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NEW BEDFORD — A new proposal by Gov. Maura Healey that would require an admissions lottery at Vocational-Technical high schools is the state’s most significant move to reform admission practices, which have been criticized for unfairly excluding students from the popular career-training schools.
Advocates who long pushed for lottery admissions are concerned about the policy’s exclusionary criteria — which could still deny students the chance to apply based on their attendance or discipline records. And Voc-Tech administrators have continued to urge caution in the state’s decision-making process, saying the state needs to do more to test any potential changes.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said State Rep. Antonio Cabral, who has been outspoken on Voc-Tech admissions reform. But he added, “Right now if we were to go with what was on the table, it still would leave out more than 40% of eighth graders in New Bedford, who would be excluded from the lottery because of their attendance and discipline.”
Greater New Bedford’s (GNB) Voc-Tech school has long faced criticism of its admissions practices, with large gaps between the number of low-income students, English learners, and students with disabilities, as compared to the populations of its sending districts (which are New Bedford, Fairhaven, and Dartmouth). But GNB Voc-Tech recently overhauled its own admissions practices. Healey’s new proposal, presented at the state board of education meeting last week, largely mirrors those changes.
In the fall, GNB Voc-Tech announced that it will use a lottery system for all of its applicants this year (as opposed to running a lottery for only half its applicants, which the school has done for the past several years). However, the admissions lottery for GNB Voc-Tech can still exclude students based on two data points: attendance and discipline. These are the same categories in Healey’s new proposal.
New Bedford’s Voc-Tech and district superintendents disagree
GNB Voc-Tech Superintendent Michael Watson said the state needs to work more collaboratively to ensure that any policy change is supported with evidence. “I am interested in sound public policy that is data-driven,” Watson said. “I am not interested in folks thinking that maybe this will work.”
In an interview, Watson said he was deeply concerned that marginalized students should have the same opportunity to access career training that could help transform their lives and community, especially low-income students in New Bedford. Still, he said that he disagrees with reform advocates who propose that Voc-Tech schools ought to have no barriers to entry.
For example, Watson said that attendance was a critical metric for the success of the school and its co-op work partnerships with local employers. “When you’re absent from an English or math class, there are ways to make up learning. We can’t send a lathe machine home with students,” he said, referring to a heavy-duty appliance in wood- and metal-shops.
Watson said that, according to internal data he’s studied, chronically absent middle schoolers did not improve their attendance once they enrolled in Voc-Tech — which he said refutes an argument from reform advocates for getting rid of that admissions criteria.
In 2022, GNB Voc-Tech admitted students with histories of chronic absenteeism when it began tinkering with the admissions process. According to Watson, those chronically absent middle schoolers were three times more likely to drop out or transfer by the end of their sophomore year, and were four times more likely to be chronically absent than their peers.
Still, many people disagree with Watson on the notion that some types of public education ought to have barriers. One of them is the cross-town superintendent of New Bedford Public Schools, Andrew O’Leary, who said he disagrees with “the idea that middle [school] attendance and discipline data should weigh on a student’s public high school experience.”
Many of the students who end up at GNB Voc-Tech come from New Bedford’s three middle schools, and O’Leary said the new qualified lottery system would still disproportionately impact vulnerable students in New Bedford. “We forecast that the new admissions criteria will exclude up to 200 applicant students from the lottery.” Many of them, O’Leary said, could benefit from job training or are from vulnerable populations — such as homeless and unstably housed students.
In a statement, O’Leary commented pointedly about the difference between the Voc-Tech school and New Bedford High School. “Unlike screened and selective-admission schools, a comprehensive district like New Bedford … offer[s] multiple pathways for student success, constantly working with students to overcome barriers to graduation. In contrast, [Voc-Tech schools] proposing a strict exclusion of formerly chronically absent students is a disservice to students,” O’Leary said.
Watson believes that the state needs to collaborate with Voc-Tech schools to test hypotheses about the paths of chronically absent students — something that he said the state has refused to do. Watson testified in front of the state board of education in December and said he has written several letters to the department of education that have gone unanswered.
Watson believes the state should use its student demographic information in combination with individual schools’ admissions data to simulate application processes from previous years. In other words, the state should play out how the proposed lottery would have worked. This, Watson said, could help answer whether chronically absent students would benefit from a Voc-Tech education.
So far, Watson has not heard back about his requests, he said. “This refusal undermines our ability to simulate and analyze outcomes, validate progress, and ensure that the meaningful changes we’ve made achieve the equity we all seek,” Watson said during his December testimony.
