A nearly decade-long debate over admission policies at the state’s vocational high schools seems to be nearing a conclusion, but it’s been a tortured path and there is plenty of discontent with the likely outcome on both sides.
vocational technical high schools
Posted inOpinion
Voc-tech schools need support to build tomorrow’s workforce
Voters, students and their families, as well as Massachusetts businesses want more voc-tech seating capacity. The primary and bedrock focus for policymakers, parents, and the business community should be providing as many students as possible with the high-quality opportunities that a voc-tech education provides while maintaining many of the tenets that have made this form of education so successful.
Posted inEducation
Vocational admissions debate getting heated
As state officials move closer to considering changes to admission policies governing vocational high schools, including potentially requiring the use of a blind lottery system to award seats, the temperature of the debate is getting turned up.
Posted inEducation
Dueling letters to Healey on vocational school admissions
More than two dozen lawmakers wrote to Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday, urging her to end the practice of using selective entry standards at the state’s vocational high schools and instead admit students by lottery.
Posted inEducation
Will bold plan for Boston high schools get traction this time?
YEAR AFTER YEAR, mayor after mayor, plans are hatched to transform Boston high schools – many of which have poor outcomes in subpar facilities – only to see them fade away unrealized as attention turns to other issues. Mayor Michelle Wu vowed that this time would be different, as she announced a set of big […]
Posted inEducation
Senator to push voc school admission changes through budget amendment
SAYING HE’S FRUSTRATED by state inaction over ongoing enrollment inequities from admissions policies at vocational high schools, state Sen. John Cronin has filed an amendment to the Senate budget that would require the schools to use a lottery, rather than selective entry criteria, to choose incoming students. Vocational school admission policies have become a flashpoint […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Time to end discrimination in vocational school admissions
CAREER VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL education is a powerful tool that can provide students desiring to enter the workforce with a path to high-wage, high-skill professions and the knowledge, critical thinking, and transferable skills to adapt to changing labor markets. The unique hands-on, project-based learning model utilized in CVTE can also catalyze entrance into post-secondary education, particularly for […]
Posted inEducation
In Mass., vocational success – and admissions debate
THE STATE’S VOCATIONAL-TECHNICAL schools have long stood as one of the unheralded success stories of the education reform efforts begun in the early 1990s. A new book, published by Pioneer Institute, gives the schools their much-deserved due. Hands-On Achievement: Massachusetts’s National Model Vocational-Technical Schools chronicles the history of vocational education and documents how schools that […]
Posted inEducation
State ed board approves vocational school admission changes
OVER THE OBJECTIONS of advocates who said the changes did not go far enough, the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved new regulations Tuesday morning aimed at creating more equity in admissions to vocational high schools. The changes come after years of complaints that vocational schools were shutting out Black and Latino students, […]
Posted inEducation
Coalition says proposed voc school admission changes don’t go far enough
PROPOSED CHANGES TO vocational school admission policies, which the state has developed following years of pressure from municipal leaders and advocates, don’t go nearly far enough toward ensuring access to the schools for all students, says a coalition of civil rights, education, and community groups. The Vocational Education Justice Coalition is calling on the state […]