Introduction
The success of school desegregation in Boston is highly debated nowadays. Analysis of programs like the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity can help evaluate the effectiveness of this process. The results of such studies would be critical in determining the education system’s ability to prepare learners to maneuver in multicultural environments after school.
The desegregation of Boston public schools was a period when schools were under court control to desegregate through a system of busing students. The struggle to improve public school systems across the United States during the push for desegregation lasted several years. The Supreme Court decision, which declared racial segregation in schools unconstitutional, marked the culmination of the drive to desegregate schools.
The Boston public schools were ordered to integrate the city’s schools by changing the transportation patterns by the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts to improve the segregation situation. However, many white Bostonians were horrified by court-ordered busing, which persisted until 1988 and contributed to racial violence and socioeconomic tensions in the city throughout the 1970s and 1980s (METCO, 2022). These years were marked by the appearance and rise of the anti-busing rallies and iconography, which solidified Boston’s status as a city riven by racial and socioeconomic conflict (Mijs & Roe, 2021). The results of the desegregation programs observed in the current context demonstrate the ineffectiveness of these programs, particularly METCO, and highlight the need to identify the reasons for this failure and explore additional solutions to address the issue.
Historical Background
Attempts to end school segregation paralleled the struggle for equality among ethnic and cultural minorities. One of the first significant steps was taken when the United States Supreme Court declared ethnic segregation in public schools unconstitutional in a landmark majority judgment in the 1954 case (Brown v. Board of Education, 2021). The legal team for Brown from the NAACP, led by Thurgood Marshall, contended that racially divided schools were fundamentally unfair since African Americans were devalued by society (Brown v. Board of Education, 2021). Therefore, racially segregated schools only propagated this prejudice, starting with young people.
Segregated schools objectively caused psychological harm to minority children. To demonstrate this, Marshall and his team supported their claim with data from psychologists and social scientists (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954). Thus, with this expert testimony and the proven facts that Black teachers were paid less and Black schools had worse facilities than White schools, the unanimous court decision was made.
To integrate Boston’s geographically segregated public schools, U.S. District Judge Arthur Garrity ordered the busing of African American pupils to primarily white schools and white students to Black schools. Garrity found that Boston’s de facto school segregation discriminated against Black pupils in his June 1974 decision in the case Morgan v. Hennigan (Morgan & Colati, 2017). Massive demonstrations occurred on September 12 in South Boston, the city’s primary Irish-Catholic district (Morgan & Colati, 2017). It was a response by society to the introduction of forced busing.
Months of protests went on without a break, and many parents kept their kids at home. In 1966, METCO was established to ensure equitable access to quality education for learners (METCO, 2022). The program aimed to expand educational and diversity opportunities and reduce racial isolation by allowing students from Boston to attend public schools in other communities that had consented to participate. Moreover, the program aimed to provide an overall comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of busing in achieving school desegregation in Boston.
METCO Program Benefits
By focusing on the benefits that busing would bring to the suburbs, METCO officials sought to counter the notion that the program was solely about assisting students from Boston. Throughout METCO literature, the founders and proponents of the program emphasized that school integration was beneficial to all students, not just African Americans (METCO, 2022; METCO works well, 2022). Moreover, it can be agreed that this program exposed White suburban students to greater diversity than they would otherwise experience in school or their neighborhoods and prepared them for the world beyond their hometowns.
Undoubtedly, the METCO program benefits Boston’s students, regardless of their specific area of residence. According to METCO surveys, the students routinely graduate from high school at a rate far higher than that of Boston students who attend schools in their neighborhoods (METCO, 2022). Over 95% of METCO students who took the state’s standardized English Language Arts test scored proficient or above.
At the same time, the learners outperformed their peers by a comparable margin in math, outperforming Boston kids by 82% on this test (METCO, 2022). According to the assessed data, more than 90% of program graduates continue their education by enrolling in two- or four-year schools, and nearly 50% of four-year college graduates earn advanced degrees (METCO, 2022). Therefore, students from Boston public schools typically perform worse than METCO students.
Programs like METCO have advantages that extend far beyond improved test results, benefiting both the program’s participants and the host communities in which they live. Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson and Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby are notable former alumni of METCO (METCO works well, 2022). In addition to teaching children in public schools about civic involvement, this program emphasizes the importance of teaching them how to interact with people from all socioeconomic strata.