Proposal specifics, and the rare opportunity for reform
While reform advocates and Voc-Tech administrators still have heated disagreements about the use of some exclusionary criteria, the new policy proposal represents a substantial leap forward in a years-long grind. Many specifics of the proposal represent newly achieved agreements between these groups.
Most importantly, there’s widespread consensus that many more students in Massachusetts need the opportunity to enroll in career training courses and — significantly — that the state government has a role in allowing for that.
In a press release, Healey said that the state must work to “increase access to these programs and set all of our students up for success.” Similarly, GNB Voc-Tech Superintendent Watson said, “We should be offering a free [career-skills] education for any student that wants one,” whether at Voc-Tech schools or within traditional high schools.
Healey’s proposal for updating the admissions policies was coupled with an announcement that she has provided $75 million in this year’s budget proposal to add 3,000 seats to Voc-Tech schools over next three years. At the same time, legislative bills with wide support would provide additional funding to expand or update Voc-Tech programs. They would also remove red tape — for instance, by allowing traditional and Voc-Tech high schools to offer the same type of training if demand allows (which was not always the case by default).
All this seems a far cry from when New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell wrote a letter, in 2020, asking (to no avail) that the state commissioner of education “abolish” the ranked admissions process. In 2024, Mitchell complained that “each year the state punts on the issue, still more students lose the opportunity to pursue an education that fits their interests and aspirations.”
After the last six years of advocacy, all parties also now seem to agree that many other exclusionary criteria have no place in the admissions process. Healey’s proposal would not allow Voc-Tech schools to use academic grades or counselor recommendations to rank or deny applicants.
In New Bedford, the GNB Voc-Tech already removed these categories of exclusion with its updates to the admissions process in the fall. Superintendent Watson, who was once hesitant to embrace such changes, said, “I’m proud we’re ahead of the state and that we allowed our data-driven process to take shape.”
Healey’s new proposal allows for attendance and discipline records to exclude students from the application lottery. These are the same two categories as GNB Voc-Tech, but the specifics differ slightly.
On attendance, Healey’s proposal says schools can remove students from the lottery if they have more than 10 unexcused absences in a year. On discipline, schools can only remove students who have “major infractions,” according to the presentation before the state board. (A major infraction might include anything that merited a suspension, like bringing a weapon to school, but advocates said they needed clarification.)
Lastly, Healey’s proposal stipulates that all public school districts must develop an “exploration policy” that ensures all middle school students are aware of Voc-Tech opportunities, including through site visits and information sessions.
The leading advocacy organization seeking admissions reform, the Vocational Educational Justice Coalition (VEJC), said that the attendance standard was unfair. “Statewide, almost one-quarter of all students would be excluded from vocational schools,” according to an analysis the group issued last week. VEJC said it would petition the governor and state board of education to remove the attendance requirement from its proposal.
Notably, the 10 unexcused absences in Healey’s proposal is a more stringent threshold than GNB Voc-Tech recently adopted. Superintendent Watson said his school will use “chronic absenteeism” — or missing 10% of all school days — across three semesters (27 days) as its cutoff for eliminating students from the lottery.
Watson explained that this tweak gives more leeway to students, while retaining attendance as a factor.
State Rep. Chris Markey, a Democrat who represents New Bedford and Dartmouth, said that he was skeptical of any lottery system, though he thought Voc-Tech admissions needed an overhaul to become more fair.
Markey, who is one of the cosponsors of the House bill that seeks to increase funding for Voc-Tech programs, said that he believes students with expressed interest in learning the trades ought to receive preference in admissions.
“I think we need to find a way that we’re maximizing the opportunities for those who are not going to college,” Markey said. “There might be a kid who struggles academically, but is creative in their projects … That’s a kid who should go there.”
The public comment period for Healey’s proposal has now begun, and the board of education will hear arguments about the criteria at a March 10 special meeting.
The board is not likely to vote on the proposal until May.
“I think we are at a pivotal point in this conversation,” summarized Watson. “Admissions regulatory changes are likely coming in some fashion,” he said. “Until we get to a point where every kid has access, we should not stop this conversation.”
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org
Leave well enough alone. VOKE TECH. Sends a larger percentage of kid’s to college than NBHS. This is another example of this governor being a woke fool.
