Education

Recent reports fuel efforts to link all students in Massachusetts to success in college, career, and life.

Written by Kate Dobin

This post features the critical questions, key findings, and links to five reports Barr helped to fund over the last year as part of the Education Program’s Build Public Will strategy. We strongly believe that good decisions on what should come next in education need to be informed by a credible and reliable fact base – an honest look at what is currently happening. In the Build Public Will strategy, we strive to increase access for all parents, students, educators, civic leaders, and residents to high-quality information on what is happening in our schools and with our students, as well as what is possible for our young people.

In Massachusetts, the education success story is not true for all students. In the report “#1 for Some”, The Education Trust and the Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership outline that the narrative of Massachusetts’ educational success story is far from accurate. Massachusetts 8th grade students were indeed first in the country in Math NAEP results, but Latino 8th grade students were 43rd and Black 8th grade students were 47th.The ramifications of the inequitable educational opportunities provided to our young people show up not just in 8th grade math, but in student outcomes across the preschool to higher education to workforce spectrum.

#1 for some is not good enough. The Barr Foundation’s Education Program is based on the belief that all students have the potential to succeed after high school in college, work, and life.

Where are we relative to the goal of preparing all students for success after high school?

What’s getting in the way of success for all students?

The challenges outlined by these reports may be significant, and perhaps not surprising to some, but the responsibility to act is clear. The questions are: What is next? Who is deciding what comes next? And, how are those decisions being made? We look forward to continuing to support a diverse set of stakeholders to come together as a community to reflect on this information and develop the next generation of high school models for our students and the supporting solutions to make those possible.

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