OPINION:
This month, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a liberal, bragged that Boston Public Schools reached a record-high 81.3% graduation rate for the 2024-2025 school year.
“Schools are places where students should feel seen and supported and know every day that what’s happening in the classrooms and in their schools directly connects them to the best possible future that they are envisioning and that they’re dreaming for,” Ms. Wu said. “What we’re really celebrating today is that our students are engaged and invested in their education and that the opportunities we’re creating, the investments that we’re making, have directly made that possible.”
What Ms. Wu left out was that, to achieve the increase in graduation rates, Boston schools had to ban F’s and eliminate passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as a graduation requirement. A detailed analysis published by City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute, shows that although graduation rates have climbed, students are actually falling behind.
Low-income students’ graduation rate increased by 12% from 2017 to 2025; however, their math scores dropped by 5% over the same period. English language learners’ graduation rates spiked 21%, while their reading scores declined 9% and math scores fell 13%. Only about 40% of Boston’s 10th-graders meet expectations in reading and math on the state’s now-defunct MCAS exam.
After the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, during which students were locked out of classrooms for months, if not years, many school systems around the country started lowering the academic thresholds for academic success. They did this by easing proficiency requirements on state tests, reducing “cut scores,” using grade inflation and adopting policies that prevented grading low-quality work.
In addition, with the liberal push toward “equity,” many of these schools justified the modifications as a way to level the playing field for disadvantaged students. It became a “race to the bottom,” as the outcomes of these policies now show.
Twelve years ago, San Francisco eliminated eighth-grade algebra because of equity concerns, meaning low-income and minority students were performing badly in the course, so the school board felt those students would benefit from having more time to learn basic math.
The dropped offering didn’t lead to better outcomes; the number of students enrolled in advanced high school math declined and wide racial gaps persisted.
It’s no wonder a crisis in higher education is developing. Harvard, perhaps America’s most elite university, is now offering its incoming freshmen remedial math classes. The classes are for students who arrive on campus lacking “foundational skills” in high school math basics such as geometry and algebra.
Other Ivy League universities, such as Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania, observing their incoming students’ perfect artificial-intelligence-generated homework but blank stares in classrooms, are now turning to oral exams to ensure students are actually gaining, not losing, cognitive capacity and creativity.
Last week, after a lengthy debate, San Francisco’s school board narrowly approved a plan to bring back its eighth-grade algebra class. The decision followed a lawsuit over the loss of the algebra class and a 2024 ballot initiative in which voters overwhelmingly (80%) demanded that algebra return to middle schools.
The 4-3 vote proved the fight for our children’s public education can be won, but it will require a long and arduous process to turn the tide.
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