America's Oldest school

Founded in 1635, the Boston Latin School boasts an impressive alumni roster, including five signers of the Declaration of Independence and Harvard alumni Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Santayana and Leonard Bernstein.

For blacks and whites.alike, it holds out the promise of a bright future.

For the celebration of the school's 350th anniversary, McKinnis says that "many of the alumni were saying that they would prefer a Latin student over other students. Even if the Latin student made D's, they would prefer the Latin student over other students.

"It opens a lot of doors," she says, "especially being a minority."

McKinnis's own daughter, Palestine, graduated from the school in 1989.

McLaughlin also stresses the importance of a Latin diploma toward a good college and a promising future.

"It was always available to the best students regardless of who they were," he says. "For many years, the entire graduating class [ofLatin] went to Harvard."

Two of McLaughlin's daughters graduated from Boston Latin, and Julia is currently in the eighth grade there.

McLaughlin recalls that in each of his daughter's graduating classes, about 20 students went on to attend Harvard.

Charting the Future

Robert P. Gittens, president of the Boston School committee, says that the public school system would continue to improve and seek ways to be even better and fairer.

"We want to make busing students as competitive as non-busing, non-Boston public school kids," he says. "We also want to define the idea of merit and whether it should be based on standardized testing, and if so, which test ought to be used."

Gittens believes that the exam-school admission policies should have a "broad-based legitimacy" that city residents can all deem fair.

"There needs to be merit involved in the admissions process, but it should also be available to the diverse population of Boston," says Gittens. "we are committed to ensuring student diversity. But at the same time, we want to put into place a mechanism that would comply with constitutional law."

He says the Payzant and his staff will continue looking at the issue and will announce its recommendations in May.

Previous proposals included a total abandonment of the racial quota system--a plan initially favored by Mayor Thomas M. Meni-no--but those suggestions have partly died down in the furor over the issue