Summary:
Zip code 02124 in Dorchester has two high schools, both part of the Boston Public Schools district: TechBoston Academy, which serves grades 7–12 with 850 students, and Boston International High School & Newcomers Academy, which serves grades 9–12 with 490 students. Together they enroll 1,340 students. Both schools rank among the lowest-performing high schools in Massachusetts, placing in the bottom 2–7% statewide in each of the last three years and earning 0 stars every year on record. Families should know that these statewide ranks apply to both schools, so the more useful comparison is between the two.
On completion, TechBoston Academy is the stronger of the two: it graduates 88.6% of students, about 7.3 points above the Boston district rate of 81.3%, and its dropout rate of 2.9% is less than one-third the district's 8.8%. Boston International graduates 57.6% and has a 30.4% dropout rate — a gap of 31.0 points in graduation and 27.5 points in dropout, the widest in the data. Test scores are low at both schools. TechBoston's strongest result is 7th-grade English at 16.19% proficient, with its weakest areas in 8th- and 10th-grade math. Boston International reported 0% proficient in 10th-grade Science in 2025–2026 and 0% in Physics in 2024–2025 — genuine reported zeros, not withheld figures.
Interestingly, Boston International is the better-resourced school on paper — $30,813 per student versus $26,922, and a student–teacher ratio of 8.7:1 versus 12.1:1 — yet posts the lowest outcomes, a reminder that the two schools are not serving comparable populations. Note also that free/reduced-lunch data is not reported for either school, spending figures are from 2020–2021, and only one year of graduation and dropout data is available, so those rates should not yet be read as trends.
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