Citywide Educational Coalition

The Citywide Educational Coalition (CWEC), is a tax-exempt, non-profit educational reform organization whose goal is to provide reliable and objective information on the Boston Public Schools to parents and citizens, enabling citizens to participate in policy making directly and through their school committee and increasing support for public education in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Citywide Education Coalition was created in Boston, Massachusetts in order to create a community agenda for the Boston Public Schools. Incorporated in 1973 with the mission of circulating clear and accurate information regarding education reform, the Coalition was actively involved in a number of major decisions influencing the Boston School System, including the desegregation of Boston Public Schools.

The CWEC was formed in 1972 by Mary Ellen Smith, who brought together parents and concerned citizens from across Boston who felt a need for involvement in the selection of a new superintendent of Boston Public Schools. This group, composed of parents, teachers, school administrators, church groups, community groups and concerned individuals came together around several major issues facing the Boston Public Schools: the search for superintendent, the need to improve quality of education in public schools, the desegregation crisis in Boston and the lack of reliable and accurate information about schools. Since its founding, the CWEC has focused its energy on monitoring the implementation of the desegregation order, community organizing around educational issues, representing citizens in areas of educational decision making and on research and public information activities.

In the 1954 landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, the legal basis for segregation within public schools is dismantled. The ruling declared that racial segregation violates the rights of United States citizens according to the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection of laws for all American citizens.

Eighteen years later, in 1972, de facto segregation still existed in the Boston Public School System as a result of school districting practices by geographical location, which remained largely segregated within the city. A class action suit was filed on behalf of fifteen parents and forty-three children, with Tallulah Morgan as lead plaintiff, in the case that would come to be known as Morgan v. Hennigan. At that time sixty-eight schools in Boston were racially imbalanced and 30,000 Boston students used public transportation to get to school. In 1974, Judge W. Arthur Garrity sided with the plaintiffs in Morgan vs. Hennigan and stated Boston School Committee had engaged in segregation. Garrity then ordered the school committee to implement the State Board of Education's Racial Imbalance plan until they produced a plan of their own for desegregation. September 12, 1974 marked the first day of school under this new program. The anti-desegregation group Restore our Alienated Rights (ROAR) called for a two-week boycott of schools, which caused a violent reaction, especially in South Boston, and left eighteen school buses damaged citywide.

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