Low-income and students of color in Massachusetts are almost twice as likely to attend schools with unsatisfactory conditions than their white counterparts, according to a new report from the Boston-based nonprofit MassINC.
The report released Tuesday showed that urban students in particular are learning in outdated, overcrowded and unsafe schools, exacerbating already wide achievement gaps.
“Most of the state’s funds are going to rebuild suburban schools, and in many cases they’re suburban schools that are in pretty good condition,” said Ben Forman, MassINC’s research director and co-author of the report. “Meanwhile, the urban schools that have been assessed to be inadequate and in poor condition haven’t been priority and they’ve been lingering at the bottom of the list.”
The report analyzed all projects in the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Core Program, which grants state funds for major school construction projects. What the researchers found was that urban schools aren’t receiving enough funding to improve their facilities.
“While MSBA and state funding has been tremendously helpful, there still remains tremendous need [for] urban centers with some of our most disadvantaged students,” said Paul Matthews, executive director and CEO of Worcester Regional Research Bureau.
Throughout Massachusetts, 20% of Black and Hispanic students attend a school without an art room compared to 9% of white students. Fourteen percent of Black and Hispanic students are without a gym, while 7% of white students are without a gym. More than 12% of Black and Hispanic students are without libraries, as only 4% of white students are without a library.
“Sometimes we scratch our heads like we’ve tried everything, we’re not able to close these gaps,” Forman said. “But we clearly haven’t tried equalizing the learning environments.”
There are 276 schools in Massachusetts with facility condition ratings well below average or that operate significantly over capacity, the report found. About 60% of those schools are located in Boston or one of Massachusetts’ 26 Gateway Cities, which are midsize urban centers that anchor regional economies.
The report estimates that at current funding patterns, it would take 50 years to rebuild all 276 sub-par facilities. However, the report says, it doesn’t have to be that way. It says, if the problem had the full focus of the MSBA, all 276 buildings could be replaced in as few as 16 years.
“But the schools that are in the absolute worst condition … that’s a much smaller number of schools that we could fix in just a few years, if we set our mind to it, without much difficulty,” Forman said. “Which is one of the reasons why it’s so frustrating that it hasn’t been prioritized.”
The inequities in Massachusetts schools were also present in the most recent MCAS results which found that achievement gaps have widened between higher and lower-income districts.
One recommendation the MassINC researchers have posed to address the inequity is creating more regional magnet schools that serve both urban and suburban areas.
The report found that 19% of schools in Massachusetts are considered segregated. Yet, those schools account for 30% of schools in poor condition and nearly 50% of schools lacking multiple essential learning features.
A regional magnet school would promote integration and ensure more equitable allocation of resources, the report says.
Anthony Clough, research associate with the Worcester Regional Research Bureau and co-author of the report, said, “because of the gaps in access to key learning facilities like libraries, art classrooms, media classrooms, computer labs, gymnasiums and cafeterias,” regional magnet schools are pivotal in addressing these inequities.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
