Boston

Education

Home of the nation's first school and first university (both established in the 1630s), Boston is renowned as an educational mecca. There are more than a dozen four-year institutions of higher learning within the city proper and many more in the surrounding area. Colleges and universities within Boston itself include Boston University, Northeastern University, the New England Conservatory of Music, Simmons College, and a branch of the University of Massachusetts, and Harvard's medical school. Across the Charles River in Cambridge are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and Harvard University. Other well-known institutions of higher education in the region include Tufts University, Boston College, Brandeis University, and Wellesley College.

Boston Latin School, opened in 1635, is the oldest public school in the United States. In 1998, the Boston School District was comprised of 129 elementary, middle, and high schools (72 elementary schools, 20 middle schools, seven K–8 schools, and 18 high schools), with a pupil/staff ratio of approximately 13 to 1. As of fiscal year 1999, public school enrollment was 63,000; the racial and ethnic breakdown was 49 percent black, 26 percent Hispanic, 15 percent white, and 9 percent Asian. Private and parochial schools enrolled 15,400 students. Boston was the first major city to provide Internet access to all public school students. The public school system employed 4,534 teachers, 536 administrators, and 450 support personnel.

The Boston school system's NetYear project was launched in 1996, with the goal of providing one computer for every four students by 2001.