Boston Public Schools accused of misusing admission process test for exam schools

BOSTON — Boston Public Schools is being accused of misusing a test that is part of the admissions process for three exam schools.

The Independent School Entrance Examination, or ISEE, has been part of the process used by Boston Latin Academy, Boston Latin School and the John O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science as part of their highly competitive admissions process for nearly two decades.

But that will no longer be the case.

According to the maker of the test, the exam unfairly excludes and harms students of color. The school system was allegedly told to make reforms for the test, but never did.

The non-profit organization that administers the test for Boston’s exams schools, the Education Records Bureau, or ERB, says the way the district has been misusing the tests makes it harder for students of color to get in. Civil rights activists have argued the test doesn’t align with the BPS curriculum and for years, the test was administered on weekends, posing a potential hurdle for many students.

The exams schools that hold very prestigious ranks are open for anyone, you just have to prove you have what it takes to make it in. The admissions process has been criticized by activists for their racial disparities and lack of equal opportunities for all students.

“[BPS] had this information for a long time, which it hid from the public and it has only come to light since this communication from ERB,” said Janelle Dempsey, of the organization Lawyers for Civil Rights.

Lawyers for Civil Rights released an email from ERB to clients on Tuesday announcing they had terminated their contract with Boston Public Schools in April 2019 and that “district leaders have not yet chosen to make this information public, but when they do so, we want to be sure you have the necessary background.”

According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Education, there is a huge gap between open-enrollment high schools and the exam schools, where for the former, 87% of the students are black or Latino, but for the latter, that number is only at 20%.

In a 2017 report, the Boston NAACP branch, along with other organizations, said the “diversity of our city” was not reflected in the exam schools and that private school students or students from predominantly white neighborhoods had higher chances of getting into those schools.

“Schoolwide, African American enrollment at BLS is at its lowest rate since desegregation, and BLS’ Latino enrollment rate remains what it was in the 1990s, despite a doubling in Latinos’ application rate since then,” the report said.

Predominantly white neighborhoods showed exam school admission rates of above 50%, while majorly black and Latino neighborhoods all have admission rates of below 50%.

“Private school students have far better odds of exam school admission, especially at BLS. Half the private school students who applied to exam schools got into BLS – more than twice the rate of BPS students,” the report goes on to say.

“When you open it and you look at the scores and you’re like, ‘Score, you did really well!' but then it’s like, wait a minute,” said Shellina Semexante, a BPS parent.

Semexante’s daughter studied for weeks to get into a Boston exam school, only to find that her best wasn’t good enough.

“For her, being a young lady of color and not being able to get in is kind of hard,” said Semexante.

Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Casselius says the district was the one to walk away from ERB because they wanted them to pay to participate in an evaluation study. In a statement, she said, “this is the final year of the BPS contract with ERB and they will release a new Request for Proposals (RFP) within the next week.”

“That’s not enough,” said Semexante. “It’s really not enough because it still doesn’t help our students out, especially our children of color. It really doesn’t help them out.”

Boston City Council Education Chair Anissa Essaibi-George says what they’ve always known is that the ISEE test never lined up with the BPS curriculum."

“This shift away from the ISEE is an important one for us to take and it’s unfortunate that this information hasn’t been shared and for me, chair of the committee on education, transparency is really important,” said Essaibi-George.

The Lawyers for Civil Rights, the NAACP Boston branch and many others are asking for a full investigation.

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