Boston's Schools

There is no escaping the fact that de facto segregation exists in the Boston public school system. The presence of sixteen schools--fifteen elementary and one junior high--with overwhelmingly Negro enrollments refuses the School Committee's claim that there is no segragation. There can also be no doubt that students in these sixteen schools receive a poorer education than do other students.

Few would claim that the School Committee has deliberately segregated students in Boston. De facto segregation here has been produced by housing segregation; most Boston Negroes live in a long, relatively thin, crescent shaped area stretching from the South End through Roxbury to Dorchester.

Since last June, the NAACP has advanced two proposals which, if acted upon, would reduce the segregation in the Boston schools. First, they ask that school district boundaries be redrawn and new schools located so that no more than fifty per cent of any school's pupils would be Negroes. They claim that even after such action, no child would live more than half a mile from the elementary school he would attend. Second, they have asked the School Committee to make it easier for a student to transfer from school to school.

The School Committee, by a four-to-one vote, refused to admit that any segregation existed and thus has refused to discuss these proposals with the NAACP; however, they facilitated transfer arrangements somewhat. Only one member of the Committee, Arthur land, was even willing to admit the existence of de facto segregation. He finished a ragged fifth in the primary election last month and is in danger of losing on the Committee. Of the other candidates, only Melvin King, a South End social worker, supports the NAACP's proposals; he finished seventh as he did two years ago, but with nine thousand fewer votes.

The NAACP's requests are reasonable and deserve the which the majority of the School Committee refused to give them. If the tactics of the inte have antagonized many white Bostonians and have made opposition to the NAACP electorally profitable for School Committee candidates, those tactics do not detract from the inherent injustice of de facto segregation. The first step toward ending the in the Boston schools would be the of Arthur Gartland and the election of Melvin King to the School Committee at the general election Nov. 5.

The NAACP's requests are reasonable and deserve the which the majority of the School Committee refused to give them. If the tactics of the inte have antagonized many white Bostonians and have made opposition to the NAACP electorally profitable for School Committee candidates, those tactics do not detract from the inherent injustice of de facto segregation. The first step toward ending the in the Boston schools would be the of Arthur Gartland and the election of Melvin King to the School Committee at the general election Nov. 5.