Education

Mayor Marty Walsh addresses exam school admissions policy during radio appearance

He refuted a report published by WGBH earlier this week.

Mayor Walsh spoke at Boston Latin's commencement ceremony in June. Aram Boghosian/The Boston Globe

July 22, 2016

2 minutes to read

Mayor Marty Walsh again disputed a WGBH report that claimed Boston’s exam schools were changing their admissions policy during an appearance on Boston Public Radio, a WGBH program, Friday afternoon.

“I was upset because the story that was posted, without input from calling my office and talking about it, wasn’t true,” Walsh said. “There was an unnamed source that clearly had wrong information.”

Walsh and Boston Public Schools Superintendent Tommy Chang have pushed back hard against the WGBH report, which said that the city was considering a proposal to alter its admissions policy to exam schools, including a provision that would potentially prevent private or Catholic school students from applying.

WGBH said it obtained a draft copy of the proposal. Although the new policy wouldn’t explicitly forbid applications from students not currently in Boston Public schools, the report said it would restrict exam school enrollment to students who were enrolled in at least the fifth and sixth grades in the district’s elementary schools.

“It caused a lot of concern, and a lot of anger,” Walsh said. “There’s still anger out there today.”

Not only did Boston Public Schools vehemently deny WGBH’s report, the district issued a statement to say the draft didn’t exist.

“The Boston Public Schools does not have a report, in draft or final form, entitled: ‘BPS Strategic Implementation Plan 2016/Opportunity and Achievement Gaps Task Force,'” the statement said. “The article issued by WGBH is false. There are no proposals to prevent any students from enrolling into the district’s three exam schools. BPS is disappointed that the media outlet who reported this erroneous information did not attempt to verify any facts with the school district before posting the article.”

The quoted recommendations do appear in another report done by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute and the Center for Collaborative Education from when John McDonough was interim superintendent more than a year ago, as pointed out by The Boston Globe. During his radio appearance, Walsh said if that no matter the contents of that report, it was under a different superintendent.

Exam school admissions have been a hot topic considering the controversy at Boston Latin School this past year, where there have been several allegations of racial discrimination. In an effort to boost the enrollment of black and Latino students in the city’s exam schools, the district added 300 seats to its exam school initiative summer program. An advisory committee is also exploring whether to change the exam requirements,though no official recommendations have been issued yet, according to The Boston Globe.