Wherever the Boston Consulting Group goes, certain outcomes are predictable:
1. It will recommend closing public schools.
2. It will recommend opening privately managed charter schools.
3. Most of the schools closed will be in African-American neighborhoods.
4. Most of the teachers laid off will be African American.
5. The Boston Consulting Group will get a fee that is outrageous in comparison to the work they do in writing a report (the report is everywhere the same, just change the name of the city).
In this case, they make the usual recommendations for Memphis.
Before, their handiwork was seen in Philadelphia.
Who advises them? Margaret Spellings.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks, Diane, for sending out the alert on these guys. The plan they are pushing in Philadelphia is corporate garbage and says nothing about making schools better for students.
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My west coast district uses the BERC Group (http://www.bercgroup.com/index.html). Have you heard anything about them? They seem to have done evaluations for many districts and education organizations throughout the western US.
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What else do you expect from these kinds of people? They are paid to destroy and that is what they do so that their friends, who they are in bed with, can score. This is all ideological and now driven by Obama and Duncan. One thing the dems and rats do not disagree on is privatization and corporatization of education. One thing some of my political mentors taught me is “When there is big money, there is no party.” Education K-12 general fund in the U.S. is over $700 billion the DOD budget this year is about $642 billion. Now tell me where the big easy to get money is? Also, do not forget the mind control part of the equation. When you control young minds and what they learn you control the future. So, do not teach them to think and make them competent, except for the elite class, as that will ruin your plans and profits.
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There’s some question about whether BCG is now working directly for the school district in Memphis – that their work with the TPC did not end with the TPC . . .
http://schoolingmemphis.blogspot.com/2012/11/is-bcg-back-in-memphis.html
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They also sold millions of dollars of unnecessary software for managing SPED students to RSD in New Orleans for managing IEPs when Paul Vallas was plundering us for federal recovery dollars. The state already provided a free tool, but BCG insisted theirs was “better” a few years and several million dollars later RSD had to abandon it.
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Gee, why does this sound familiar? We got the same exact treatment from Chicago’s Illinois Facilities Fund, which came to DC and then recommended the closing or “turnaround” of 37 schools in mostly poor, mostly black neighborhoods. Surprise, surprise, their “study” was funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
Walmart is opening 6 stores in DC, just coincidentally. And now we are embroiled in a community outcry to stop school closings.
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Great to see you at Kleinbaum event. This is a great piece. Sadly, Rutgers just hired Boston Consulting Group.
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Which cities has the BCG done this work in so far: Memphis, New Orleans, Cleveland, Philadelphia… what about chicago/DC/Detroit??? Was that BCG work too? The BCG never released their criteria for evaluating which schools to close- nor did they do site visits…. I want to piece together their decision-making process in order to reveal it for what it is… but I do not have a complete list of cities where they have made recommendations- can you provide that, Diane?
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Superstonk on reddit is talking about Boston Consulting Group and how they are used to crush companies and schools.
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