Wanted: An exam school admission system that can stand the test of time

Boston Globe

4 days ago

The city has tweaked that system every year over the past six school years, often in response to problems revealed the previous year.
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While this experimentation has been well-meaning, the uncertainty needs to end. An admission system that's this hard to understand and changes in seemingly arbitrary ways isn't transparent. Students and families don't really know what to expect, and the changes are starting to have unintended consequences by souring families on the schools and the district.
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One can say it shouldn't matter — admission to an exam school shouldn't be of such pivotal importance — but until the rest of Boston's high schools are up to snuff, whether a student gets into an exam school is a make-or-break question for many Boston families.
Now, Mayor Michelle Wu and Superintendent Mary Skipper are pushing a new set of changes. The administration has presented the School Committee with three options, all of which would address some of the unfair aspects of the current system. But, crucially, the administration also recognizes that endless tweaks have become a problem in and of themselves. District officials realize they need to 'craft a policy designed to remain stable for multiple years,' as a
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So whether the School Committee members accept one of the three options Skipper gave them, or combine elements of the three plans to come up with their own, the important thing is for the School Committee to pick a plan and stick with it.
The problem with the old system is that, while it was enviably straightforward, it was easily gamed: Savvy parents knew which private schools would give their kids straight As and could hire tutors to help kids master the material for the
Change began about a decade ago. First, the district changed the test used to one that more closely tracks the BPS curriculum. Then, during the pandemic, it briefly stopped considering the test at all, admitting students solely on grades.
As the pandemic eased, it instituted the current system of bonus points and tiers. Students still submit grades and test scores. But then bonus points are added if they meet one of several criteria; by far the most common bonus points are those awarded if a student is applying from a high-poverty school.
Students are also no longer admitted based on a citywide competition: They only compete against other applicants from their tier. The district divides the city into four (initially eight) geography-based socioeconomic tiers, each of which is allocated a number of seats based on its population of school-age kids.
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The changes have made the schools more diverse — at a price.
One unintended consequence has been that in at least one year,
The city responded by putting school-based bonus points on a sliding scale depending on the students' tier — making the system even more complicated and raising questions about how exactly the district is coming up with the bonus points and how empirically valid they could really be if they change this often.
There is also some evidence that the policy changes may be pushing families away. Fewer students are applying to exam schools overall, and some who do apply but who don't get an invitation elect to leave the district. In the 2024-25 school year, according to the district, only 54 percent of seventh-grade applicants who didn't get an exam school seat stayed in BPS. Between 60 and 80 BPS students leave the district every year because they don't receive an exam school seat.
All three of Wu and Skipper's proposals would end school-based bonus points (while retaining other kinds of bonus points, such as for students who are homeless). Two of three would also create a citywide admission window — something
One of the three proposals would change the way seats are allocated to the four tiers. Instead of basing the allocation on the number of school-age kids in each tier, it would be based on the number of applications from that tier — so that the acceptance rate would be virtually the same in each tier.
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According to the district's projections, any of the three proposals would have only a slight impact on the school's racial demographics.
Getting rid of school-based bonus points is the most important change the committee can make, because it would do the most to simplify the process and would remove the part that feels the most subjective and arbitrary (Why 10 points? Why 4 points?).
Stepping back, there is no perfect way to measure the 'smartest' kids, especially kids in sixth grade, and no admission system that won't leave some applicants disappointed. But as long as the district chooses to operate selective schools at all, the pathways should be clear, predictable, and open to all.
The changes Wu and Skipper have suggested would move the district in that direction. But the real achievement will be when the committee doesn't have to consider a new batch of changes every year.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us