Eos in the News
The Boston Opportunity Agenda: An Educational Pipeline to Economic Security
In an unprecedented joint effort to promote upward mobility among Boston’s youth, leading philanthropies, including the Eos Foundation, have formed a new partnership with the city’s government and schools. The partnership, the Boston Opportunity Agenda, will consolidate formerly stand-alone services into a continuous set of programs that address educational needs from birth through post-secondary achievement and will be available throughout the city.
“Incorporating a ‘cradle-to-career’ progression of support into the mainstream of Boston’s educational system is an innovation that holds real promise,” said Andrea Silbert, President of the Eos Foundation. “It could well be a means of increasing opportunity on a very large scale.”
The Boston Opportunity Agenda’s goals, which are aligned with the Boston Public Schools’ 5-year strategic plan, are divided along the age continuum in four major sections:
• A solid early educational foundation for learning so that every young child is ready to excel in school.
• Students across the system consistently on track for high school graduation.
• High school graduation as a standard measure of achievement.
• Post-secondary attainment, including an associate’s degree equivalent or higher.
In the early education area, for example, falls Thrive in Five, a multi-pronged program supported by the Eos Foundation. Thrive in Five works with the full range of those who support young children – families, child-care providers, teachers, service providers – to enhance each child’s school readiness.
Another Eos-funded initiative embraced by the Boston Opportunity Agenda is the Community Mobilization Fund, which supports community, parent, and youth organizations in their advocacy for a student-centered contract between the Boston Public Schools and the Boston Teachers Union.
The five-year benchmarks for success set by the Boston Opportunity Agenda are both specific and ambitious. They include a more-than-twofold increase in the rates of third-graders reading proficiently, a eightfold increase in the rates of students earning a B or better in Algebra 1 or eighth-grade math, a halving of the annual drop-out rate, and a near doubling of the rate of Boston Public Schools graduates who earn at least an Associate’s Degree.
As comprehensive and aggressive as are the Boston Opportunity Agenda’s plans, the alliance holds an additional element of interest to the Eos Foundation. “The philanthropic, civic, and business collaboration is in itself an important step,” says Silbert. “It moves us toward the culture of coordinated action and aggregated resources that will be needed to build lasting systemic change.”
[In addition to the City of Boston and the Boston Public Schools, the Eos Foundation’s allies in the Boston Opportunity Agenda are The Boston Foundation, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Boston, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, United Way of Massachusetts Bay and the Merrimack Valley, the Barr Foundation, The Beal Companies, the Myra & Robert Kraft Family Foundation, the Nellie Mae Educational Foundation, and New Profit, Inc.]
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