Testimony in Support of An Act for Equitable Workforce Development - S. 308 (Sen. John Cronin)
MAC Social Work Intern Richie Torres presented the below testimony on July 6, 2021 before the Joint Committee on Education. Click here for a recording of his testimony (begins at 0:14:46)
My name is Richie Torres of Watertown, MA. I come before you today, as a master’s student at the Boston College School of Social Work in the midst of a year-long education policy intern at Massachusetts Advocates for Children. MAC is an active member of the Vocational Education Justice Coalition. I am here to express support and a sense of urgency for S. 308 - An Act for Equitable Workforce Development.
Prior to being a first-generation college student, I attended a public school in the low-income suburbs of Washington DC. With my high school physically merged with the only vocational-technical school in the county, I was fortunate enough to witness how such schools had the ability to enhance the lives of those who were given an unfair start to life.
Screenshot from MAC Social Work Intern Richie Torres’ testimony before the Joint Committee on Education. Senator Jo Comerford, Chairperson, is also on screen. Richie’s testimony begins at 0:14:46 in this recording.
I believe it is imperative to begin by defining the word equity. Equity is often interchanged with equal, but this begs the question—what exactly should be equal? The answer to this is the premise of the American Dream: equality of opportunity. In this instance, equity involves intentional approaches that promote and foster educational opportunities and results in favor of marginalized, underrepresented, and/or underserved students. The current admissions practices of public vocational-technical schools warp the national ethos into an unattainable fallacy for many.
“It is the responsibility of those in power to ensure that all students have equitable access to the excellent education available at the Commonwealth’s vocational-technical high schools.”
Current data suggests how the current admissions criteria for those applying to vocational-technical schools is a discriminatory practice—excluding students of color, students with disabilities, many low-income students, and especially, English Learners from opportunity. S. 308 recognizes this pattern of discrimination and offers the only equitable alternative—an admissions lottery—as the basis for vocational-technical high school admissions.
Attending a high school where white students were the minority; I had the unique opportunity to witness the lasting effects of vocational-technical schools on many of the students the current Massachusetts admissions policies are discriminating against. Out of 840 students attending the vocational-technical school in 2019-2020, 19.6% were Black students and 58.1% of them were Latinx students. More than half of Black students and two thirds of Latinx students qualified for free and reduced lunch. With in-field job training and apprenticeships serving as an academic requirement, these Black and Latinx students develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and competencies to achieve social, economic, and even academic mobility post-graduation.
Denying a student admission based on criteria like grades and disciplinary records places accountability on the student—who just happened to be born on the wrong side of the tracks. Accountability should instead be shifted towards those who created the divide in the first place: affluent people of power gate-keeping a system that should be an equitable right for all. Current admissions criteria at vocational-technical schools favor white students who already have the social, economic, and academic mobility to move onwards and upwards.
As I am sure you are all aware, student performance in school is tied to economic disadvantages at home, disadvantages that are now amplified by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual learning has widened the technological divide. For some, internet access is not a priority but an expensive commodity. If this is the case, would a student who is a low-income English learner not get accepted into a vocational-technical school because his guardian cannot afford internet access? This students’ current circumstances, which are out of his control, have become a deterrent to equitable opportunity.
SB.308 offers an elegant resolution of the problem at hand. It creates a legal framework that encourages the use of a lottery-based admissions approach at public vocational-technical schools that attract more applicants than they can accept. It is the responsibility of those in power to ensure that all students have equitable access to the excellent education available at the Commonwealth’s vocational-technical high schools. Such a lottery will not magically make this education available to all, but it does offer a more equitable solution than the current criteria, which discriminate against entire groups of deserving students.
We appreciate the Committee’s consideration of this important and timely bill and urge you to report the bill out favorably. Thank you.