Press Release: 3/11/2025

DESE Acting Commissioner proposes a Weighted Lottery on vocational school admissions; a change from the present discriminatory admissions policy

 

For Immediate Release   March 11, 2025    Press Contact: Lew Finfer (617) 470-2912

 

--DESE Proposes Moving to a Weighted Lottery on Vocational Admissions Policy 

--For the first time, all students are eligible for the Lottery

--But students with better attendance and discipline records get more weight in the lottery

 

    After a 6 year campaign by the Vocational Education Justice Coalition (VEJC) to replace the discriminatory vocational school admissions policy with a Blind Lottery, the Board of Education voted last night to put out for Public Comment a proposal to change this to a Weighted Lottery.

 

    The current system ranks 8th grade applicants by Grades, Attendance, Discipline, Guidance Counselor Recommendations, and an Interview. DESE's own data showed this led to less Low Income, less Students of Color, less English Language Learners, and less Students with Disabilities getting into vocational schools. These are public schools but they've been allowed to use a private school style admissions policy.

 

    See the new proposed policy at this link....Scroll down for the memo from Acting DESE Commissioner Russell Johnson and draft regulation.

     --It's a Weighted Lottery NOT a Blind Lottery. 

     --All students who apply are in the Lottery. 

     --But students with less than 27 unexcused absences over 1 1/2 years AND no major discipline infractions get extra points in the lottery; think of it as getting 1,2, or 3 tickets in the lottery.  

    --Additionally students besides applying must show their additional interest by attending an information session, an interview, a tour, submittinga letter of recommendation, etc. The VEJC feels applying is enough of a level of interest and these other requirements of interest are unnecessary and may unfairly disqualify some students who cannot do them. 

   --See the proposed policy at this link.  (Scroll down for the memo and draft regulation).

 

VEJC is researching the impact of the attendance threshold as to how many students would be made ineligible by this and will have more to say on this during the Public Comment period.

 

This proposed regulation is going out for Public Comment which are due by April 18. 

The Board of Education can make changes after reviewing the comments and debating proposed policy. That will probably happen at their May 20 meeting.  The new regulations apply to students entering these vocational schools in September 2026.

 

There are 10,000 on the combined waiting lists of vocational schools, most of whom come from Gateway Cities. As one example, Southeast MA Vocational School, which includes Brockton and surrounding suburbs, gets 1280 applications for 420 seats. 2/3 of the eighth graders from Brockton apply.  Besides an equitable admissions policy, VEJC supports more funding to add more seats to vocational schools.  The Healey Administration has proposed $75 Million for adding new seats and hopes that will result in several thousand new seats over the next 3 years and this will help.

 

We thank Acting DESE Commissioner Russell Johnston, Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler, and Governor Maura Healey for the steps taken in this proposed weighted lottery.  

We still think some additional changes are needed to make it a Blind Lottery so it is a completely fair policy and will advocate for them in our Public Comment Letters and upcoming testimony we make at the Board of Education meetings, but these are steps forward.