Education to Career
Improving outcomes for Boston’s residents across the education pipeline
Background
Achieving gold-standard educational outcomes for all of Boston’s children, regardless of family income or racial/ethnic background is our nation’s greatest contemporary challenge. If any American city has what it takes to create a seamless and effective education pipeline that works for everyone, it is Boston. The Boston Foundation is deeply committed to strengthening our city’s entire education pipeline—from K-12 education in Boston’s public schools through college completion and entry into the adult workforce.
Approach
Through our civic leadership and grantmaking, we focus on accelerating structural reform and promoting autonomies in the public schools in Boston. We are also dedicated to raising the college graduation rates for low-income, minority and first-generation college students from public schools in Boston—and promoting career advancement and economic security for low-income adults. We are proud to be a founding partner of the
Boston Opportunity Agenda, a citywide public/private partnership focused on a “cradle to career” approach to education. We also partner with the City and universities on the
Success Boston college completion initiative.
Desired Outcomes
On the K-12 level, we seek to double the number of seats in autonomous schools in Boston by 2015, including seats in new charter, pilot and innovation schools. We are also determined to double the college completion rate for Boston Public Schools graduates by 2017. Finally, we hope to see a 50 percent increase in adult students who are achieving their goals for advancement through adult education.