BREAKING: Boston suspends some advanced level classes, cites ‘racial inequality’ as the reason

The series of tweets read:

"JUST IN: Boston Public Schools have suspended advanced classes for grades 4-6, citing racial inequities -GBH News."

"More than 70% of students enrolled in advanced classes were white and Asian"

"80% of students at Boston Public Schools are Black and Hispanic"

"'This is just not acceptable,' school committee member Lorna Rivera said. 'I've never heard these statistics before, and I'm very very disturbed by them.'"

According to local outlet GBH, the suspension is effective for one year, at which time the program will be re-evaluated.

The program has been open to all students in Boston's public school system. Admittance was based on high test scores and then a lottery, because of limited spots in the program.

Brenda Cassellius, the Superintendent for Boston's schools, said the following:

"There's been a lot of inequities that have been brought to the light in the pandemic that we have to address. There's a lot of work we have to do in the district to be antiracist and have policies where all of our students have a fair shot at an equitable and excellent education."

Responses were quick to come in to the tweet, pointing out the problems with just cancelling programs instead of figuring out the reason for the discrepancies in enrollment:

"So rather than pushing students to excel and do their best, the response from teachers was to hold students back... this will turn out well. Perhaps look at the root cause #parenting#familystructure#culture"

Even more poignantly, another person responded:

"We must all be brought down to the same level."