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Boston, Massachusetts and its environs are home to 100
colleges and more than 250,000 college students. From the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) to the University of Massachusetts (UMass), and to
98 other colleges and universities around and in-between, Boston is a hub of higher
education. But all the news from Beantown isn't so bubbly these days.
According to data just released by the U.S. Department of
Education, only 17% of fourth-graders in the city's public school system demonstrated
a "proficient" knowledge of science concepts. Some 60% of the city's eight-graders scored at
the lowest proficiency level, while only 14% scored at grade-level. The national
test with which these students struggled is administered periodically to students
in 17 urban school districts.
While Boston's detractors might relish this bit of bad news from
a city whose nicknames include "The Athens of America", Beantown isn't alone in
its blues. Nationwide, only 39% of the fourth-graders in the study scored at or
above basic levels while only 28% of eight-graders were "proficient".
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", wrote Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities. How can Boston, a city renowned for learning and research, do better when it comes to basic science education?
Sources: Boston.com
and BHCC
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