A Massachusetts state legislative committee has voted to recommend a bill that would replace merit-based admissions at public vocational high schools with a blind lottery, supporters of the bill said.
The Joint Education on Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature reported the bill out of committee, according to a press release Thursday, February 15 from Vocational Education Justice Coalition, which maintains that using grades, attendance, disciplinary record, and guidance counselor recommendations of eighth-graders "discriminates against Students of Color, English Language Learners, Special Needs Students, and Low Income Students."
The Massachusetts Republican Party wanted the state legislature to call for a special election in the Sixth Plymouth House District, but there won't be one.
The state representative seat is vacant. The former occupant, Josh Cutler, a Democrat, was named as an undersecretary in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development on January 5, and subsequently resigned from the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
