Jada, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, attends a high-performing high school in a Boston suburb under a voluntary busing program. An honor-roll student, she takes French and intensive math classes in the summer. Britney, the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants, did well in middle school, but settled for a low-performing Boston high school a few miles away from Jada’s school. She works to help pay her family’s rent and plans to attend community college.
Brighton High School, part of Boston Public Schools, serves many immigrant students.
Neighboring schools, worlds apart provide very different opportunities for their students, reports the Boston Globe.
Most Newton South students have educated, affluent parents. Most Brighton High students do not: Nearly all are black or Hispanic, and about half are recent immigrants learning English.
“Boston already outpaces Newton by nearly $3,000 a year when it comes to per-student spending,” the Globe reports. “Similarly, BPS teachers are some of the highest paid in the state, outearning their Newton peers by about $18,000 on average.”
Here’s a critical difference between Jada and Britney, which recalls Robert Pondiscio’s analysis of Success charters’ high test scores: Jada’s mother signed her up for the transfer program when she was three days old. “I came from the hospital, dropped her home, and went straight to the Metco office,” said (Beatrice) Jacot, who graduated from the old Hyde Park High School. “I felt like I was learning more when I was back home [in Haiti] than I was learning here. I didn’t want her to experience the same thing.”