When Stella Harris thinks back to her high school experience at the Boston Latin School, she reminisces on a time full of friends, social drama, stress from academics, but overall, composed of some of the best moments of her young life. It is almost completely devoid of significant obstacles.

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Growing up in Jamaica Plain, she took the 39 bus to school each morning. Attending her classes throughout the day, and after school she took advantage of several of the school’s 126 student-run clubs. A member of the student council, the theatre department, the track and field team, and a co-leader of her own club known as SASS - “stand-ing against sexism in society.” Stella graduated near the top of her class in 2016 and currently attends the University of Southern California. 

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Stella Harris is white and from a financially affluent family. 

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This is not the same fate shared by the rest of the Boston Public School system (BPS). The Boston Latin School is the oldest public high school in the country, and the most prominent member of BPS, but that prestige often comes at the detriment to other schools in the largest school district in the state. 

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Madison Park Technical Vocational High School is the one trade school in the district. By design, students would “graduate with a high school diploma, and a certificate in any trade they specialized in,” Terrance Johnson, director of Student Services at Madison Park, said. “So the students wouldn’t necessarily have to go to college.”

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In the halls, school sanctioned graffiti covers the walls as students wander the corridor speaking spanish and Haitian Creole to each other. Madison Park is the lowest test scoring high school in the district. 

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“This is a dumping school. Right now… you’re either going to get your kid into a charter school, an exam school, or whatever else,” Johnson said. “The parents are thinking, if I don’t get my kid into one of these [top] schools, we’re going private. They’re not sending their kids here.”

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According to Johnson, among the estimated 830 students that attend the school, four of them are white. While at the Boston Latin School, the student body is 75% white and asian students, and 22% black and hispanic, according to the school district report before the start of the 2017-2018 school year. 

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This discrepancy in educational experiences can be attributed to the opportunity and achievement gap. 

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The achievement gap is the persistent disparity in academic achievement among subgroups of students in the United States based on race, and socioeconomic background. The gap routinely shows itself in test scores, graduation and dropout rates, grades, and college completion rates. 

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Jeri Robinson, a member of the Boston School Committee and the co-chair of the Opportunity and Achievement Gap Task Force, says the opportunity gap leads to the achievement gap. 

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The opportunity gap is the divide in which students have educational resources available to them which subsequently affects the same demographics of students who suffer at the hands of the achievement gap. The opportunity gap is a measure of resources while the achievement gap is the measure of results. According to Robinson, the opportunity gap is “the lack of significant resources being available to everyone.” 

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The summer before her senior year of high school, Stella took part in a social justice and leadership program - an opportunity afforded to her by the Boston Latin School - where she first learned about the achievement gap. 

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“I guess that’s a privilege of mine, I learned about it through someone teaching it to me - I didn’t… experience it,” Stella said. “So when we had to take the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System), in the 10th grade most people [at Boston Latin] thought it was arbitrary and stupid, but we had been taking practice tests every year. Not everyone has that opportunity.”

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Beyond the classroom

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BPS operates 125 schools with a budget of $1.061 billion for the 2017-2018 school year, according to bostonpublicschools.org. The second largest district in the state is Springfield, with 58 schools and a $420 million budget, according to springfieldpublicschools.com.  

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“Our system is unlike any in the commonwealth. There is no comparison of Boston to Brookline, or Cambridge, or Wellesley. It’s apples and oranges,” Robinson said. “Some districts just have to worry about test scores, we have more than that.” 

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Upon a more nuanced look, BPS has many distinct factors that make it unlike any district in the state. According to bostonpublicschools.org, there are approximately 3,000 students experiencing homelessness. 31% of the district's total students are English Language Learners (ELL), and an additional 13% of students have attained English proficiency to no longer be classified as an ELL. 

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One would think that those students would be divided among every school in the district. But they’re not. 

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“Around 90% of our students live in poverty,” Johnson said. No students at the Boston Latin School live in poverty and only three speak english as a second language. 

