Boston Focus, 5.9.25

The old college try

Just five days after teenagers around the country had to officially enroll in their college of choice for next fall, you found this headline in the New York Times.

No, the author was not a free-market conservative or anti-establishment rightist.

The essay was written by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

It is no secret that higher education had a growing brand issue and Trump II has only intensified the scrutiny and pressure on these institutions. But when something is getting attacked from the right and the left, you know it is in real trouble.

It is pretty arresting to read Weingarten, a former teacher, arguing college should no longer be considered the “North Star,” advocating for the creation of more “pathway programs” to support college and career.

Three are at least three problems with this argument.

First, using Massachusetts as an example, there actually are a significant number of high school students (~58,000) already enrolled in vocational schools or vocational training. Sure there may be areas for needed expansion or access or programs to be modernized, but one-fifth of all Massachusetts high school students is a considerable number of students to be formally pursuing a non-college path.

Second, there are a set of promising, research-based pathways (like early college) that Governor Healey and other leaders have thrown their support behind. But these policies and programs are still in development and serve a very small share of high school students in Massachusetts, as seen in a recent state report.

These programs are not ready to be scaled dramatically and replace a large swath of more traditional college preparation.

Lastly, and most importantly, the argument offers a policy idea that does not address the real problem: America has seen a decline in children’s post-secondary readiness and enrollment.

College and university access were staples of the Bush presidencies (41 and 43), as well as the Obama and Biden administrations. Both with policies and their bully pulpits, national leaders tried to increase college attendance, while also making college readiness the new bar for standards and assessments in federal and state PK-12 education policy.

Early returns were promising. States and districts saw big increases in post-secondary access. Boston’s post-secondary enrollment jumped nearly 20 points over a decade.

But, after reaching a height in ~2013, there has been a steady decline. In Boston, the most recent post-secondary rate is actually lower than when this data was first collected back in 2004.

Theories abound to explain this: college affordability, smart phones, the erosion of state accountability systems, the pandemic, to name a few.

Educators should not be giving up on college in the face of declines in college readiness and enrollment. Changing the bar does not change the result.

Rather than talking about other North Stars, the focus should be on giving kids and families the tools to find the one that is already there.

Schools

Clipped from the Boston Globe’s weekly education newsletter, Boston continues to lead the nation in big city spending on schools.

Average teacher salary data (nationwide) was also updated by the NEA. Massachusetts is fourth, trailing only California, NY, and DC.

The death of Lens Joseph (5) departing a BPS school bus will be the subject of multiple City Council hearings. A local community group in Hyde Park is calling for providing missing safety measures and holding a meeting on Tuesday.

This Boston’s teacher’s story illustrates the gray line between student discipline and law enforcement in schools.

The Governor, the House, and Senate staking different budget positions and teeing up big policy fights is practically a rite of spring. New for this year is two education issues are at the center. The Senate chose not to address the House’s proposal to intervene to prevent reforms to vocational school admission policies. Senate President Spilka voiced her support for a potential cell phone ban in schools. With multiple bills and perspectives on these two issues, one can expect them to be in mix the budget negotiations this summer.

Massachusetts students and teachers weigh in on cell phone bans. This week New York became the 19th state to enact a ban.

The Teacher’s Lounge’s annual “prom.”

A national teacher survey summarizes sentiments on issues ranging from federal policies to AI.

This retrospective furthers the growing consensus that policymakers may have miscalculated with COVID era school closures.

All of us, particularly blue states, are definitely miscalculating the academic prowess and progress of red states like Mississippi, argues Tim Daly.

Leveraging college students - and prospective teachers - as tutors in Ohio.

There is too much coverage out there to synthesize, so let’s just assume Trump and Harvard are still in a fight.

The federal government is calling in some student loans, but aren’t the only ones poking around higher education. Massachusetts is considering bills ranging from increased taxes to ending legacy admissions.

Not content with click chaos created in higher education, the Trump Administration has proposed billion-dollar cuts in PK-12 while a federal judge restored the pandemic funds the administration just tried claw back.

Other Matters

How do you create affordable housing when the production of that housing is now unaffordable? Cambridge is staring down that very issue, as its building requirements and post-pandemic economic conditions have yielded less housing production.

The loss of affordable housing has a direct cost/hardship for lower income residents, but the loss of any new housing actually costs everyone.

The policy runway is not as long in Boston, but the city has also seen a similar sharp decline in housing “starts”/production. Less new housing units means existing (already very expensive) housing units must be taxed at a higher rate to sustain city budget increases. That is true even without the additional pressure of the loss of commercial tax revenue in Boston (which got the Wall Street Journal treatment this week).

The argument here is market-based, not ideological (Matt Yglesias invoked the term “Econ 101” in the same spirit when explaining why tariffs don’t work).

Just like we would not have applied Levittown math to pre-pandemic urban population growth, we should not be applying pre-pandemic math to housing policy and production now.