Guide Through Boston’s Public Institutions

Our Emerald Necklace Transect analyzes and explains the history of public education in the surrounding areas of the Emerald Necklace in Boston and how these have evolved throughout the years. Our narrative sites are crafted with the intention of exposing the unrelated and invisible stories behind the Emerald Necklace. These sites will reflect how education was significantly impacted by class, race, and gender. Boston is well known for being a leader of education and a big part of that is due to Boston’s preeminent place in the intellectual and cultural life of the United States and its leading role in the establishment of educational institutions from the public schools to elite universities. Boston is home to the oldest universities and high schools in America. The city is also home to the oldest and first public school, Boston Latin. This school is part of our transect and it is one of our most important sites, as it directly shows the city’s interest in making education accessible to everyone. Nevertheless, the school was founded in 1635, and it was not until 1972 that the school started accepting women. Despite the attempts of making education public, segregation within race, gender and classes at the time, got in the way. Through our Emerald Necklace transect we want to demonstrate how segregation has affected public schools in Boston and shaped them into what it is today. William E. Channing Elementary consists of 48.8% African American and is classified as Tier 2 education. Our transect examines how low ranked schools mostly targeted African Americans. Although the city has developed well, it is one of Americas’ most unequal cities in one of the most unequal states. In the reading A People’s Guide to Greater Boston, the author presents a 2016 report that found that the City of Boston had the greatest income inequality among the one hundred largest cities in the United States; and a 2017 Boston Globe “Spotlight” series on race in the Greater Boston area revealed that the median net worth of African American (nonimmigrant) households was $8. The corresponding figure for whites was $247,500. Segregation between races has only worsened with time. The most recently developed areas in Boston are the most unequal ones. Public investment in education and housing mostly benefits whites. Seaport, for example, Boston’s newest area, received $18 billion in public investment that city planners guaranteed would be for all Bostonians. This spotlight of the city’s “innovation economy” so celebrated by area elites is, instead, a playground for the affluent. The reading resonates with our sites because it discusses how African Americans are often excluded from work opportunities, city innovations, and in the case of our transect, well-ranked public education.

The story map portrays how society segregates African Americans to the borders of the city where there is evidently less investment from the government. Most of the schools we visited belonged to neighborhoods that were not in good condition. Parks, house facades, homeless people, and companies reflected that. They were all in an isolated area of the city, in neighborhoods surrounded by gas stations, laundry companies, Licor stores, low-income housing projects, and abandoned parks. On the “Antiracist” podcast we learned that the federal government often places polluting industries and toxic waste plants in African American communities, which results in them turning into slums. Whites then associate crime and dirt come along with African Americans; however, it is a product of government policies. The Mother Caroline Academy and Education Center had a sign at the entrance that said, no weapons, drugs, or alcohol allowed. It was shocking to see that a school must specify that. In contrast to private high schools where campus and landscape are very inviting and welcoming to the public and incentivize student gatherings, public schools are very enclosed and project the opposite. The public schools we visited had very heavy and closed facades, with small entrances, which intentionally keeps outsiders from entering the school. Our Emerald Necklace transect depicts how African Americans have a significantly different high school experience than whites. This commands to question if the cycle of poverty of African Americans, is linked to the opportunities of education they are given.

The public education transect analysis reveals how much government policies segregate races. Racist policies are institutional, structural, and systematic. To stop or fight racism it is important to understand the core from where it comes from and who has the power to make a real change. Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalizes racial inequalities. Racist ideas make people of color think less of themselves and white people think more of themselves. Therefore, making black people vulnerable to those ideas and whites attracted to them. African Americans are often raised under the idea that black youth do not value education as much as their non-black counterparts. They are told that their lack of knowledge and success is rooted in their race and not the circumstances society traps them in. As students these ideas are discouraging and further worsen their ability to learn. This transect serves to interrupt the cycle with a deeper analysis, that reflects how specific circumstances, shortcomings, and ideas that are judged by race, gender or class have such a significant influence on the public education system and the performance and development of minorities communities.

Sources:

• Ibram x, Kendi, How to be an antiracist (1sr ed.) One world: New York, 2019, 320 PP.
• Nevins, J., Moodliar, Suren, & Macrakis, Eleni. (2020). A People’s Guide to Greater Boston.

Keywords:

1. Education
2. Segregation
3. Racial Inequalities
4. Women Empowerment
5. Gentrification

Work by: Eugenio Mora Balil, Marcela Moncada, and Cristina Solà Sanz