We didn’t need a multi-part, multimedia series of reports to know the Boston Public Schools fail to deliver a first-rate education to many students. Achievement scores and college completion rates among its graduates are more than enough to make that point. But the approach taken by a Boston Globe project that was published on Sunday brilliantly underscored just how dismal things are in the state’s largest school district.
The year-long effort focused on valedictorians from Boston high school graduating classes of 2005 through 2007. These are not students in the muddled middle or below, whose struggles after high school might be expected, but the cream of the crop at each high school, the students who would be expected to go on and shine in pursuit of college degrees and successful careers.