Boston School Committee Causes City Tensions, Anti-Racists Say

Boston has run an extremely segregated school system for years and the busing issue is "a ploy to cover up the really disgusting state of schools in Boston and divert the people's attention from its," a teacher in the Boston school system said last night.

Ginny Vogel '70 told a group of about 20 people at Phillips Brooks House that the Boston School Committee has caused many of the current problems.

The meeting to discuss racism and how it relates to busing and the Boston public schools was sponsored by the Party for Workers Power and the Anti-Racist Coalition, a group of Boston area teachers, parents and students who want to upgrade the quality of education in the city schools.

Much of the racial antagonism, Vogel said, stems from the attitudes of the school committee which believes that the problem is not the quality of the schools, but the quality of the students.

Vogel criticized the Board of Education's decision to integrate South Boston High School, which, according to her, has only resulted in violent racism on the part of the South Boston residents.

"If you are serious about integrating," she said, "you do it where it will work and show people that it can."

The Anti-Racist Coalition is circulating a six-point referendum throughout the city designed to increase public awareness of the school situation and encourage action to correct it. The referendum calls for:

* An $85-million program to build integrated schools and reduce class sizes;

* Elimination of "tracking" and I.Q. tests;

* Preferential hiring of non-white teachers;

* Full custodial staffing and repair of existing schools;

* Proposals to Federal and State Courts that they enact legislation to insure no more school closings and a kindergarten for each elementary school; and,

* A Proposal to Congress for full funding of all Title I programs.

Willie Washington, a student at Boston State College, said that integration alone is "definitely not" the solution to Boston's racial problems. "What we need is an anti-racism movement by everyone--blacks, whites, and Spanish-speaking. We have to get rid of racist books, racist teachers, and racist officials," Washington said.