Analysis of the Effectiveness of METCO in the Desegregation of Education in Boston
METCO was designed to give Black students stuck in segregated schools in Boston a chance at a better education and to bring racial diversity to virtually all White suburban classrooms. Despite a request from the city’s Catholic leader, Cardinal Humberto Medeiros, not to obstruct desegregation efforts, many parents who could afford it migrated to the suburbs or sent their kids to private or parochial schools. Several events made it challenging to continue busing programs throughout the 1980s and 1990s, due to the massive White flight in places like Boston (Mijs & Roe, 2021). Therefore, there were not enough White kids for actual school desegregation.
Furthermore, busing placed a tremendous burden on Black students and students of color. Thus, in most cases, they were the ones who were asked to travel to the suburbs, to sometimes hostile neighborhoods. For many parents, that was not worth it after several years had passed. It represents one of the reasons that, from both perspectives, communities started to turn away from busing.
METCO has successfully educated thousands of students for years, but several changes could make it better. According to a study by Pioneer Institute (2022), 3,200 primarily African-American and Hispanic students from Boston and Springfield attend public schools in about three dozen surrounding communities. METCO offers educational opportunities to families in Boston and Springfield and provides much-needed diversity to suburban school districts.
Without METCO, the realization of desegregation would be virtually nonexistent. Despite accounting for just 2,5% of enrollment on average, METCO students account for about 40% of African-American students in receiving school districts (GBH News, 2018). In some districts, more than two-thirds of African-American students are in the METCO program. METCO students are more likely to be African-American and to have special needs than their peers in the sending district, and less likely to be Hispanic, English language learners, or economically disadvantaged.
Even though the program is well-liked and has a track record of enhancing participants’ chances of finishing high school and enrolling in college, some kids find it detrimental. Because they attend schools in the White suburbs and are alienated in some respects, the youngsters in the program end up living in limbo. Because they are in an environment where everyone is White, and everyone else is from a completely different background, they are not fully embraced by all the kids.
Students from METCO are isolated from their peers in their suburban schools and neighborhoods. The learners ride a bus in and out when they return to their living environment, typically in the evening. This issue makes them feel somewhat cut off from their local communities because of the gulf between METCO students and Boston public school pupils. The students are not accepted by their Boston peers or the children in the suburbs.
Boston’s neighborhoods are still segregated, and the public schools still have low graduation rates and inadequate support for minority and high-poverty student populations (PovertyUSA, 2019). When a government or other stakeholder has to set up a scenario where students must be bused out, attend charter schools, or any of those things, it is clear that Boston’s educational system and community are still quite segregated.
The implemented busing system did not result in fully blended schools. White flight from the city’s public schools, continuing residential segregation, gentrification, and the Boston public schools’ decision to allow students to attend neighborhood schools resulted in desegregation. Today, 54% of Boston citizens are White, but only 14% of Boston public school students are White (Busing, segregation, n.d.). Additionally, as of 2018, more than half of Boston public schools were profoundly segregated, more so than in 1965; at many schools, more than 90% of enrolled students are students of color (Busing, segregation, n.d.). These findings reveal the persistence of segregation and a failure in the government’s effort to desegregate schools in Boston.
Conclusion
The contributions of different lawyers, activist groups, and organizations like the NAACP show the parties who committed their course towards ensuring that students in Boston received equal rights and enjoyed equal freedoms, irrespective of their ethnicity. It can be concluded that the government might have hesitated to abolish segregation at the time. However, resistance from parents and students was a major stumbling block to school desegregation in Boston.
Programs like METCO were designed to enhance the desegregation of school students in Boston. Nevertheless, the persistence of detrimental effects like alienation from peers, isolation from their environment, having to travel long distances to school, gentrification, and continuing residential segregation can be noticed. Therefore, desegregation in schools in Boston is still evident.
Ending the METCO program could help improve Boston’s struggling schools instead of removing students from their communities and providing suburban schools with more money. Using the funds invested in METCO to improve the schools could be practical. Thus, the learners would not be bused, thereby improving Boston schools. To admit school desegregation in Boston and boost quality education to every member of society, regardless of their ethnicity, equality in school funding should persist.
References
Brown v. Board of Education (1954). National Archives.
Busing, segregation, and education reform in Boston. (n.d.). PovertyUSA.
GBH News. (2018). Boston schools are more segregated now than 20 years ago. Is there a solution?
METCO. (2022). METCO â Voluntary school integration in the Boston area.
METCO works well, small tweaks could make it even better, study says. (2022). Pioneer Institute.
Mijs, J. J., & Roe, E. L. (2021). Is America coming apart? Socioeconomic segregation in neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and social networks, 1970â2020. Sociology Compass, 15(6), 1-16.
Morgan, M., & Colati, J. (2017). Beyond black & white: Exploring Black History month. Archives & Public History at UMass Boston.