The Mayor was told to put a freeze on hiring when he first ran 14 years ago. I was a participant in those debates. 20 years ago running against Scott Lang i said WE NEED A FREEZE ON HIRING AND THROUGH ATTRITION BRING THE NUMBER OF MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES TO A LEVEL THAT MEETS THE NEEDS OF THE HOME OWNERS AND BUSINESSES. THIS NEVER HAPPENED, AND NOW WE SEE THE DAMAGE THAT THIS MAYOR HAS CAUSED. 536 MILLION $ OPERATING BUDGET WITH LESS THAN 300 MILLION IN REVENUE SOURCES. WHO WILL PAY THE DIFFERENCE? HOME OWNERS , BUSINESSES AND RENTERS. WHEN TAXES GO UP SO DO RENTS, AT AN ALARMING RATE. THIS MAYOR VETOED RENT CONTROL.
That’s right, this Mayor vetoed rent control, just like every Mayor should veto rent control. We live in a capitalist society where property owners are free to charge the prices they want to people who want to rent the space. Everyone who rents an apartment assumes the property owner is greedy, but the fact is, you have no idea wha the reason is for a property owner charges for rent, nobody is forcing you to live in an apartment with high rental prices.
Renters should consider the facts, for example, I just bought a 3 family home in a nice area of the city for just over $500,000, the bank requires a 20% down payment to finance it, that’s $100,000 cash up front, and a $400,000 mortgage for 30 years at a fixed apt of 6.0% which comes to $3,112 per month, add the water bills, common area electric costs, property insurance, maintenance fees, and the monthly cost is approximately $5,500.00, then add $500.00 per month to get my $100,000 down payment back and the total is now $6,000 per month, or $2,000 per month for each apartment, and taxes, water, and property insurance all increase annually. After all that, if one tenant loses their job, and can’t pay their rent, the property owner still has to pay all the above monthly expenses, and all the costs associated with evicting a tenant who can’t or won’t pay their rent, and if they have small children, it’s almost impossible to get them out and replaced with a tenant who pays their rent on time.
That’s why rent controls will never be passed on private property, and they never should, if you like government controlling costs, move to Venezuela, Cuba, or Russia to name a few.
My child started GNBVT in the fall of 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. Once there was a return to on campus learning, one of the first comments they said after that first day was how they couldn’t believe that “the teachers were able to teach the whole period from start to finish because they were NOT being constantly interrupted to deal with student behavior issues” and how “unlike this was from their middle school years at Normandin Middle School in New Bedford”.
No doubt there are great teachers at NBHS, but we knew going in that our child was going to receive a better education at GNBVT, due to the lack of constant student behavior interruptions in and out of the classroom because of the rigorous criteria set forth for admission to the school. There is a reason that vocational schools have attendance and behavior criteria mandates for admission. Not only does it create a positive environment for learning and engagement, but it also has to do with student and faculty safety when they are in their shop programs! Do you want your child to be in a welding shop with another kid who is a behavior issue, doesn’t listen and is trying to use the welding torch to light things on fire?
My child got an amazing education at GNBVT, graduating in 2024 at the top 20% of their class and has gone on to further their education in their trade program at one of the top universities in the country for it. I only hope that the incoming students have the same opportunity for uninterrupted and SAFE learning if/when the state forces this new lottery process.
Yes! This!
Students and their parents need to be held accountable for their actions. Not considering attendance, discipline and even grades does a disservice to the student and the school. This seems like the New Bedford Public Schools and HS being jealous of the Voc. schools success in recent years and wanting to level the playing field and dumb down at the expense of Voc.
Brilliant! While your at it you might as well have admissions lotteries for Government, Medical School, Engineering, etc. . I appreciate our Governor trying to come up with a solution, but with all her knowledge, she may have overthought this one!
My daughter and I are both GNBVTHS graduates. Common sense and data output are critical components when making any decision. I respect State Rep. Chris Markey, but many vocational students do go on to attend college. His argument holds very little weight. Here, we need to review the data. Also, shop students have access to sharp tools, chemicals, and machinery. Any student with a history of defiance or violence should not be granted into the lottery pool. This is where we need to use common sense.
Hanna ,
Unfortunately our elected government officials do use common sense or critical thinking. Please explain why the government would want to lower the standards of a thriving vocational technical school in an urban area?
The three favorite letters of the liberals, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Forget all the children and parents that spend extra time to make sure they attend school, behave in school and succeed in the classes and requirements. This is not the way, people. BAD IDEA!
