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Minuteman superintendent says DESE CTE admissions data are incomplete, urges careful review of blind-lottery proposal
Summary
Superintendent Heidi told the Minuteman school committee that Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) data presented at recent Board of Education sessions omitted applicant counts behind offer counts and risked misleading conclusions about equity; she urged committee members to follow DESE study sessions and the data subcommittee as policy options, including a blind lottery, are considered.
Superintendent Heidi told the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School Committee that recent state presentations on career-technical-education admissions contain missing or misleading information and should not be the sole basis for policy change.
Heidi said DESE slides shown at Board of Education study sessions reported the number of offers to English-language learners (ELL) and other groups but often omitted how many applicants those schools actually received. She cited examples from the state slide deck: "20 of the schools made fewer than 10 offers to English language learners" and, she said, the missing context was that many of those schools had fewer than 10 applicants in that category. "We do not have clear, vetted data or evidence that a blind lottery will address the alleged admissions inequity," she told the committee.
Why it matters: State officials are considering whether a blind-lottery system or changes to selective criteria should govern admissions to vocational schools. Minuteman leaders said those proposals could reshape enrollment and access for English-language learners, students with disabilities and low-income students across the state.
Heidi described Minuteman as a "wall-to-wall Chapter 74" vocational school—meaning its entire program is vocational rather than a single CTE program inside a comprehensive high school—and said Minuteman's special-education enrollment has been consistently at or above regional comparison indices. She urged committee members to watch Board of Education hearings and CTE study sessions and said MAAVA (the vocational superintendents' organization referenced in the presentation) and regional leaders are working with the Board of Education and DESE data subcommittee to probe the numbers.
The superintendent also asked the committee to review Minuteman's own admissions policy proactively. The committee's joint legislative and policy subcommittee will meet again in January 2025 to examine local policy and align with any state-level changes.
The committee did not take a formal vote on admissions policy at the meeting; Heidi recommended continued engagement with the DESE data subcommittee and additional local policy review before any changes.
One direct quote: "You can't make good decisions if you have information that doesn't make sense," Heidi said, summarizing her critique of the statewide data slides.
What comes next: The policy and legislative subcommittees will continue their review; committee members were encouraged to attend or watch the next Board of Education meeting and DESE CTE study sessions as the state's data review proceeds.
