What is the METCO Program?
What is the METCO Program?
Edited by Katie Asselin
Edited by Katie Asselin
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METCO is one of seven voluntary school desegregation programs in the U.S with some others being in Minnesota, North Carolina and in California, where the Democratic Vice President nominee Kamala Harris was bussed as part of the second group to attempt to desegregate public California schools.
In Boston, Massachusetts in 1963, the civil rights organization NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) called for the Boston School Committee to allocate an equal amount of funding towards public schools in Black neighborhoods as a way to observe the new Racial Imbalance Act. The lack of accountability of de facto segregation (racial segregation without the institutional legislation, resulting from societal differences) on the School Committee’s part led to multiple school day boycotts in peaceful protest. On the other side, white protesters in Boston threw bricks and attacked buses to object to desegregation.
When the committee refused to honor the new state law, Black parents led Operation Exodus, in which they enrolled their children into mostly all white public schools in the Boston area. They then worked with the NAACP’s Ruth Batson to create the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or METCO.
In 1966, the first 220 Black students were bussed from Boston to the suburban towns of Arlington, Braintree, Brookline, Lexington, Lincoln, Newton, and Wellesley. Soon after, many suburban school districts applied to host METCO students. METCO had become official.
Children advocate for better conditions at their schools.
The actual school days of METCO students would differ from their white classmates and their neighbors greatly, they would have to get up very early in order for the bus to pick them up in Boston and then drive for upwards of of forty minutes to arrive at school on time (buses would often arrive late due to traffic) and then return home at 5pm to then continue to do hours of homework before doing it all again the next day. Many students and teachers recognized the exhausting schedule the students would have to follow. The student response was almost entirely positive and parents were happy about the good conditions and high budgets of the suburban schools.
Boston students would often endure negative attention from other students, "It really took a while for them to get used to us, when you went to a class they all kind of stared at you. It took a long time, about half the first year for the staring to stop." When a former METCO was asked about their experiences out of school, they stated that, "The cops always had a tendency to ride around, looking at the black folks who weren't from the community. Those who weren't living there, they would follow them around, maybe stop them once or twice, ask them where they were going, when we left the school to walk around or go into a store."
Pro-Segregationists protest against integrating schools.
I asked my grandfather who taught in the Sudbury public middle school from the 1970s to the early 2000s about his personal experience teaching in a school that implemented METCO. He said he “Wouldn’t have had it any other way” but “did notice bullying”. He fondly remembers a story of a quiet and shy METCO student standing up for herself when an aggressive peer took her computer lab seat.
Ruth Batson and Robert Hayden did a follow up questionnaire in 1983 for the original METCO students to see how METCO affected their lives. The majority of former METCO students became lawyers, doctors, scientists, social workers, government workers, or in the media/entertainment industry (81%). 89% said they would do METCO again if they could go back in time, and 75% said that the program affected their life positively. 98% also said that they believe that METCO should continue.
Ruth Batson, the original creator of METCO.
In 2020, the METCO program is implemented in the towns of Arlington, Bedford, Belmont, Braintree, Brookline, Cohasset, Concord, Concord-Carlisle, Dover, Dover-Sherborn, Foxborough, Hingham, Lexington, Lincoln, Lincoln-Sudbury, Lynnfield, Marblehead, Melrose, Natick, Needham, Newton, Reading, Scituate, Sharon, Sherborn, Sudbury, Swampscott, Wakefield, Walpole, Wayland, Wellesley, Weston, and Westwood. But now the METCO program is losing agency, in 2019, the Trump administration terminated a grant of $12 million for schools to boost integration, as well as rolling back federal laws to enforce fair housing. The cost of running METCO has risen with the population, but funding has decreased. Many white families don’t see the benefits of the program and wouldn’t mind cutting it in favor of other programs.
The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity has existed for fifty-four years to voluntarily integrate public schools and bring racial equality to a still segregated area of the United States. It’s had many benefits and disadvantages but has no doubt been a large part of many students’ and teachers' lives.
Works CitedBatson, Ruth M., and Robert C. Hayden. A History of METCO: the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity: a Surburban Education for Boston's Urban Students. Select Publications, 1987.Brown, Emma. “Trump's Education Department Nixes Obama-Era Grant Program for School Diversity.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 31 Mar. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/03/29/trumps-education-department-nixes-obama-era-grant-program-for-school-diversity/.METCO’s History, metcoinc.org/home/metco-history/.Prasad, Ritu. “Kamala Harris-Joe Biden Row: What Is Desegregation Bussing?” BBC News, BBC, 28 June 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48803864.Semuels, Story by Alana. “The Utter Inadequacy of America's Efforts to Desegregate Schools.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 Apr. 2019, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/boston-metco-program-school-desegregation/584224/.
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