An educator with experience advising the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) believes it鈥檚 time to sue the state agency if it doesn鈥檛 do more to reduce racial imbalances in public schools.
鈥淭hey still have an opportunity before someone files a lawsuit,鈥 said Dr. Raul Fernandez, the former chair of DESE鈥檚 Racial Imbalance Advisory Council (RAIC). 鈥淢y great hope was that we would have leaders that would actually step up and meet this moment, and it just hasn’t happened. So, it seems we’re on the path that many other communities have found themselves 鈥 whether it be cities or states 鈥 on the path toward some kind of court involvement.鈥
In June, Dr. Fernandez and his colleagues on the advisory council released a report called 鈥淩acial Segregation in Massachusetts Schools.鈥 It reveals that 63% of the Commonwealth鈥檚 public schools meet the council鈥檚 definition of segregated. That means more than 500,000 students are educated in school environments considered racially imbalanced and the RAIC says the law requires education leaders to do something about it 鈥 even if they didn鈥檛 create the imbalance.
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