The Great Divide team investigates the deep inequalities in our public education system, examining both the challenges and possible solutions to creating equal opportunity for all students.
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The latest from The Great Divide Team
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Debilitating anxiety is keeping kids from school for months at a time. It’s a form of chronic absenteeism that’s often misunderstood by public school systems, whose staff typically don’t have the training or capacity to meet kids’ mental health needs, and that, according to clinicians, has only worsened post-pandemic.
There’s no way to quantify what percentage of student absences are due to mental health disorders, but experts say they at least contribute to high chronic absenteeism rates. Through March of this school year, nearly one in five Massachusetts students had missed at least 10 percent of scheduled school days. At that rate, those children will be absent at least 18 days — more than three weeks of school — by the time classes end this month.
In dozens of interviews and survey responses, parents described myriad reasons for their children’s school-related anxiety. Some have been bullied. Others fear falling short academically. A number of them don’t seem to have specific reasons why. But for many kids, the anxiety seems to be all-encompassing, parents said.
- Mandy McLaren, Globe Staff
Read the story: Some Massachusetts students are so anxious, they’re missing school for months on end. What can schools do?
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Eleven-year-old Hunter Scanlon has such severe anxiety, he hasn't been to school regularly since October. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
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📅 June 25: Join us for a conversation on Boston’s busing legacy 50 years after a court decision that was intended — but failed — to integrate Boston Public Schools. RSVP HERE.
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‘It’s heartbreaking’: 225,000 Mass. students attend substandard segregated schools, new report finds
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More than 225,000 students across Massachusetts attend segregated public schools, mostly with low graduation rates and standardized test scores, because state education leaders for decades have failed to comply with laws requiring them to foster integration, according to a new report by a state oversight committee.
Some of the state’s most marginalized students have been most severely affected by the state’s lack of action: 65 percent of the students in the substandard segregated schools are Latino and a quarter are Black, according to the report, “Racial Segregation in Massachusetts Schools” by the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council. Often the students are attending inferior schools within short distances of higher-performing schools.
The graduation rate at schools where almost all students are white was 93 percent, while the rate at schools where students of color compose more than 90 percent of enrollment was 72 percent. On the third-grade English Language Arts MCAS exam, 54 percent of students at schools with nearly all white students met or exceeded expectations, compared to 22 percent of test-takers at schools with almost all students of color.
- James Vaznis, Globe Staff
Read the story: ‘It’s heartbreaking’: 225,000 Mass. students attend substandard segregated schools, new report finds
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Other education news from the Globe
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The Great Divide examines public education in the region, with humanity and empathy, and with a goal of provoking public discussion, and exploring what might be done to fix core issues of inequality, social mobility, and economic opportunity. Please send us your ideas and suggestions.
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