By Lew Finfer

The greatly declining minority enrollment at Boston Latin School challenges us to find a solution to what is the fair and just way to decide which children have access to the fine public education this school offers. The percentages for Black and Hispanic students in Boston Latin School fell from 27 percent to 16 percent since a federal court ruling that struck down race as a factor in admission six years ago. This is a 42 percent decline in Black enrollment and 32 percent decline in Hispanic enrollment comes at a time when Blacks and Hispanics make up 75 percent of the overall Boston public schools students. About 55 percent of the students at BLS don't even come from Boston Public Schools, instead coming from private, parochial, and charter schools.

In the 2003-2004 school year, no sixth graders from the following public schools sent any students to Boston Latin School: Tobin, Mckay, Greenwood, Orchard Gardens, Hernandez, Rogers, New Boston Middle, Cleveland, Lewis, and the non-advanced work parts of the King, McCormack, and Rogers. Also, seven other Boston Public Schools sent only one student. Of the other two exam schools, Boston Latin Academy has a more equitable balanceof minorities and whites and the O'Bryant School has a large majority of students of color.

So what's a fair way to allocate seats in Boston's three schools where admission is by scores on a standardized test and their grades and why should we care?

Finding a good school is a tightrope that many Boston parents walk for many years for their children. Because not enough of the public schools here are seen as giving a strong education to children, parents compete for admission to the few Boston public schools with good reputations and sign up for lotteries for charter schools. Additionally, many parents of children of color also sign up for the METCO program for seats in suburban schools and there's a long waiting list for that program too.

When it comes time for high school, the three exam schools in Boston - and even more particularly Boston Latin School - becomes a goal for parents because it is an excellent college prepartatory education and it is free. The alternatives are other public high schools with reputations for not being as strong as the exam schools, paying big bucks for private or parochial schools, or moving out of Boston. Not very good alternatives.

This competition leads to inequities. Admission to the exam schools is based half on the score on the Independent School Entrace Exam (ISEE) and half on their grades in fifth and sixth grades. Some parents can afford to pay for tutors for their kids for this exam and some cannot. There are a limited number of exam prep programs that are free of cost. It is hard to imagine there is equity in grades when all public, private, parochial, and charter schools use different standards for giving grades.

One disturbing story I heard from a teacher at Boston Latin School was about how 20 students from one parochial school all had A's for their grades when they applied to go to this school. Yet clearly, this teacher saw that they were of varied abilities.One can imagine that grade inflation goes on when there's competition for scarce seats.

Courts have ruled that race cannot be a factor in admission. Most people now both believe in the value of diversity and believe in advancement based on merit. How do we accomplish that here?

Boston could institute a policy that the top 2 percent of its sixth graders in Boston Public Schools would be guaranteed admission at one of the three exam high schools. This would be legal and follow what some states have done. In Texas, the top 1 percent of high school graduates are guaranteed admission to the top university in their public education system, the University of Texas at Austin. Even President Bush supports this policy while he opposes affirmative action.

If one is in the top 2 percent of your class, even if one did not do well on the entrance exam, one has to be a motivated student with talent and promise. This proposal of this partial preference to public schools would by no means take up all the seats in these exam schools and there would still be seats for children coming from private and parochial schools.

The effect of this class-based remedy as opposed to a race-based remedy would be to increase the number of Blacks and Hispanics at the three exam schools, especially at Boston Latin School, which has very few now. It would also increase the number of poor and working class white children admitted.

Admission is one issue and retention is another. There are now programs at the Boston Latin School to assist students not doing well in academics. However, the principal, teachers, students, and parents should be consulted on whether more resources are needed for these retention programs.

Of course the bigger question is what kind of education are students getting in the non-exam high schools in Boston where most teens go. Recent initiatives to break up big district high schools into smaller high schools housed in the same school will help. All kinds of other considerations such as funding, teacher training, principal training, curriculum, student's home situation need attention if all Boston high school students are to get the education they need to help them do better in their lives ahead.

There is too much attention put on who gets into Boston Latin School than in what kind of education is going on in the non-exam high schools. Let's remember that and do something about it, but also still make admission into Boston Latin School fairer than it is now.

Lew Finfer is a community organizer and Director of the Dorchester-based Organizing and Leadership Training Center. One of his two children attends Boston Latin School.