BOSTON — Mayor Michelle Wu took a victory lap over Boston Public Schools' highest graduation rate in district history. A new analysis says the numbers are a mirage.

While graduation rates have climbed, SAT scores for BPS students have remained flat. The average BPS student hovers around the College Board's college-readiness benchmarks, with many falling below.

The gap is worse for the students the district claims to be helping most.

Low-income students saw their graduation rate rise by 12 percent between 2017 and 2025. Their math scores dropped by 5 percent over the same period.

English Language Learners saw the most dramatic disconnect: graduation rates up 21 percent, while reading scores declined by 9 percent and math scores fell by 13 percent.

Only about 40 percent of Boston's tenth-graders meet expectations in reading and math on the state MCAS exam — both figures down since 2019. Less than a third of low-income students, and less than 10 percent of ELL students, are MCAS proficient in either subject.

City Journal points to several policy changes that inflated the graduation rate without corresponding academic improvement.

Credit recovery programs allow students to retake courses they failed. BPS's own 2012 analysis found that its online credit-recovery program boosted the four-year graduation rate by 4.8 percentage points. Such programs are widespread nationally and have been criticized for prioritizing graduation statistics over actual learning. A 2018 audit of a Brooklyn high school found 96 percent of make-up courses awarded credits inappropriately.

The "No Credit" ban. Ahead of the 2021-22 school year, BPS published a policy banning teachers from giving "No Credit" grades. Instead, students receive "incomplete" marks, which the district said would "enable equitable learning recovery."

"Equitable grading" consultants. In 2021 and 2022, BPS spent at least $120,000 on an educational consulting group that reportedly advocates for "equitable grading policies."

The MCAS graduation requirement was lifted. After a 2024 ballot initiative, Massachusetts eliminated the requirement that students pass the MCAS to graduate. The Massachusetts Teachers Association, a major force behind the ballot measure, was later penalized for failing to disclose nearly $2.4 million in campaign contributions before Election Day 2024.

Wu defended the graduation numbers publicly, saying BPS isn't lowering standards. "We're not moving the goalposts and making it easier for people to get by," she said.

The City Journal analysis concluded: "The increase in graduation rates is more the result of policy changes than of students' rising academic achievement. And it comes at the expense of students' readiness for the real world — a cost that the students themselves will ultimately pay."