Runaway bureaucracy? State ed officials raise eyebrows as they aggressively back a woke campaign to upend how vocational schools admit students

First Appeared in Contrarian Boston 11.27.24

By David Mancuso

State education officials are increasingly raising concerns that they are distorting the data to advance a cause beloved by woke activists, but few others.

And now the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which oversees the state’s educational bureaucracy, is blowing the whistle.

The board, or BESE as its called, has now repeatedly raised serious concerns about the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s presentations on vocational school admissions at three recent “study sessions.”

The state ed board is pointing to concerns that the department and others are obscuring, withholding, or downright manipulating data to advance an admissions lottery at all costs.

Activists have argued - without any compelling data to back up their claims - that vocational schools are cherry picking students, aided by their increased popularity that have resulted in a severe shortage of available seats.

A lottery admissions process, in turn, activists say, would prevent schools from engaging in discriminatory practices against students of color, as well as those with disabilities or who are new to the country and are learning English.

Meanwhile, state education officials have been caught red-handed in what clearly appears to be a campaign to cajole vocational school leaders across the state into adopting a lottery-based admissions system.

A letter addressed to all vocational school administrators across Massachusetts - and obtained by Contrarian Boston - lays bare this behind-the-scenes campaign by state educational officials.

“We strongly recommend that you consider admissions policies that do not rely on selective criteria,” the letter states.

It then offers a sweetener for those who decide to play ball: “Should your district pursue a lottery-based process… DESE is prepared to support your efforts through grant funding…districts with lottery-based admissions processes may have priority in upcoming grants.”

Incentive or a bribe? Either way, it wasn’t a neutral letter.

BESE Vice Chair Matt Hills warned that the state ed board should not be rushed to change policy before it fully understands what is going on with vocational school admissions, potentially ignoring the “laws of unintended consequences.”

Hills and some of his fellow board members aren’t the only ones uncomfortable with the quality of data DESE has presented thus far.

Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School Superintendent Dr. Karen Maguire said she was “really disappointed at the frame [DESE has used] to present the data to you [BESE], over the past couple of meetings.”

Tim Norris, attorney for the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators [MAVA] went further: “It’s clear that data was presented [by DESE] to provoke outrage, not objectively examine current admissions policies.”

Norris further asserted DESE was “… withholding critical data” in an attempt to drive BESE toward a blind lottery for vocational school admissions.

It wasn’t just DESE stretching the credibility of the information being presenting.

Steve Zrike, superintendent of Salem public schools which has vocational programs in their comprehensive high schools, and also sends students to Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School, presented a slide saying “Public schools should not have admissions criteria…”

Ironically, Salem’s website shows Zrike’s own school uses discipline as a gating factor to determine student’s participation in their voke programs.

Zrike went on to ungraciously present old, less favorable data on Essex Tech’s admissions of Salem students, making a point of highlighting English language learners being at zero percent in the 2023-24 school year.

Yet the current number is six percent for school year 2024-25, according to data provided to Contrarian Boston by Essex Tech.

Meanwhile, Holly McClanan, superintendent at Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School, got to the crux of the matter. There are 8,500 students across the state who want to attend a voke, but can’t do so thanks to a shortage of available seats.

“We are spinning our wheels if we are not talking about capacity when we talk about admissions,” McClanan said.

Anything short of more seats looks increasingly like political problem solving at the expense of the schools providing an exemplary education model, harming the students that have yet to gain access by throwing luck into the admissions equation.

Julie Spencer-Robinson, a trustee from Smith Vocational and Agricultural, speaking as a parent, said, “I do wish that public school education wasn’t a zero-sum game.”

A spokesperson for the governor, who ultimately oversees the state ed officials through the Executive Office of Education told Contrarian Boston, “The Healey-Driscoll Administration believes that Massachusetts' career and technical education schools play an important role in our state's education system and economy… and we intend to make changes in the coming months that will better ensure all Massachusetts students have equal access to career and technical education."

Whether the administration’s intended changes will make admissions better or worse for the 8,500 students hoping for a seat in vocational schools remains to be seen.

BESE is right to be calling for state education officials to come clean with the presentation of all the most current available data on voke school admissions, and to ensure all factors are thoroughly considered before running headlong into an admissions lottery.

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