that a district that financially invests a lot in students is still failing them. Ultimately, the reason for this constant let down of students is that BPS hasn’t deviated from the structures that forced parents to want to bus their children away from it to begin with.
Boston is still an extremely racialized city. Although technically parents can put their children into any school in the district it is very likely, and often the goal, that students will attend a school in their neighborhood. This perpetuates the segregated nature of many schools which provides certain demographics of students with better opportunities and a more well rounded education than others. An example brought up earlier was the Josiah Quincy School which has a high Asian demographic, and this school has an orchestra program providing students who love music the opportunity to pursue that passion. In the secondary school space the differences from school to school become even more apparent with curricular differences such as the offer of advanced placement (AP) , honors, or IB classes in only some high schools. There are also schools that offer pathways which allow students to learn about a career of interest to them early on, like the engineering or nursing pathways at the John D. O’Bryant School
of Mathematics and Science, and this isn’t available in every school.
When it comes to the districts participating in METCO, because they are smaller, there are often only one to two high schools in the district, allowing for there to be the same opportunities district wide. AP and honors classes become an expectation for students to complete because they are being held to a higher standard. These standards within themselves are an apparent example of inequality in the system as a whole. The lack of regulation in curricular standards has allowed educational leaders to expect less from inner city students of color, teaching them that these should also be their expectations of themselves. Meanwhile, when in METCO, these students learn that their socioeconomic circumstances shouldn’t define them, and that they can pursue any career they enjoy because they are just as capable as their peers. Is this not something that BPS should already be instilling in their students? It should not take being bussed into a
completely different area for someone to have a shot at success. Or to believe they do. It is time for BPS to reflect on its lack of integration and be proactive about fixing the issues that made METCO necessary.
References
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Jack, A. A. (2019). The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. Harvard University Press.
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Vaznis, J. (2023, June 9). With the return of the testing requirement, the diversity of applicants getting into Boston exam schools shifts only slightly - the Boston Globe. BostonGlobe.com. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/08/metro/with-returntesting-requirement-diversity-applicants-getting-into-boston-examschools-shifts-only-slightly/