AS BOSTON CITY Council president Michael Flaherty is quickly
discovering, race ultimately infiltrates any discussion of
public education in Boston. Flaherty, who favors an eventual
return to neighborhood schools in place of desegregation-related
busing arrangements, has found himself besieged by opponents,
including District Seven councilor Chuck Turner, who say that
the change will resegregate the cityís schools ó and doom black
students to the worst facilities (see "Bus Stop," News and
Features, February 13). That said, itís inconceivable to nearly
everyone on all sides of the school-reassignment debate that the
racial inequities that once existed in Boston public schools
will return. But a huge problem in this regard already exists,
and it is rarely discussed: the enormous racial academic-
achievement gap in schools across the state. It exists in
Boston, where minority students make up 85 percent of the
population. Itís in Springfield, which evenly distributes its
minority population among the schools. Itís