Sky-high graduation rates at Mission Hill-area public high schools are great news. Congratulations to the schools, and most of all to the students who worked hard.
Two of those schools, Boston Latin School and the Kennedy Academy for Health Careers, have selective admissions and graduation rates at or near 100 percent.
New Mission High is more amazing. Its graduation rate is over 87 percent. That’s an outstanding academic balance for a school widely known for its great basketball teams.
The numbers make it all the more bittersweet that New Mission will be expanding—but in Hyde Park, not Mission Hill, thanks to a controversial Boston Public Schools plan.
At least the school slated to replace it next year, Fenway High, has a high graduation rate as well.
We should be honest with the kids that a high school diploma alone doesn’t get you much these days. It’s at best a ticket to a long and sometimes bumpy ride. But without one, you’re going nowhere at all. BPS is doing a strong job of getting that ticket into more and more hands.