Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 8-2 on May 20 to make a significant change to the admissions process for vocational schools.
This change will turn the admissions process for the specialized tech schools into a weighted lottery system, as opposed to the more selective method that the schools have been using.
These vocational schools have become more popular over the past few years.
A complaint from Lawyers for Civil Rights claimed that this increase has led to concerns about “how the State allows career vocational technical education (CVTE) schools and programs to use admissions criteria that unjustifiably exclude students of color, English Learners (EL), and students with disabilities.”
Schools affected by the admissions changes can opt in to having certain criteria, like attendance, or the student's apparent interest in the school, “weigh” a student’s application for the lottery.
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Many school superintendents are opposed to the decision, such as Superintendent-Director of Essex Tech Heidi Riccio, who feels that the lottery decision would still exclude people, just more randomly this time.
She also felt that the weighted aspects of the lottery were too loose; for example, weight in the lottery could be given toward prospective students for "attendance," even though they could still have missed dozens of school days.
Riccio agreed that interest in vocational schools has increased greatly.
“We’ve seen the applications increase over the last 15 years,” she said. “Our school has nearly 1,600 applications every year for 500 spots.”
Supporters of the lottery plan feel that the tech school admissions have become too selective; the system was originally intended for non-traditional learners anyway, and they feel those students are slowly being cut out.
The superintendent said she felt that a better way to fix the problem of high demand would be to increase state funding to allow for more student spots.
There has been some discussion on Beacon Hill about pushing off the start of the lottery admissions system, but the State Senate seems reluctant to do so.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.