Education Law

Pay it forward

BoardBuzz certainly says yes to education and always wants to learn about our students who do too. For the past seventeen years, 69 students in Cambridge, Massachusetts have participated in a program inspiring them to commit to their educational experiences. Now, they get ready to say goodbye as the final original student recently graduated with a doctoral degree in pharmacy.

The Say Yes to Education Program was introduced to the Boston area in 1991, when founder George Weiss offered to pay the college tuition of 69 second-graders. Students were selected for diverse socioeconomic and multicultural backgrounds and then tracked through their high school graduation with the opportunity to have their college tuition taken care of. An Associated Press article found on USA Today ,informed BoardBuzz on the success of the program and let us know what students are feeling:

"I'd venture to say it's my most successful program," Weiss said in a phone interview Thursday.

Of the original 69 students, all but seven got their high school diplomas or GEDs, and more than half are now college graduates, said Anne Larkin, program director and a Lesley University professor.

Although their experiences are unique, BoardBuzz is happy to have this reminder of how important individual attention and resources are to all our public school students. We congratulate these graduates and hope they pay it forward to other students. For more information, check out the article.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on July 01, 2008 (boomark / email).