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“I have kids coming here that didn’t eat last night, or slept on their friends couch, or their mother didn’t come home, or they tell me ‘I gotta take my younger siblings to school.’ and yet they’re supposed to come to school with all pistons burning,” Johnson said. “It’s unrealistic.” 

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Educators and administrators around BPS have addressed the fact that students deal with trauma outside of school. Trauma encompasses everything from homelessness and poverty, to unsafe situations at home or in their neighborhood. 

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“Students bring to school their experiences… so the outcomes in Wellesley are going to look very different than the outcomes out of Roxbury,” Robinson said. “How can you expect that two groups with extremely different demographics to somehow have the same kind of achievement? Common sense would tell you otherwise.” 

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Lydia Emmons works as the Assistant Director of Sociedad Latina, an organization that works with Latino individuals and families to “end the cycle of poverty, unequal to access of health services, and lack of educational and professional opportunities in our community,” according to their mission statement. Emmons says that a substantial amount of what she does has to do with helping students learn english. “A lot of ELL students are Latino, and it’s hard to learn any subject when you and your teacher are speaking two different languages,” Emmons said. 

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Emmons states that schools are like timelines. “You’re supposed to learn specific material by a specific age, and each district has their own track for students. That’s why changing districts is oftentimes challenging. But imagine transferring to a district that doesn’t speak the same language?”

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Most ELL students transfer into BPS in the fourth grade or lower, according to Robinson, but “that’s not all of them. A lot of ELL students come to the district in middle or high school and they don’t have a lot of resources or time to learn a new language and take a high stakes exam,” Emmons said. 

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Parent involvement is crucial throughout a child’s educational experience. Alvin Cooper, a 5th grade teacher at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester, believes that a teacher-parent partnership is vital. 

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“When students leave me, they’re with their families. If they’re not doing anything at home from 2:30 in the afternoon to 7 a.m. the next day, it makes my job that much harder,” Cooper said. “I’m not here to judge you, we have one thing in common: making sure your child is successful. And that [partnership] can go a long way.”

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Cooper has taught in BPS for over 20 years from first grade to eighth at a variety of schools, but has taught at Joseph Lee the longest. Joseph Lee is 91% black and hispanic, and according to district reports. Cooper states that the achievement gap “very clearly manifests itself in the classroom, on a day to day basis.” 

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A child does not enter BPS until their fifth birthday, on average. The first five years of their life are spent with their parents, and those years are crucial. “What are they doing in those formative years? Are their parents reading them books? Are they going to kids museums? Are they in an enriching day care? This stuff matters,” Cooper said. 

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People bring their experiences with them wherever they go, and students are no different. BPS educates students who represent a wide range of opportunity, or the lack thereof, and because of that, making sure all of them perform the same way academically is no small feat. 

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“How can you expect two children with different experiences to achieve the same?” Robinson said. “The gap begins to widen by virtue of experience itself.”

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Stella didn’t have these obstacles. 

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Results

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The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) is a test taken statewide to ensure students are learning certain english, math, and science at a certain level of proficiency, according to the Massachusetts Department of Education. Districts have the opportunity to have the exams be administered every year from third grade to ninth, although it is only required when a student is in the tenth grade - or what is typically their second year of high school. If a student does not make at least “proficient” on the exam, they cannot graduate. 

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Below are two of the same graph from different high schools calculating the number of students who reach “proficiency” or “advanced” on the MCAS. These graphs focus on the english and math levels of the Boston Latin School and Madison Park.

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Every student of every racial cohort at Boston Latin reaches at least “proficient” on the math and english MCAS. While at Madison Park, the numbers don’t reflect the same educational utopia. At best, 59% of the students reach “proficient” on english and 43% reach that same level in math, and those numbers slightly vary by race. 

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It is no secret that not all students excel at test taking, but the disparity doesn’t stop there. 

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Here are the same two schools graduation and dropout rates over the past three years broken down by race.

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It does not take a wizard to figure out which graph correlates to which school. 

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“It’s a great big scam… I got kids now that won’t get a high school diploma because this high stakes exam says ‘no, you gotta get this score on this exam.’But why can’t there be another method other than just one exam?” Johnson said. “You can’t do anything without a high school diploma - that’s a bare minimum… Their path was made for them.” 

