What's Going on with Boston Public School System?
Monday, September 14, 2009 at 07:50PM The Boston Public school graduation rate is abysmal where it stands. According to the Boston Public School website, less than 60% of the students who started as freshmen in 2004 graduated in 2008. According to their statistics, out of the 5008 BPS students in the class of 2008, only about 2955 students graduated. While it doesn't surprise me, it really disturbs me that Black and Hispanic students graduate at the lowest rates.
Now, you may be thinking, "What does this have to do with the Mayoral candidates"? If you have been paying attention to the race, you know that this is a hot issue with the four candidates. Incumbent Mayor Menino seems to be content with the prizes and awards the BPS system has garnered nationally, and seems to be enamored with Superintendant Carol Johnson's awards and qualifications. However, the 2053 students who did not graduate last year cannot be ignored. This is not to disqualify or dismiss any of the arguments Menino has made about the BPS improvements, but when the graduation rate has not made significant improvements with the same administration over 16 years, it is a sign for me that it wasn't a high priority. Maybe things didn't go right; I'm not saying Menino is solely responsible. I just feel that it is wrong for politicians to wait for election time to bring problems like this out into the forefront. At the same time, I think Flaherty and Yoon were equally in the wrong for not taking issue with education before running like they are now. As a public servant, it was their jobs to put all constituents first, and their own agenda second. After all, who voted for them and got them into office in the first place? Now, it may not have been politically sound to do this, but sometimes you have to take the hard road in order to fix something, and sometimes it's the choice between doing what's easy and doing what's right. Honestly, I believe that whoever is voted in, they will make great strides in fixing the broken system. It's just too bad that the series in the Boston Globe this summer about the state of Boston Public High School athletics really pushed this out into the open. The violence, lack of funding, lack of fields, and lack of opportunity was astounding to me. I am a Boston resident, but I was lucky enough to gain entrance into a private school. I just didn't know how lucky I was until I read that entire series. Regardless of who wins, I hope they truly take to heart the fight to which they are all pledging, and I hope see more graduates in the future of the system that has left so many without hope in their lives.
At the same time, I see a disturbing trend with the rhetoric of the candidates. They seem to be focusing on lifting the cap on Charter schools in the city, which would allow for more innovative schools that aren't as restricted by federal government requirements, thus allowing the teachers a freer curriculum. Students often do better in Charter schools and they have a higher graduation rate and a higher MCAS score on average. Now, I agree that there should be more Charter schools. I also think that there will still be students crying in frustration at the lottery because they didn't get into a charter school, and they now have to attend a public school. What happens to those kids? Are they forgotten in the system, doomed to attend a second rate school that lacks the opportunity and caring officials other schools have? Maybe, maybe not. Again, this isn't a shot at the current administration, because it's impossible to fix all the problems.
My point is that, looking into the future, whoever wins this election has to come up with innovative solutions to this problem.
--Contributed by Andrew Vincent, Harvard College, Class of 2013
Below are links to the series in the Boston Globe this summer.
http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/articles/2009/06/21/missed_opportunities/?comments=all
http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/articles/2009/06/22/competing_under_fire/?comments=all
http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/articles/2009/06/23/eligibility_a_high_hurdle/?comments=all
http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/articles/2009/06/24/ill_equipped_to_compete/?comments=all
http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/articles/2009/06/26/that_awful_empty_feeling/?comments=all
http://www.boston.com/sports/schools/articles/2009/06/25/coaches_in_the_crossfire/?comments=all
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