Friends of Vocational Technical & Agricultural Education,
Very interesting piece. As the author David Mancuso states, “Scarcity is seldom resolved in the courts and is best addressed by increasing supply – and, in this case, increasing the number of vocational schools”.
David
Fact-based news, commentary, and original reporting with a contrarian edge about local, regional and national events.
Hot commodity: In demand where they were once spurned, vocational high schools need more seats for students, not lawsuits
By David Mancuso
Parents and their lawyers are calling for fair access to some of the state’s better performing public schools. This time the focus is on vocational schools. Like the fight against charter schools in the past, the argument is once again about “cherry picking” top performing students over students of color, or lower incomes.
Lawyers for Civil Rights and the Center of Law and Education filed a lawsuit last week arguing the state allows vocational schools to use “exclusionary criteria,” such as attendance, discipline records, English language skills, disabilities, and attendance to determine who gets access to the education vocational schools provide and who doesn’t.
In 2021, the state eliminated a requirement that vocational programs weigh applicants’ academic records. The suit suggests that most vocational schools still use the practice.
Mirian Albert, staff attorney for Lawyers for Civil Rights told, The Boston Globe that students interested in a vocational career should be given a “fair shot,” at being able to attend a vocational school. “All students are different, and they have different skills and abilities,” Albert told the paper. “Public school education should celebrate those differences and uplift these students…”
Ok, do we really need a lawyer to argue that point in court?
There is clearly high demand for what vocational schools offer. Every businessperson knows that combining demand with scarcity either drives up the price of admission or leads to organizational failure. A lawsuit will not reduce the waitlist or the need for vocational education. Scarcity is seldom resolved in the courts and is best addressed by increasing supply – and, in this case, increasing the number of vocational schools.
“The model of applied learning works,” Heidi Riccio, superintendent of Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School, told Contrarian Boston. “We should be looking at ways to expand vocational education across the Commonwealth as the need for this form of learning has proven to be a success.
Our workforce and economy in the Commonwealth are depending on schools to do the work necessary to build the career pipeline. Vocational schools fill a critical need. Attacking rather than supporting them seems counter-productive for everyone.
Would it not be better for everyone for the state to increase the number of vocational school seats available, or is that solution too obvious?
Photo by PTTI EDU on Unsplash
David J. Ferreira
MAVA Communications Coordinator
