GDJ / Pixabay
Earlier this week, I shared this depressing special report: These Boston high school valedictorians set off to change the world.But good grades only got them so far. is from The Boston Globe.
Today, the PBS NewsHour ran a segment on it:
I listened to this segment and the explanations provided for why these students were not as economically successful as expected included the fact that they were first generation college students, many from backgrounds unable to provide them with social capital to open doors and provide a leg up when needed, that they were also graduating into the Great Recession which made it next to impossible to find economic stability that other students in the past could have expected. That they made less than $50,000 a year when 50% of American earn $30,000 or less and $50,000 is no where near a beginning teacher salary for example in MA where I live. There was also allusion to the lack of or the ineffectiveness of support for these non-traditional students provided in the upper echelon colleges that they attended. All of these factors are very important in the explanation for what happened. What was enraging was the reporter’s summary of what went wrong which he gave at the very beginning: “they quickly realize that the BPS has not given them the tools to succeed … in a rigorous academic environment” What??? With no evidence whatsoever. All the factors presented in the rest of the segment had nothing to do with their academic preparation. More bashing of public schools and public school teachers. The Globe has a history of being antithetical to the BPS in particular and very pro-Charter Schools.