Andrew O’Leary would better serve New Bedford by immediately addressing the attendance and disciplinary issues in the New Bedford Public School System that he states will preclude up to 200 New Bedford applicant students from the GNB Voc Tech lottery. These students excluded themselves, by their personal actions on attendance and discipline, from consideration by the GNB Voc Tech application process.
Excluding chronically absent students and disruptive students from consideration of admission is proper and is a service to those with a focus on their education and the discipline it requires.
Andrew O’Leary has “removed barriers from graduation” by advocating for elimination of the MCAS requirement. This makes a NBHS diploma a “participation trophy”, whether you show up or not.
A GNB Voc Tech diploma is meaningful to the graduates and their prospective employers. To deny the chance of this education to individuals who value an education, attend classes and display respect within the classroom is absolutely wrong and demeans the efforts of these students and their parents who have instilled these values to their children.
Michael Watson has a much better understanding of the requirements and rigors of vocational and technological education. He conveys them in an articulate fashion and evidences the time and effort he has spent on this particular issue.
That said, I personally would prefer a 50:50, selection:lottery system. This way, those most qualified are evaluated, discussed and then decided upon. After that, a pool of qualified individuals (including those not selected in the top 50%) is created for the lottery system.
This would preclude some of the most qualified individuals from, by chance, not securing a position that they are particularly qualified for and have strived to achieve.
Andrew O’Leary never advocated for removal of MCAS. Why must all you posts contain a lie?
They should go back to the days of taking an entrance exam to get in… That’s how I got to go there. It was based on your academic excellence & merits.
You had a choice of 3 shops & how you did on your exam was how you placed on the chances of getting the shop & potential career you wanted. There leaves not much room for attendance & discipline problems. It’s an honor to be able to go to a school, graduate, and start work in a career you have trained for & not had to pay for college.
Couldn’t agree with you more. DEI should never play a role in educating children/young adults, a lottery isn’t fair to students who want to go to NBVOCTECHHS who want to get a better education and succeed in life. Rules that don’t allow students to be excluded based on race should also not allow students to be included simply based on race, you can’t have it both ways.
Thanks to New Bedford Light for not allowing my fact based comments on VOC admissions, I guess criticism of Maura Healy, and my views of how the best and brightest students should be admitted over those with poor behavior, attendance, and poor grades were too truthful for the liberals who decide what comments aren’t allowed over other comments where the author can’t even spell.
I’m not surprised, and I won’t be reading your news articles, or commenting on them in the future, censorship is accepted in communist nations, and Kingdoms where the first amendment is meaningless, but it’s obviously alive and well in MA where liberal socialist Democrats make up the largest percentage of the population, including the editor of this publication. Good riddance New Bedford Light!!!
This is supposed to be an alternative to children that are not going on to a secondary education. This is supposed to give them life skills in order to obtain employment. I can see excluding extreme disciplinary students but there has to be some leeway. The same people that say no are the same people that when these children, and yes they are children, leave school and go on to do nothing because they lack skills.
To ANON,
You’re wrong in opinion that Vocational schools are meant for children, or young adults who are not planning to go on to college, the fact is that there are very few 14 year old students who know what they want to to with the the rest of their lives as far as career goals, and schools like New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School aren’t designated for students who don’t plan on going to college. There are many students who apply to VOC and study carpentry, Auto Mechanics, Auto body, Cosmetology, Nursing Assistants, etc. then go on to college to further their education and get a degree in Business Management then go on to opening their own business as a building contractor, an architect, or build/purchase an auto repair business, and other fields. You make it sound like VOC should be for students who either don’t have the funds to go to college, or don’t have the grades to get a higher education, and admission to VOC should be reserved for students who want to learn a trade and work in that trade, and students who plan to go to college to pursue a degree in engineering, or in the medical field, or other careers that require a bachelor’s degree, and graduate degree is wrongfully taking the place of a student who simply wants to be an electrician, plumber, or carpenter, etc., and that’s wrong. Young adults who want to get an education in academics as well as exploring other fields/trades with the best grades, best attendance, no disciplinary problems should be admitted before students with negative records who parents simply want to keep out of NBHS due to the negative atmosphere, if that’s the case, you should put all your effort into shaping your child to excel in attendance, discipline, and his or her ability, and willingness to achieve the best grades, even if attending additional classes in summer school programs, or a tudor, if you don’t want to make that commitment to a successful future for your child, you should have taken that into consideration when considering becoming a parent.