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What comes next

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Alvin Cooper’s classroom is on the third floor and overlooks the school parking lot. Posters of inspirational quotes and educational ideas cover the white walls shadowing over the desks organized into groups of four, allowing students to work collaboratively and look up towards Mr. Cooper at the whiteboard in the front of the room. Individualized name tags are on top portion of each desk with stickers, superheroes, and pictures emblemize where each student sits. When school isn’t in session, the room is hopeful, full of opportunity and potential, between 7a.m. and 2:30 p.m., the room is full of energy, and students doing what they can. Despite everything that may or may not be happening in their life, they perform to the best of their capabilities. “It’s our job to allow them to reach their maximum potential,” Robinson said. 

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“If you’re introducing areas if deficiency [to students]… every step along the way,” Cooper said. “That will help shrink the achievement gap.” 

Cooper believes that the achievement gap manifests itself at all levels. “There are areas of deficiency,” Cooper said. “Some students don’t know grammar, or math, or other subjects on the level their supposed to… and it’s not their fault.” 

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Robinson has a slightly different view. “Cutting the gap down at all levels is crucial for the kids that are currently in the system. But for the ones coming in… we need to focus on early childhood,” Robinson said. “It’s the foundation.”

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“Early education is important in the fact that it creates a strong foundation, and with a strong foundation everything may follow, but what about the kids who don’t have a strong foundation?” Cooper said. “We need to introduce students to those areas of deficiency every step of the way… because there are some many variables that may sidetrack a student after early childhood.”

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Stella Harris went through the public school system the way it is designed to happen. She worked hard, got good grades, played a role in helping her community, always respectful, according to her peers. While to her, she got many opportunities, and she benefited, but from the view of others, they were advantages. 

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“The achievement gap is just the result of what public schools are supposed to do,” Johnson said. “We live in a capitalist society and we need a working class of people who are educated enough to press buttons and take your order.” 

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Denise Hurst works for the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) as the chair of the diversity caucus. 

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“The biggest part of the achievement gap are the external social factors that contribute,” Hurst said. “There’s a social gap, based on what society deems as acceptable, or what’s supposed to be happening.” 

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Robinson goes on to explain that schools are ill-equipped to narrow or diminish the gap alone, because the “root causes” of the issue don’t stem from education, but from society. 

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“It only becomes more apparent in schools because we’re the ones trying to measure learning,” Robinson said. “But we’re not looking at all the things children face...the trauma, that’s all going to lead to a gap.” 

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Hurst works as a school committee member in Springfield while also working for the MASC. The statewide organization does help on a systemic level on a larger scale, but according to Hurst, it will not solve all of the problems. 

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“If the state legislature were to make school reform decisions for the entire state, it would be this uniform, cookie-cutter protocol, and that wouldn’t fit… each district,” Hurst said. “The benefit of having local governing bodies is that they are able to speak to the nuance.”

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Terrance Johnson graduated from Madison Park in 1990. “The school was a little different then, there were a couple high achieving kids the inspired me to do better. We don’t have that as much anymore,” Johnson said. “Every kid is capable... every kid has potential. But this system doesn’t see it that way… it’s all a scam.” 

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Stella Harris was put into privilege because of her race, and financial background, while others, due to circumstance of birth, don’t share the same luck. It’s no secret that the capability and potential of any given student is not determined by their race or familial wealth, but yet, these factors have overwhelming consequence or benefit. 

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There is no lacking in desire and initiative when it comes to narrowing, or eliminating, the gap in performance and opportunity, the problem arises when educators disagree about where to begin. Some say with legislation, others with preschool, and kindergarten education, while others mention economic inequity. The difficulty comes when in the data, and the classroom, all of those aspects are primary contributors. 

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“In lots of ways it’s unfair to hold just the schools responsible for closing [the achievement gap],” Robinson said. “It’s really our whole city, community - everyone’s role to [give students] what they need in order for them to achieve at a maximum level.”

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