There is a new scandal in New York City. It seems the New York City Housing Authority paid $10 million to the Boston Consulting Group to write a report that is not available to the public that paid for it. According to the article in the New York Daily News, the report was commissioned by someone at the Housing Authority who used to work for the Boston Consulting Group.
Now, readers of this blog may recall that the Boston Consulting Group was paid over $1 million in private funds to draft a short little paper recommending the privatization of a large number of public schools in Philadelphia. It was also hired (not sure the price tag) to draft the plan for the Transition Planning Commission that merges the schools of Memphis and Shelby County, moving a large number of children and $212 million into private hands.
Who are these guys? Who elected them to redraft the meaning of public education in urban America?
Their role in reshaping education is becoming more noticeable but I still have no idea where they are coming from.
They usually advise major corporations. Why are they now redesigning urban school districts?
What does Boston Consulting Group know about education? For that matter, what does McKinsey, Alvarez & Marsal, and Bain Capital know about education? Are these corporate strategists imposing corporate practices on a public service that belongs to the local community? Are they turning our schools into mirror images of corporate America?
Will we be stack ranking teachers and children like GE and Microsoft? Will we close low-performing schools and replace them with start-ups? Uh, yes, we are doing it now thanks to NCLB and Race to the Top.
What is their expertise? What is their experience? Do they know everything? Who advises them on education?
I read on the BCG website that Margaret Spellings is a senior advisor. Who else is giving them direction about how to transform public education by giving it to private entrepreneurs?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They also were in New Orleans within months after the storm supposedly volunteering their services with the Bring Back New Orleans Education Committee. I also believe they got a contract form either the Louisiana State Department of Education to assist communities in developing the new public school landscape. Many community members quickly begin to see their bias towards charter schools. They were actively involved in designing our privatized public school district.
I know about New Orleans. They like McKinsey, who Jindal once worked for, have doors open to them in LA.
Here’s a good summary of their goals:
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has been around the block or two when it comes to corporate schooling, even though it profits from other consulting and includes as alumni Mitt Romney, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and hedge fund manager John Paulson.* Along with Broad Foundation support, the consulting firm worked on Delaware’s Vision 2015 for a longer school day in 2007, designed a business plan for the North Carolina New Schools Project, and have left footprints in Cleveland, Arizona, Seattle, Chicago, Memphis, and New Orleans. BCG, as Daniel Denvir has noticed, recommended “that New Orleans, which has decimated its teachers’ union and put most schools under charter control, create the exact same species of achievement networks in 2006” as the ones proposed for Philly.**
Since at least 2007, BCG has been working on linking teacher pay to student test scores and so-called academic achievement for the Dallas Independent School District. Under J. Puckett’s Texas office leadership, BCG has also struck a deal with Uplift Education, where Jeb Bush’s son, George P., sits on the board of directors. Puckett and Phil Montgomery, Uplift’s founding member, both sit on the board of Commit, an IBM, Bank of America, Bank of One-funded school group. Puckett was also a player in the Exxon Mobile/Gates Foundation-hyped National Math and Science Initiative (page 27, PDF box).
BCG heavily promotes online learning in K-12 and college. In “Unleashing the Potential of Technology in Education,” the consulting firm calls for an “aligned set of educational objectives, standards, curricula, assessments, interventions, and professional development,” all centered around online technology. Deeming charter schools the leaders of internet schooling, the “study’s” authors quote online profiteer and Democrat for Education Reform’s Tom Vander Ark, praises Rocketship for hiring low wage non-teachers, and thanks their senior advisor, Margaret Spelling, Bush’s U.S. Secretary of Education. The” report” also praises the conflict-of-interest-laden School of One in NYC and KIPP’s BetterLesson program.
Read full article and comments:
http://btownerrant.com/2012/05/18/in-the-city-of-corporate-love-and-beyond-the-boston-consulting-group-gates-and-the-filthy-rich/
you need to look at the BCG and what its doing in terms of its famous Product Marketing Matrix – explained here: http://sahilachangebringer.blogspot.com/2011/11/of-dogs-cows-stars-question-marks.html
Reblogged this on Capitan Typo's Adventures in Education and commented:
Wile other things have prevented me from producing my next post deconstructing public announcements on LSLD, here is a sort onarelated topic. Tis post comes from the Blog of Diane Raitch, and American historian of Education who is now an outspoken critic of educational reform movements and privatization of public schools inthe U.S. This pos is relevant to NSW because the Boston Consulting Group are the ones that the previous labour government commissioned to report on saving costs in public education. Local Schools, Local Decisions is the ultimate manifestation of the Boston Consulting Groups recommendations on education.
Please keep writing about this. I believe that your understanding of the k-12 world and its vulnerable testing-industrial weaknesses, and your keen understanding of what you have wonderfully styled as the “accountability juggernaut” is vital to thinking about and planning against the collapse of our flawed but in so many ways wonderful education world, a long time in making: will it take a short time to collapse? Not if we keep working.
We are already seeing collapse in several inner cities, under pressure from rightwing governors and legislatures, abetted by Race to the Top.
It’s tragic but it’s not too late. The public must become informed and push back.
A representative from BCG came to the WA state PTA assembly. There was a lot of talk about closing the equity and achievement gap (not the same thing, I know) and family engagement. As you probably know, WA state is being held in contempt for not adequately funding public education, but they seem eager to shift the focus away from funding. Any thoughts about where all this is going?
The Boston Consulting Group will push charters to divert attention from funding. They won’t fool the Washington State Supreme Court
In 2022 this will be very relevant.
Thank you !