Photo by Bryce Vickmark.
This November, half a century after Boston’s court-ordered busing decision, Blueprint Labs hosted a panel discussion to reflect on the legacy of past school integration efforts in Boston and consider how to improve education equity in the city moving forward.
A milestone anniversary
Fifty years ago, in 1974, Boston U.S. District Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr. ordered the desegregation of Boston’s public schools. The decision, which was met with intense protest, mandated busing for 18,000 students citywide. The goal of busing was to improve education equity in Boston’s separate and unequal school system, but half a century later, gaps in academic achievement across race and income persist.
This year, the 50th anniversary of the Garrity decision poses a pivotal opportunity to reflect on historical integration efforts in Boston and the work that remains. What is the legacy of busing in Boston? Is the current school assignment system working? How can the city improve education equity moving forward? On November 7, 2024, Blueprint Labs convened researchers, education leaders, and community members to discuss these questions and more.
Discussing education equity in Boston
The evening started with a panel discussion between influential education leaders and policymakers in Boston. MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles facilitated a discussion and Q&A with Milly Arbaje-Thomas, the CEO of Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO), Rebecca Grainger, the City of Boston’s Senior Advisor for Youth and Schools, and Ted Landsmark, a civil rights leader and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University.
They discussed the role of the city, the community, and METCO—a program that has enrolled Boston students of color in suburban school districts since before the Garrity decision—in improving education for Boston students. Arbaje-Thomas spoke about METCO’s efforts to work closely with suburban school districts to ensure all students receive an inclusive, equitable, and antiracist education. Grainger and Landsmark focused on ways to improve schools within the city of Boston. Grainger noted that “families very much want access to high-quality schools close to home.” She highlighted the importance of providing children with not just a good education, but also a supportive and inclusive community. Landsmark echoed those sentiments and argued the importance of schools as centers of communities, a space to serve needs beyond just K-12 education.
Considering research on school integration
For the latter half of the evening, leading researchers presented their findings on school integration and discussed the policy implications of their work. The following scholars traveled from across the country to speak at the event: Joshua Angrist, Blueprint Co-Director and Ford Professor of Economics at MIT; Peter Blair, Associate Professor at Harvard University; Carycruz Bueno, Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University; Kevin Lang, Laurence A. Bloom Professor of Economics at Boston University; Tomás Monarrez, Senior Research Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education at Stanford University; and Elizabeth Setren, Gunnar Myrdal Assistant Professor of Economics at Tufts University.
Elizabeth Setren presented her research on METCO. This study shows that students admitted to the program have lower high school dropout rates and higher on-time high school graduation, college enrollment, college graduation, and earnings. Blueprint Labs Director Josh Angrist summarized results from the lab’s long-running study of the consequences of attending non-neighborhood schools in Boston and New York. The study shows that while historically disadvantaged students who travel farther attend more integrated schools, more time on the bus doesn’t seem to improve their learning or college enrollment. These two studies offer an interesting and nuanced contrast.
Looking forward
Angrist and co-authors’ results set the stage for an important question: are the costs of cross-neighborhood transportation worth the increases in integration, given the lack of academic benefit? Angrist, Blueprint Labs Co-Director Parag Pathak, and Senior Policy and Communications Associate Amanda Schmidt recently co-authored a Boston Globe op-ed addressing this question. Education leaders’ comments during their panel—that families want high-quality schools close to home and that schools could benefit everyone if they were centers for the community—add further nuance to the conversation. Moving forward, Blueprint aims to meet with key stakeholders and contribute to a longer-lasting conversation about improving Boston’s education system.