Boston's METCO: What to Do Until the Solution Arrives

Downtown," called a "system of pauper schools," a system in which "time had stopped." METCO began with Boston School Committee member Louise Day Hicks's success in the early '60s in reduc ing all of Boston's education problems to one word - busing. She was against it, forging the reputation that brought her Reprinted from CITY, triumphantly to the House of Represen January/February 1971 . tatives this year. What happened to the © 1971 , Th e National Urban Coalition. people who lost, who tried to get her and A II rights resen ·ed. the school committee to recognize the de terioration of Boston's once-proud school system? First and foremost, the people who cared about education, and could leave the city, did. The massive middle-class exodus, begun years before, continued un abated, draining Boston of tax money and commitment and refueling a negative cycle of institutional neglect. Three quarters of the metropolitan area's people now live on Boston's fringes, where they have established school systems "thriving on the city's cultural blood," as Schrag vividly put it. Remaining in Boston, a black minority of 14 per cent was compressed by eco nomics and racism into a steadily expand ing Roxbury ghetto, where it was watched uneasily by a white, largely working-class population 80 per cent Catholic and 60 per 2. Boston's METCO: cent Irish. Still reacting like the threatened minority they once were, the Irish were called by local wags "the largest oppressed majority." About a third of the white chil What To Do Untll the dren attended parochial schools, many so overcrowded and poor that parents were understandably not moved by public school poverty. The whites worried about Solution Arrives busing, but the de facto ills that blacks Some in a biracial alliance which started slum-to-suburbs busing were protesting were in reality extreme ex amples of a citywide syndrome. have misgivings, but this expen'ment and a ghetto Says Mrs. Ruth Batson, a past educa tion chairman of NAACP and one of the alternative provide relieffrom the city's 'pauper schools' founders of METCO, after going the "whole route" of fruitless pickets, protests, while metropolitanism remains an ideal. By Phyllis Myers. strikes, and bitter election fights: "The whole damn city was sacrificed because of Every morning, beginning at 7 o'clock, from the suburbs, which now provide over white bigotry." Monday through Friday, 54 buses wind 1,350 seats in 28 towns and expand their Out of this crucible of failure came an around the streets of Roxbury and Dor participation each year; and from the alliance of Roxbury mothers, black NA chester, picking up groups of waiting Massachusetts Department of Education, ACP leaders, liberal white suburban black children. Some are still sleepy, some which last year sent $1.5 million to foot school superintendents, suburban families are chattering, all are toting school books. METCO's bills. aligned in an array of fair housing, peace, Their destination is "the suburbs" -the Such local approval notwithstanding, and good government groups, and a affluent white towns ringing Boston - the concept of METCO hasn't radiated sprinkling of academics from Boston's whose schools, long reputed for their ex outward as much as its founders originally great universities. They formed commit cellence, have since 1966 invited children hoped, although there is a similar program tees, held public forums, helped push from the ghetto to fill up empty seats in in Hartford, Connecticut, set up about the through the nation's first state legislation their classrooms. · same time as the Boston METCO, and a against de facto segregation, including a METCO, as this program of slum-to METCO in Springfield, Massachusetts. If provision permitting cities and towns to suburb busing is known, could probably METCO seems like a successful hangover cooperate to eliminate racial imbalance. not be formed today. The kinds of people from the mood of yesteryear, however, it Black parents organized the Exodus pro who put it together- activist blacks, can also be looked on as a bridge to the gram, which raised money to transport liberal whites- have been pulled apart in future, to broader city-suburb collabora black children to other schools within the the confusion over integration, and tend tion, or even metropolitanism (a lively is city; suburban and city parents cooperated now to label such one-way efforts as token sue again), and a model of the mixed suc in summer programs busing Roxbury chil ism, irrelevant, or even racist. METCO cess and doubts in such collaboration. dren to suburban towns. About the last nevertheless continues to get strong sup The Metropolitan Council for Educa item in the METCO's formation, after a port in the Boston area- from its origi tion Opportunity- METCO- was at its federal Title III