Black students are demanding action at Boston Latin High School because some of their classmates are racists. Well welcome to the modern world, children. Meet the new boss…same as the old boss. Ask your parents about racial strife at Boston Schools in the 1970s. Now that was a ruckus, frightening and terribly sad.
Not to diminish the students’ complaints, but they should be happy they did not attend Southie High in the 70’s.
I find it kind of odd that they quote stats for black, white, and hispanic students only. What about Asians?
Sounds like the school needs to do more to encourage community feeling, mutual respect, and cultural competence. It’s too bad they don’t get the kids until 9th grade. That’s late to start inculcating civilization.
Um, sorry but if things like this are true:
then they absolutely have a legitimate gripe.
This is high school. It’s not the “real world”- whatever that is anyway. In schools, children/students shouldn’t get away with saying things like that.
My daughter and her parents were repeatedly told by other kids and their parents that she only got into prestigious college because was an athlete. We all readily acknowledged this fact but maybe we should have had a “legitimate gripe”?
There was an almost identical article recently about black students at Brooklyn Technical High School in New York City.
I think college is different from high school. You’re an adult in college for starters. There’s a whole slew of other reasons, but high school is different from college.
If your high school-aged D (again, high school, not college) was told repeatedly that she only got into x high school because she was an athlete and that she’s just a dumb jock who should go back to the court (or something along those lines) in online forums, then yes, you’d have a legitimate gripe.
Racial slurs and “Go back to (anyplace)” are not acceptable behavior. Bullying of any kind needs to be addressed.
The discussion about getting into or denied college because of race, while sensitive, is a real life situation that is controversial among adults, and is a reasonable topic. And, as CCDD14 points out, some kids have all kinds of advantages in admission (besides race) that other kids don’t have. However, it is inappropriate to make it personal. I think it is rude to say to CCDD14 that her D only got in because she is an athlete whether she minds or not. I think it is rude to tell a kid they could only get in if they are black. If someone has an advantage and gets into a fancy college and you don’t, congratulate them and try to be happy for them. College admissions is not strictly a meritocracy, and we aren’t owed spots. Our kids should be able to handle their own disappointments and others successes with a bit of grace.
@ #7 Nobody said that she was a dumb jock - you are pushing it.
However if you have an admissions advantage you have to acknowledge it. Many people, including posters on this board want to have it both ways - have advantages but pretend that they do not exist.
By the way, I am not against affirmative action as the country needs black doctors, lawyers and engineers, black middle-class and role models who are not rappers or athletes.
That adds up to only 70%. Why no mention of the remaining 30% of non-black/hispanic/white students? Do they not fit the author’s discrimination narrative?
In case you were curious…
Enrollment @ Boston Latin School by Race/Ethnicity (2015-16)
Race % of School % of District % of State
African American 8.5 32.4 8.8
Asian 29.0 8.7 6.5
Hispanic 11.6 41.5 18.6
Native American 0.1 0.3 0.2
White 47.4 14.2 62.7
Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander 0.1 0.2 0.1
Multi-Race, Non-Hispanic 3.4 2.8 3.2
White students make up 47.4% of students at Boston Latin, while non-white students make up 52.6% of students.
Asian and white students are over-represented at the school, compared to the district (Asian students are over-represented compared to the state, too, and pretty dramatically).
Just a point of clarification/FYI – Boston Latin (& all of the exam schools in Boston) starts in 7th grade. It’s a 7-12 school.
The city of Boston is 47% white (not Hispanic or Latino), 24.4% Black, 17.5% Hispanic and 8.9% Asian. However, the school system is only 14% white, talk about white flight…
The school district has no ability to policy what students say outside of school (unless it’s threatening, and can be viewed as a safety issue). In this case, many of the complaints are about what some students wrote in online debates (on Facebook, etc.). Are we to punish students for saying AA helped get another students accepted at a college?
The hashtag being used is #BlackatBLS. I’m sure these students are influenced by similar campaigns such as “Being Black at Michigan”, or “I, Too AM Harvard”. Many complaints are valid, others are not ("“5 years later wondering why teachers at Latin still can’t tell their black students apart.”).
Many Black parents are distressed by the attitudes expressed by kids like the Boston Latin School Black students? Why? Because they fear for these children. They fear that these kids are not being encouraged to develop a strong sense of self-esteem; that they must rely on the protection of society at large to eliminate their tormentors; that they will bend at the knees and feel traumatized every time they suffer a slight or racial insult. Many Black parents feel that Black kids whom perpetually internalize victim-hood inevitably suffer one of two equally dismal life-results; 1) they end up stunted, emotionally unable to go where their ambition and intellect can take them, or 2) they end up like Black Lives Matter ranting fools, or like the fringe protesters in Ferguson…people who don’t vote, don’t volunteer, do little in the way of altruistic community action, but yet complain all day along.
