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The Boston Public School Exam Debate: Politics and Narratives of Meritocracy in Education
Mon, April 25, 8:00 to 9:30am PDT (8:00 to 9:30am PDT), Division Virtual Rooms, Division B - Section 4: Policies and the Politics of Curriculum Virtual Roundtable Session RoomAbstract
Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic and current outcry against institutional racism and oppression in the United States, Boston Public Schools (BPS) again took up a decades-long political controversy: their selective three “exam schools”. Since 1963, BPS has upheld systems of racial segregation under the guise of meritocracy, policies that allowed the inequitable access to quality educational experiences for the historically underserved communities of Boston. This paper unpacks the 2020-2022 iteration of the controversy, explores the construction of narratives and each sides’ attempt to mobilize support, and presents an analytical case study of Boston that may offer tools for deliberation and political action in educational districts that have similarly maintained systems of inequity and segregation based on policies of perceived ‘merit’.