grant assured the funds nal founders; from parents in Roxbury, heart a repudiation of the Boston schools, for an ongoing Roxbury-to-suburbs pro where 1 ,000 families wait on oversub which education writer Paul Schrag, in his gram, was the Boston School Committee's scribed lists for a place for their children; sharply critical book, "Village School grudging (3-2) approval. Mrs. Hicks cast one of the opposing votes, despite the fact The "thing that helps METCO work," ber of children in the classroom." Boston that METCO wouldn't cost Boston a cent. says Mrs. Burgess, is the host family, a now spends a total of $983 per student, Seven suburban towns came in that first ruboff from the Experiment in Interna a figure considerably higher than in past year, accepting 220 black students. tional Living practice of boarding travel years, aided by a revision in state aid that "We were thinking then of a tempo ing students with foreign families. The once sent over twice as much aid to such rary program," recalls Mrs. Batson. "As children from METCO each get assigned wealthy towns as Brookline as it did to the soon as Boston came to its senses, we to a local family, preferably one with a city. Boston and Brookline depend pri would come back home." child matched for sex and age. marily on the same source -the property The students were not easy to recruit at The host family is intended to give the tax- for most of their school funds. Bos first. "People just didn't drop dead at the METCO child a "place" in the commu ton has a per-pupil evaluation of $14,000; idea," says Mrs. Batson, who as METCO's nity, where he can play after school, ask Brookline, $54,000. The citizens of Brook director for three years is widely credited for homework help, wait if the bus is late. line may feel overtaxed, but in fact they for much of its achievements. There were He may make a friend he can visit on raise their education funds with much less always blacks who were against moving weekends or invite back to Roxbury. This effort than the citizens of Boston. their children out, even before the issue network of host families, and a METCO became politicized. "What's going to hap c.itizens committee, is coordinated by Mrs. Pulling apart pen to my child?" "What about the long Burgess, who is in constant communica The second METCO goal, the positive bus ride?" "What will happen if he gets tion with the school and the METCO effects on white and black pupils- and to sick?" parents wanted to know. If their parents, helping with whatever academic what extent this was envisioned as a build children were getting a raw deal in the and personal problems arise. Although ing of relationships between the city and Boston system, could they "make it'' in there have been problems where host suburban youths -is lost somewhere in those tough schools in unfriendly towns? families expected too much "emotional re the litter of the late '60s. "The children Children are selected on the basis of turn" for their investment, and the black pulled apart as the black movement parent interest, not academic potential, in students, particularly as they got older, grew," says Mrs. Batson. sist METCO officials, who weed out some wearied of the sometimes forced relation METCO tells its students: "We don't "obviously unsuitable" candidates but ship, the commitment of the town - and care whether you mix. Just go there and otherwise place them on a first-come, first its success with the children - can be get a good education." But white parents served basis. While this one factor measured by such local support. are puzzled when the black students - parent motivation- is a positive influence Another measure of commitment is how spread out by handfuls in 92 schools on the children's achievement, people like much money the towns charge for group together. "Why do black kids Mrs. Barbara Loomis Jackson, assistant METCO students. None of them pay out cluster?" the whites ask. It is not easy to administrator for education of the Boston anything - although local opposition to accept the answer, "They want to." The model cities program, worry that METCO METCO often comes in the form of talk older black students demand Afro clubs, may be draining Roxbury of its most ac about high taxes. At first, the towns black studies, black teachers. They act up. tive parent group. In a city where the charged a regular nonresident tuition rate. Says Mrs. Jackson, who is trying to devise black population has less vocal leadership Now, about 24 charge half-tuition or a an educational program for the model and proportionately fewer middle-class token amount, collecting instead funds cities that combines community demands families than most others, this is a serious from the state to finance special services for its own schools with the state's require problem.

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