The Boston Public Schools have yet another reason to be proud. The good news about improving MCAS scores was followed by a report last week on graduation rates from the respected Manhattan Institute.
The public policy think-tank gathered data on the high school graduating class of 1998. The study examined all 50 states and 50 of the nation's largest public school systems, looking at how many students who entered as ninth-graders graduated with their class.

Boston ranked fourth among those districts with 82 percent of its students graduating that year. Among urban districts it was second only to Albuquerque, N.M., (83 percent). Only two districts, both in affluent suburbs of Washington, D.C., scored higher - Fairfax County, Va., (87 percent) and Montgomery County, Md. (85 percent).

It was an impressive showing, especially when compared to the incredibly sad numbers out of Cleveland (28 percent) and Milwaukee (43 percent). Both of those cities are experimenting with school-voucher programs which offer students in failing schools public funds to attend private or religious schools.

Massachusetts as a whole also did rather well. Its 80 percent graduation rate put it in a class with Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey and Minnesota. Not right up there with the 93 percent rate in Iowa or 87 percent in Wisconsin and North Dakota, but still well above the national average of 74 percent.

The class of '98 was among the first to benefit from the Massachusetts School Reform Act. Their achievements are most surely worth noting - and worth building upon.