The rate of Boston public school graduates earning college degrees has increased sharply, putting them on par with national averages and marking a rare accomplishment for an urban district, according to a report being released Thursday.
The robust growth in college completion rates is a reflection of the state’s drive to raise academic standards and Boston school officials’ efforts to overhaul academic programs, according to the report issued by the Boston Foundation , a charitable organization deeply involved in education initiatives.
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Yes, and let’s not forget that it is Boston Public School Teachers, who are the front line, in direct service of students, providing them with the rigorous instruction, so students will develop the skills necessary to succeed in college! Boston Teachers are the direct service providers. It’s not Mayor Menino, not Dr. Johnson, not Paul Grogan from the Boston Foundation, and it’s not the paid "partners" (vendors). It is Boston Public School Teachers! Unlike Dr. Johnson who "never expected to see the college completion rates rise so quickly in a school system where most students live in poverty and many come from homes where another language is spoken." It is no to surprise to Boston Public School Teachers, we have always had high expectations for our students, we expect all our students to succeed!
Let’s start with some facts. The last class for which cumulative six-year completion rate data are available is, quite obviously, the class of 2006. This class graduated from high school and began entering college while Tom Payzant was Superintendent. These students did not benefit in any way from “Graduation for All,” initiated in 2007, or “Success Boston,” which is a program for high school seniors that began with the class of 2009, Dr. Johnson’s “Acceleration Agenda,” which was presented to the School Committee in May, 2010, or any other program instituted post-2006. In short, if their rates of graduation from college are up, they have nothing to do with the initiatives begun after the first study, Getting to the Finish Line: College Enrollment and Graduation, completed in 2008, which concluded that “only 35% of BPS high school graduates from the class of 2000 that enrolled in college completed a 2- or 4-year degree within seven years of graduating from high school.”
And let’s not underestimate the effect on “persistence” of the combination of a devastating job market, readily available financial aid, an ever-increasing number of colleges ready to get paid to work with students not yet ready to do college-level work, and policy-makers like The Boston Foundation continuing to push flawed conclusions, like the causal connection between college graduation and significantly higher lifetime earnings. Without a prospect of getting a job, without much current pain and with wishful thinking about the future, students remain in the cocoon of college, whether they are making progress or not.
OK. So a little over 1000 graduate from college. Is the increased graduation rate just due to a now higher proportion of Asian and White student pulling up the overall rate? The big question is whether more AfAms and Latinos are graduating from BPHS and at higher rates?