Special meeting of the Board of Ed: voke admissions (part I)

 The agenda is here; the livestream is going to go up here.

Meeting opened by Vice Chair Hills (with an amazing amount of noise behind him)
Johnston opens by saying it will be looking at the impact of the last engineering change
quotes “Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.” (W. Edwards Deming)

Tonight's agenda:

Johnston says they'll pause after each section.

Schools being discussed: 

In 2021, DESE permitted schools to set own admissions criteria so long as it complied with federal and state legal framework; barred from using excused absences or...something I missed because they're going too fast
Under Title VI prohibited from using criteria that have disproportionate impact on protected classes

What schools are doing now: 

West asks about "educational purpose or compelling interest" under the Title VI language
response is that there is a two part test if it does have a disproportionate impact
"valid as essential to participating" and "were not discriminatory impacts considered"

Looking at Connecticut schools, Shaun Dougherty of BC: an eighth grade student who was less likely to graduate was more likely to graduate if admitted to their vocational program

Hills asks how much can be attributed to admission
Response: all of that increase can be attributed to being admitted
Simulation run in 2019: 

only the simulated lottery resulted in an admitted class that looked like the pool from which it was drawn
West asks if the simulation assumed no impact on the pool with the changes; the short answer is 'yes' though it seems agreed that there would be an impact
Is selective admissions essential to participate in high quality in such education?
to prove, would have to show that those who were admitted through a non-selective process could not participate, and those not admitted could not
better outcomes among those admitted does not prove this point
when the criteria chosen for selection are correlated with the outcomes, one can no longer attribute success exclusively to the treatment

Rob Curtin on demographic and indicator data
CTE-ART; Career Technical Education Analysis and Review Tools
changes in demographics in regional and municipal CTE schools (29 + 5 = 34 schools) which is about 37,000 students; these are "wall to wall" schools
252,407 students not in such high schools; these may have ch. 74 programs but they are not full time CTE schools

"these are statistically significant differences"
"overall what you're seeing is a growing gap" in students of color between CTE and non-CTE schools
in response to Hills question (which I didn't understand), Curtin says this is apples to apples
gap in 2024 for grade 9 is 3 percentage points which is still an increase
I think Hills is trying to argue about if this is "mirroring" sending districts
Curtin notes a significant difference "whether you look at 9-12 or 9"
West notes you could compare to sending sending districts or school by school, too
does the legal standard apply school by school or to the whole?
response is you could use the tool to run those comparisons yourself
Stewart: what outreach has been done since the change in policy (beyond regular reporting)?
recruitment centers, family engagement, ongoing meetings with directors
Stewart: how has change in policy improved access to information about programming?
materials going out in multiple languages, outreach in communities
Stewart appears to be looking for specifics on how many families have been reached with information?
Hills (again): wants to know compared to sending districts, rather than state
if the disparities "are across most schools" or a few schools
"I find class to class...most relevant to compare to sending districts"
"and is it spread across most schools"
This sounds a lot like Hills is looking hard for excuses on disparities

Growing, and statistically significant disparities in serving English learners, as well

Gap in serving students with disabilities has shrunk: 

can't straight compare low income (as it is a different methodology), but higher percentage of low income students served in CTE schools

and Hills is back to comparing against the state against sending districts; he so clearly wants to wriggle out of state responsibility here!
Curtin "we want these schools to look like our student population"
"our demographics have changed statewide" and we're looking to see if the CTE schools are reflective of the student body in Massachusetts

this is Hills wanting the white sending districts to only be compared to their majority white regional vocational schools
Craven suggests comparing "only apples only to apples" which is only the districts that can send to those districts
West thinks "both are reasonable ways to look at it"
access to students statewide; can also look at "each of those schools"
"each of those schools" though is going to include the vast majority white majority school districts
Curtin: "with due respect to the example that was given" Boston is included, as is Madison Park
Craven: without understanding the geography, the borders of the region
Curtin notes again that it includes those municipal schools
Hills: "if we could look at additional analysis...sending districts to receiving schools...because that's ultimately what we're trying to look at" in the admission policies changes
it's wild that he assumes those are set in stone!
Curtin: impact on selected populations if certain criteria are used in admission
looked at 7th grade discipline and attendance as a proxy
differentiated impacts of chronic absenteeism by subgroup

thus a use of attendance is more likely to disproportionately impact these groups
similarly then with discipline:

West asking about pool of those who apply and those who get in

Johnston: awareness, recruitment, admission, retention
a look at language as barriers: bias, language, access
Hills doesn't want proposed solutions, he says, now

anyway, back to challenges:

And on admissions:

potential solution of common application; would that be a more family friendly approach
DESE can only analyze data halfway through first year of student
Data clearly shows disproporiate impact
suggestion that state doesn't wait to react, but is proactive 

back to Johnston for next steps
who praises the "robust dialogue" and says know the data request
asks if there are things to build off further
Moriarty wants to know about greater expansion of programs
Hills wants "some sense of how sending districts...some way to assess the extent to which sending districts are being as cooperative as they can be in terms of recruitment"
Craven: we have to decide the problem we're trying to solve before we engage in solutions 

uh....what we mostly saw this evening was the loudest members attempting to deny the data in front of them by asking for other data