One of the things that has taken heat in the past few years is the quality of education that kids in Buffalo receive from the Buffalo Public School (BPS) system. Just yesterday, there was a story about progress being made in preparing kids for kindergarten. Though it will take many years to see the long-term benefits from that action, it has only taken three years to see the benefits of hiring Dr. James A Williams as Superintendent of BPS system.
Williams enacted the Academic Achievement Plan upon his arrival in July of 2005. The improvements made as a result were the expansion of foreign language instruction to include Mandarin and Latin, the extension of the school day by one hour and the school year by 20 days at 17 schools, increased Advanced Placement courses from just 14 to a booming 146, that all BPS high schools now offer AP courses, that there was a uniform policy at 5 schools, and the creation of two College Board Schools with an intensive college preparatory curriculum.
These new standards of academic rigor have benefited the graduating class of 2008, so much in fact, that they are receiving nearly double the amount of scholarship money as they prepare to enter post-secondary education. Below is a bar graph depicting the increase:
The number of colleges this class has managed to get in to is staggering, but even more impressive is some of the prestigious names on that list, which includes Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Dartmouth, NYU, the University of Chicago, Howard, Hampton, Amherst College, and RIT. Local universities have even been willing to offer full scholarships to graduating students including UB, Buffalo State, Canisius, Medaille, D’Youville, Niagara, and ECC.
Knowing that BPS is changing for the better is great news. In addition to the graduating class achieving a new record for monetary scholarships, the district has also seen really astounding growth in Mathematics and English Language Arts NYS test scores by students in Grades 3-8. In Mathematics alone, there was a 96% increase in test scores over a three-year period.
These new statistics say one thing to the community: keep investing in the BPS system. If the students work with the dedicated teachers, principals, administrators, and Board members, they will reap the benefits and be able to hold their BPS diploma high on their way to college.