SUMMARY

With its reputation for bookishness and critical thinking, Boston was known as the Athens of America in the 19th century, and its knowledge economy today is anchored by a high concentration of institutions of higher education that contribute to its high-skilled workforce, innovation clusters, and disproportionate share of federal research and venture capital. However, the knowledge economy disproportionately favors those with good educations at the expense of those who are prepared for entry-level and manufacturing jobs. In addition, racial/ethnic disparities in educational attainment are reflected in widening income inequality, particularly as the region’s population is growing only due to newcomer immigrants, about two-thirds of whom lack the skills necessary to participate fully in our knowledge economy without additional educational advancement. And as global competition intensifies, Boston and the Commonwealth struggle to provide high quality public education for all residents in an effort to match the high quality education provided by the region’s private institutions—and by public institutions in other states and overseas.

Today, Boston and Massachusetts are petri dishes of educational experimentation and innovation. The Boston Public Schools focuses on achieving higher standards and accountability bolstered by greater choice and innovation, and for a decade, Boston had the rare stability of one superintendent who oversaw two five-year school improvements plans. Both plans were committed to system-wide reform and to eliminating racial and income achievement gaps—and both produced steady gains. As a result, in 2006, Boston was awarded the prestigious national Broad Prize given to the urban school district that makes the greatest progress in raising student achievement. However, the Boston Public Schools confront deepening poverty among the students it serves, persistent racial/ethnic disparities, a wave of teachers on the verge of retirement, an increase in children with limited English language skills, and rising youth violence—with fewer federal and state programs to assist in confronting these challenges.

State policy is also undergoing a major overhaul. In 1993, the Commonwealth’s Education Reform Act directed a greater share of state funding to less advantaged school districts and generated the rigorous Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) to measure student achievement and encourage new public school options, including statewide Charter schools and Pilot Schools, which are Boston public schools that operate more like Charter schools, with flexible scheduling, additional teacher training and other innovations. In addition, legislation passed in 2004 created a new Department of Early Education and Care to begin the process of expanding access to high quality early education to all Massachusetts preschoolers. Today, despite constrained state and municipal budgets, Governor Deval Patrick hopes to create a seamless Pre K–16 system focused on “readiness” for academic success, with greater emphasis on the whole child in addition to rigorous standardized testing.

CONTEXT

Nearly one million children attend public elementary and secondary schools in Massachusetts’ 389 school districts. The Board of Education is appointed by the Governor and has oversight of public education, grades K-12 and adult basic education. As the Commonwealth’s largest school district, the  Boston Public Schools (BPS) faces slowly declining enrollment, largely due to a decline in white families with children in the city.

• The BPS serves a highly diverse body of 57,000 students, 86% of which is of color. Roughly 25% of Boston’s 77,000 school-aged children do not attend Boston public schools. More than 4,000 of these students attend the 21 state-chartered Charter schools in Boston, and 3,000 attend suburban METCO schools, while 12,000 attend private or parochial schools.
• BPS students are enrolled in six early learning centers, 64 elementary schools, 14 elementary and middle schools, 18 middle schools, 1 middle and high school, 30 high schools, 3 “exam” high schools, 6 special education schools and 3 alternative programs for at-risk students. There are also 20 Pilot Schools and two Horace Mann Charter Schools in the system.
• The BPS is breaking large high schools into smaller units, adding both new Pilot and Superintendent Schools that have greater autonomy, reorganizing elementary and middle schools to include more K-8 schools, adding Pre-K slots, and offering full-day kindergarten for an increasing percentage of students.
• About 18% of BPS students are English Language Learners. With students hailing from 47 countries, the five most common native languages other than English spoken by BPS students include Spanish, Haitian Creole, Chinese, Cape Verdean Creole, and Vietnamese.
• Roughly 20% of students are enrolled in some type of special education program.
• 71% of BPS students are eligible for free- or reduced-price meals in school.
• In FY06, BPS spent $9,764 to educate each of its regular education students.

Boston Public School partnerships include the Boston Compact between the BPS and Boston’s business community, first signed in 1982 and continuing through today’s Compact, signed in 2000. Other organizations that facilitate school reform and leverage outside funding include the Boston Plan for Excellence in the Public Schools, the Center for Collaborative Education, which supports learning among Pilot Schools, the Boston Parent Organizing Network (BPON), Jobs for the Future , and the Massachusetts Charter School Association .

Greater Boston is home to 74 institutions of public and private higher education—from MIT, one of two great US science universities, to Harvard, Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern and Tufts, and many excellent liberal arts colleges and specialized professional schools—with a combined annual enrollment of more than 260,000 students. About half of these—35 public and private colleges and universities—are located within Boston’s city limits. The Commonwealth’s 29 institutions of public higher education are overseen and coordinated by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education. The system includes 15 community colleges serving about 115,600 students, nine state colleges serving about 71,600 students, and five University of Massachusetts  campuses, including one in  Boston , serving about 72,000 students, as well as a Medical School and other specialized programs. However, while the region’s private system attracts students from around the country and the world, its costs are increasingly prohibitive for working- and middle-class Massachusetts families. As a result, most Massachusetts students attend public colleges and universities, with half attending community colleges: 92% of undergraduates enrolled in the public colleges and universities are from Massachusetts.

In addition, the state funds Adult Basic Education and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes and high school equivalency/adult diploma (GED) programs augmented by local and employer-based programs.  

Key Trends

	Massachusetts has one of the most educated populations in the nation, with about 37% of residents 25 and older holding a Bachelor’s degree or higher. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has committed major public resources to K-12 Education Reform, more than doubling annual state spending from $1.3 billion in 1993 to nearly $3.7 billion in 2005. Following a decade of education reform as well as stable leadership in the Boston Public Schools, Boston is considered by educational experts to be a leader among large urban school districts in making system-wide progress.  More »

Accomplishments & Developments

	New legislation established a Department and Board of Early Education and Care, which lays the groundwork for universal access to voluntary, high-quality programs for preschool-aged children in the Commonwealth. The Boston Public Schools won the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education in 2006. School Superintendent Thomas Payzant (now at the Harvard School of Education) was awarded the 15th Annual Richard R. Green Award for Urban Excellence by the Council of Great City Schools. More »

Challenges

	Despite years of research documenting the impact of early brain development and early education on future academic success, as well as broad-based legislative and media support, legislation to create universal access to high quality early education for all three, four, and five-year olds faces many hurdles. Boston’s graduation rate is lower than the statewide average four-year graduation rate of 80%, and lower than other urban districts in Massachusetts Massachusetts funding and support for public higher education severely lags other states. More »