Spreading the Wings of an Idea

By Richard Lacayo

Boston's public school system is the oldest in the nation, and among the most troubled. In a city of some 570,000 people, public-school enrollment has dropped from 93,000 in 1973 to only 59,000 today, in part because of the flight of white students to private and parochial schools after court-ordered busing began in the mid-1970s. In the high schools, the dropout rate has reached 43%. Only 3,000 seniors graduate each year.

Determined to halt the downward drift of the school system, Boston area businesses have been stirred into action. In an imaginative program announced last week, nearly three dozen companies set a fund-raising goal of $5 million to help cover the tuition costs of any public high school graduate who is accepted by a college. What's more, the companies pledged to give the students priority in hiring after graduation. Says Edward Phillips, a leader of the effort and chairman of New England Mutual Life Insurance Co., which donated $1 million to the plan: "Our goal is that no qualified graduate of the Boston public schools be denied access to higher education because of a lack of financial counseling and financial resources."

It is nothing new for private donors to pitch in for public education. Just last week, the Rev. Andrew Greeley, best-selling author of novels like Ascent Into Hell, announced his plan to set up a $1 million fund to assist Catholic schools in Chicago in which minorities constitute at least half the enrollment. But the practice of taking responsibility for the future of entire graduating classes of schools and even of school systems is a new idea, one that appears to be gaining support around the country. Responding in part to sharp cutbacks in federal funding for student aid, benefactors from Dallas to Chicago, from Oakland to New York City, are pitching in to shore up troubled public- school systems.

Some of the elements of Boston's plan have been in place since 1982, when about 25 local companies began pledging jobs to the city's high school graduates under a unique undertaking called the Boston Compact. Last year the Compact, in which 350 firms now take part, provided jobs to 823 high school graduates, most of them entry-level positions, such as clerk and secretary, at an average salary of $5.30 an hour. The program has already helped to reduce the city's unemployment rate for high school graduates to 4.5%, well below the national level of 17%. Delegations from as far away as Sweden and France have visited Boston to examine the system.

Working through another program called Action Center for Educational Services and Scholarships, Boston companies last year began paying for financial-aid advisers in each of the city's 17 public high schools. The advisers steer students to any available grants, loans or scholarships. When these possibilities are exhausted, ACCESS provides additional cash to ensure that students have the full amount they need for school. This year, 150 of the city's college-bound students got a total of $80,000 in ACCESS funds, an average of $535 for each. "Finding those 'last dollars' often defeats candidates for college," explains Phillips. "They lose hope."

On the same day that Boston was trumpeting its new program, a similar project was being kicked off in Dallas. The city is seeking businesses and community groups to underwrite the future college tuitions of some 1,000 local sixth graders, most of them blacks from poor sections of the city. To help launch the project, the man who inspired it, New York City Entrepreneur Eugene Lang, was squired through a two-day round of banquets and tributes by Dallas Mayor A. Starke Taylor Jr. Five years ago, Lang promised the 61 sixth graders at his former elementary school in Harlem that he would help pay the college tuition for every one of them who finished high school. Today all but one of the 51 students from that class who still live in New York City are also still in school.

Since last year, when the success of Lang's plan began to be publicized, nine more New York City classes, a total of 500 students, have been "adopted" by individuals who each have contributed $250,000 and agreed to keep a personal interest in the progress of "their" students. Now Lang is attempting to go national with his inspiration through "I Have a Dream," a New York City-based foundation he has established to help other communities set up similar programs. To date, he says, 20 cities in addition to Dallas, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami, are either organizing a program or planning one. Says Lang: "For the first time you realize how the wings of an idea can spread."

The Dallas project calls for 54 sixth-grade classes in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods to be adopted by local businesses, individuals or community groups. For each class, the sponsor will contribute a total of about $25,000 over six years. After graduation, the STEP (Strategies to Elevate People) Foundation, which runs the program, expects to pay an average of $250 each semester toward each student's college tuition.

Can private donors be counted on to maintain such programs over the long haul? Sponsors of the Boston program have already collected $4 million toward their $5 million goal. The participating companies hope to raise an additional $150,000 to $200,000 annually. Says New England Life's Phillips: "That amount plus interest income from the $5 million will sustain the fund." Whether the Dallas program will be as well supported remains to be seen. By week's end about 30 still had no benefactors. But Elaine Farrell, a board member of STEP who helped bring Lang to Dallas, is confident. "We know we can make it work," she says. "So we're hitting the pavement."

With reporting by Robert Ajemian/Boston and B. Russell Leavitt/ Atlanta