If I had the opportunity to speak to the kids at Boston Latin School, I would have empathy for them. Lord knows they’ve probably had to endure the frustration of the “Shaker Heights” paradigm during their young academic careers. But most of all, I would tell the Boston Latin kids to remember the words of MLK Jr., to paraphrase; "an oppressor can’t ride you unless your back is bent.’
Social media to combat social media. The complaints outlined on videos on youtube are about comments (some of their fellow students) in ON-LINE debates (about what I don’t know). Not sure the school should be part of this except the girls doing the videos have brought their school into the fray–their fray.
Nobody in the article says these incidents happened AT school nor would be condoned behavior if it did. It would be a wonderful world if everybody was nice to one another but it ain’t happening.
There is undeniably some “white flight” in schooling in Boston. However, traditionally “white flight” means people move away from the city (meaning that Boston’s demographics - that 47% white - would look different, too). This happens in Boston, too - but those people, when they move to Newton or Lexington or wherever, then are taken out of the Boston #s, so they don’t account for the 47% white question here. There is another phenomenon going on.
Boston is a remarkably “young” city - not “kid” young, but very much a city with folks in their 20s and 30s, many of whom do not have children or school-age children. For example, at the last Census (2010) for which full data is available, this is how Boston compares in terms of percentage of kids (picked a smattering of places; note that these are the city only, and does not include county/suburban areas to the degree they are not included in the city definition):
Census Data - % of Population Under Age 18
San Francisco - 13.4%
Seattle - 15.4%
Boston - 16.8%
Washington, D.C. - 17.5%
Miami - 18.4%
Atlanta - 19.4%
Minneapolis - 20.2%
St. Louis - 21.2%
New York City - 21.6%
Philadelphia - 22.5%
Chicago - 23.1%
Los Angeles - 23.1%
Houston - 25.9%
Dallas - 26.5%
Detroit - 26.7%
National Average (USA on the whole) - 24%
At the same time, there are clear demographic differences in Boston in the racial and ethnic background of the children who live in the city that are not fully representative of the adults who live in the city. While there are private and parochial schools in the city and the suburbs, and some city people send their kids there, I think the reason the city and the district have such a different racial/ethnic breakdown is that the district breakdown reflects (to a large degree, though not perfectly) the racial/ethnic breakdown of the children who live in Boston, while the overall demographic numbers reflect the adults (who are more likely to be white), too.
In SY2014, enrollment in Boston’s public school system was about 57,000.
Of the 77,200 (est) school-age children living in Boston, about 20,100 (26%) do not attend Boston public schools. They are:
45% Black
17% Hispanic
32% White
4% Asian
3% Other
Of these students
5,270 go to parochial Schools
4,090 go to private schools
3,050 go to suburban schools through METCO
7,100 go to charter schools
Even the private schools in Boston have a rather low % of white students.
Seems to me that white families are moving out of Boston and into the suburbs. Another way to look at it, based on this data, is that the 47% that is white, have far fewer school age children compared to Blacks and Hispanics.
Ahh, I see what you’re saying, @Gator88NE. Completely agree with you on this front:
I was trying to make a point about the demographics of children in the city versus the adults in the city. Sometimes people assume that if 50% of a city is purple, then 50% of children should be purple, even if the purple people have children at a lesser rate (or whatever reason).
Interesting sidenote about METCO by the way - that group (~3000) is 100% non-white. One of the requirements for participating is being non-white. I hear there has been some scuttlebutt about whether it would be legally challenged in light of some recent Supreme Court rulings on whether public school assignments could be made solely on the basis of race (METCO doesn’t take income into account - the only qualifying criteria is being non-white and living in Boston).
I agree with 3Kids on the issue of white flight. I’ve spent many weekends in Boston over the years and my impression is that Boston is a very White city and largely those white folks are young adults. The families are in the suburbs. Same is true of Seattle, which has had a shrinking school-age population for 30 years, though the city remains overwhelmingly White. Interesting thing about Seattle is that it has gone through a period of significant “Black flight.” Property values in the old traditional Black neighborhood have been soaring for at least 10 years and old timers and Empty Nesters have sold out in exchange for a HUGE nest egg.