What does $1.7 billion get you in the Boston Public Schools? Abysmal student achievement and declining results.
Sponsored by The Boston Foundation The Best of CommonWealth Beacon OPINION Boston Public Schools headquarters in Roxbury. What does $1.7 billion get you in the Boston Public Schools? Abysmal student achievement and declining results. May 17, 2026 By Mary Tamer Last month, the Boston Public Schools passed a record $1.7 billion budget for the next school year. The district annually spends $36,000 per student, one of the highest levels of per pupil expenditure in the country. What do the data demonstrate we get from this extraordinary investment in public education? Only 3 out of 10 Boston students across grades 3 through 8 can read or perform math on grade level. The superintendent and the mayor boast of an 81 percent graduation rate, but this is a notoriously poor measure of student achievement. Only 40 percent of 10 th graders met expectations in reading and math, while l ess than a third of low-income sophomores...