Just a coincidence. Has nothing to do with communities being underserved.
Romney's scholarship plan favors richer school districts
Suburban whites would largely be tuition winners
By Anand Vaishnav and
Bill Dedman, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 3/7/2004
A scholarship proposal that Governor Mitt Romney is touting to help working-class families would give the edge to richer school districts, a Globe analysis shows.
Romney's Adams Scholarship program, which he announced during his State of the State address in January, would award free public college tuition to the top quarter of MCAS scorers. Because the scholarship selection would rest solely on test scores and because wealthier students tend to score higher, the students most likely to qualify would need the help the least.
The districts with the largest share of winners under Romney's proposal are overwhelmingly affluent, suburban, and white, according to the Globe's review of MCAS scores for this year's junior class.
Christy Zweig, a junior at Dover-Sherborn Regional High School, would be a shoo-in for the scholarship. But Zweig, who attends school in one of the state's wealthiest school districts, is not even considering attending a Massachusetts public university. At Dover-Sherborn, where the median family income is $148,000, two out of three juniors would qualify.
Meanwhile, Ihab Rashad, who works three days a week to save money for a public college, would have no chance of winning one of the scholarships. Rashad, a 16-year-old junior from Lawrence, scored near the top of his class on the MCAS test, but not high enough to make the cut. At Lawrence High, where median family income is $32,000, only 3 percent of students in the junior class would qualify for the scholarships.
Every school district in the state and its percentage of students qualifying under Romney's plan is listed at www.boston.com/mcas. In other states, similar scholarship plans reach more income levels by including grades and other factors or by rewarding top scorers in each school. By contrast, Romney said his plan would encourage students to work harder because he has established a statewide competition based on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams.
