Kind of late game tonight. First pitch starting just after 10 0 Clock Eastern, over to the stock market. Wall Street tonight Kind of a mixed bag. The NASDAQ losing 10 points today, but the Dow gained 261 and the S and P 500 up 10. Six. Dan Ray back on nightside Stick around. I'm Nicole Davis WBZ Boston's NewsRadio side with Dan Ray. I'm going to be easy. Boston's NewsRadio. Well, Good evening, everyone and welcome on in. Thank you. Nicole. It is Monday, September 13th. Tomorrow's a big day in the city of Boston. We are going to be joined in a moment by someone who is very interested in the result yesterday as I think all of us Julia, My name is Dan Ray. I'm the host of nights I've been off for about a week. Want to thank The folks were kind enough to fill in for me last week, Morgan White on Monday and Friday, as I think you were. You will remember Jordan Rich on Wednesday and Thursday and Ben Parker on Tuesday. So I really want to thank Those gentlemen for taking the time to give me the opportunity to spend a little bit of time. A little bit of time on vacation. I'll explain later on, Um why, um Uh, why I was had to be off last week. We'll get back to that later on. I don't want to in any way, shape or form detract from the time that we're going to spend with our next guest. It's my pleasure to welcome To the show, the mayor of Boston, and we did many programs with Mayor Marty Walsh over the last six or seven years and delighted tonight to have with us the mayor of Boston. Kim. Janey Mayor Kim Janey Mayor. Janey, I don't think we've ever had the pleasure of Talking before, but welcome. Welcome tonight side. How are you? Thanks so much. I am great. And I'm so glad that you were able to get a vacation. That is something, uh, that I have not had in quite some time. Well, and I'm sure well spent and very relaxing and reinvigorating. Oh, it was absolutely that and more. Um, my daughter. Went off to a new job across the country and San Francisco so had to be there to help along the way. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. As a as I'm sure you would. You would. You would understand that is for sure. Well, anyway, um, you have a very big day coming up tomorrow and I know that you don't want to vacation. You've worked very hard. No position acting there want to make that very clear. Uh, I know some people have used the phrase acting Mayor. I think that you're the mayor of Boston. Uh And I suspect you would agree with me on that so we will. We will assume that, um Uh, I also want to mention we have something in common. Your father and I went to Boston Latin school at around the same time. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Wonderful. He graduated in 1964. When? When did you go? I was a couple of years later, so I knew of him as an older classmate. Um, uh, And obviously, he went on to have a great career in education. Uh, I might answer did Yes, he did. He did indeed, and he was the great scholar at Boston Latin School and went on to Northeastern University in Boston University. And then went into education. Yes, as a schoolteacher here in our public schools, he started his career as a reading teacher at the Bancroft School in the South end. And then went on to be, uh, you know, within the Boston public school district principal and a headmaster, he was an area superintendent. And before he left BPS. He was the chief academic officer, and he left to become superintendent of Rochester, followed by Washington, D. C and then Newark, New Jersey. Yeah, quite a career in education. Uh, I'm sure that you are, you know very proud of him, And I know that you have a great deal of interest in education. Uh, you You yourself grew up. Uh, as your biography mentions, Um, at a tough time in Boston that second wave of Busing back back in the day in the in the in the late seventies. You of course, grew up in Roxbury, but you lived. Um you went to school. You grew up and lived in Roxbury. But you ended up spending a lot of time. In another part of the city in Charlestown, So you really began to get to know the city at a fairly young age, correct. Yes, Yes, And I also spent a lot of times in the south end. In fact, when I was being bussed to Charles Town, it was from the South End. My great grandparents had a brownstone. In the South end. And so I spent a lot of my childhood there as well. And as you mentioned yes, was bust during the battle to desegregate Boston Public school. Was a very difficult time in our city. Uh, you know, a lot of Children were not getting a good quality education. There was a lot of racial strikes in our city. There were often police escorts for our buses. Of rocks and racial slurs being thrown at us. As we were just trying to go to school. Um and we've come along way in our city. But our schools still need a lot of work. Obviously, they're much better than they were back in the 19 seventies. There's been a lot of improvement, but in many ways At the quality that parents seeking, uh, you know, it still feels like a lottery for for many parents when they are applying for Boston, public schools and our schools, unfortunately, are still largely segregated by race. Yeah, that's that's that's work to do. Yes, that's one of the statistics that strike me. Um maybe it's a different type of segregation. But What percentage they're about. 50,000. The number I hear is 50,000 students in Boston. What percentage of those students in the Boston public schools on minority these days? I've heard figures as high as 89%. Yeah. The vast majority of students are students of color in BPS. That is true. And, you know, I think the segregation may be a little different As you mentioned. I think there's some social economic Segregation that happened, uh, as well and again. There's a correlation there and terms of, uh, race. There's you know, often, uh, you know certain neighborhoods of certain community. And not only our school, largely Children of color. Um they are largely Children who live and poor communities. Um, we have Uh, a number of our students as well, who are students with disabilities about offense? We've got a number of our students who are English language learners. Um, we have, uh, very diverse population of students in terms of language and culture and not just raised And so more than half of the kids Who attend VPs living home. We're English is the second language where there's a primary language other than English. How How are we doing as a city and again? I realized that you know you have served as mayor. Only for you know, six or so months. You probably know that months and you believe it number of days, whatever. But how are we doing in terms of the percentage of students in the Boston public schools? Not that this is the only Um, really, the only way by which we should judge we should judge success. But what percentage of the students who are in the public school system graduating? And what percentage are going on either to a two year or four year college and I know the reason I asked that question is, I know that you are very concerned about perhaps expanding trade, schools and technical schools and vocational training. Even though you went to a great college Smith College, and a lot of our listeners went to college College isn't for everyone necessarily. But what if the numbers in terms of kids in the Boston public schools are actually going on to either two or four year college and graduating on time? Well, you know, not enough of them. If that is the path that they want their there so that the graduation rate has increased, Um over time, which is great. So students are graduating. More and more students are graduating from high school. But those who go on to college um you know it is taking longer. To graduate with cost more money, and then not enough to so many might go on, but not finish, and it costs money. And when we think about other opportunities, we want to think about those opportunities as great opportunities, not In the context that not everyone is meant for college like college is a great choice. If that is what you desire, but it is. It is now becoming more and more difficult, uh, for our students to go to college, and it's not so much Whether or not uh they are able to compete academically as it is. Um, you know, the cost of college and so on the one hand, we've got to do more to make sure that our students are prepared for college that they're able to go on to school without having to take a bunch of remedial. Of course, is But we also need to make sure that college is affordable and we've got A number of students who go on to college, maybe graduate with tens of thousands or.