The most integrated school in the Boston appears to be a charter school, Boston Collegiate.

Every day, students whose families live in hyper-segregated Boston neighborhoods — Dorchester, South Boston, Roxbury, and Mattapan — arrive at Boston Collegiate to live out an academic day with students not from their neighborhoods, students who split about 50–50 between white and non-white.

For white parents, especially parents whose children didn’t get into an exam school and balk at private school tuition (and for whom traditional public schools are unthinkable), Boston Collegiate is a pathway into a good college.

For black parents, the reasoning is similar. Private school tuition is far out of reach and the traditional schools unpalatable, thus leaving Boston Collegiate as the place where their kid has a shot at a good college.

Students win a spot here via an electronic lottery, which makes balancing racial enrollment tricky. The only way to affect that ratio is by recruitment efforts.

For both white and black parents, the most effective word of mouth is: “I hear one of their graduates got into Brown (or another prestigious college).”

Read the full article on Boston Collegiate by Richard Whitmire at The 74