The Boston Globe reports that Boston gave McKinsey $660,000 to audit the schools. McKinsey proposed that the city could save millions by closing 40% of its public schools.
“A controversial city-ordered audit of Boston Public Schools suggested the district could save up to $85 million a year by closing 40 percent of its schools, according to newly released documents from the study.
“The March 5, 2015, draft by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. is much more detailed than a shorter version released to the public in December. The longer draft contains elements that did not appear in the previously released version that will likely be unpopular among parents.”
Last fall, when rumors flew that Mayor Marty Walsh made a secret deal to close 36 public schools—after campaigning against school closings and charter schools–the mayor’s office vehemently denied it.
The McKinsey report was written more than a year ago. It was kept secret. The fix is in.
What else would you expect in a city with mayoral control that hired a Broadie as superintendent? When Briadies arrive, public schools close.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And sometimes Broadies foster ill will within the schools to give the impression of failure. An example being the overblown and media fueled charges about institutional racism at Boston Latin, the oldest exam school in the country. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this controversy has come to a head just when the governor and mayor are pushing to lift the charter school cap. why have exam public school when charter school will do just as well?
It’s funny because in NYC, the biggest charter school operator has remained quiet about the lack of students of color in specialized high schools. It only suits the privatizers’ purpose to complain about it when they believe it will somehow undermine a public school and allow them to pick off the highest performing students from it. Somehow the media isn’t in the same kind of frenzy in NYC. Why?
Are you saying that the students who made claims of racism weren’t real? What makes you think the accusations were not legit?
Just look at Chicago.
*Wow!*
*Diane, raimondo’s hubby works for McKinsey & Co…like David Coleman used to….*
*I wonder if they will try that here in RI?*
*jo ann*
*PS* *I have to find an opening somehow in Projo to put this blog in it…People need too know…*
On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 11:00 AM, Diane Ravitchs blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “The Boston Globe reports that Boston gave McKinsey > $660,000 to audit the schools. McKinsey proposed that the city could save > millions by closing 40% of its public schools. “A controversial > city-ordered audit of Boston Public Schools sugge” >
Hell, the could save a lot more if they just closed all of them…and did not replace them with anything.
Now we are getting somewhere!
Come to think of it, just close down the whole city.
That should save a few billion.
Close down the Pentagon, NSA, CIA, FBI and all the other fascist-militarist surveillance agencies, saving close to one trillion dollars a year, and use the saved funds for education, single-payer health care, and transitioning to a sustainable energy society.
Maybe McKinsey needs audited.
$660,000 for McKinsey & Co.’s boilerplate recommendations, just change the name of the city, district, or state, and tinker with the fees.
Laura,
They could have hired Bostin Consulting Group and paid $1.5 million for the same advice.
Close all of the charters first. See if that will help.
Are the residents of Boston paying attention?
That’s a good question. We’d save a lot of money if we didn’t give former members of Congress healthcare and pension benefits for life. We’d save even more if we shut down Washington and had anarchy, but what does that say about our society. Any society that does not have the willingness to fund public education is a society in decline.
“Any society that does not have the willingness to fund public education is a society in decline.”
YEP!
Hell yes they are! Parents are the ones who got the McKinsey report through a long FOIA process. See the parent group QUEST for starters. Boston is a hot bed of activism these days – Opympics 2024, IndyCar, GE tax giveaways, BPS cuts. It’s all related, One Term Mayor Walsh working against the interests of citizens and for the interests of big businesses, giving out public resources for private profit.
The residents of Boston have not paid attention in nearly 400 years.
What makes you think they will start paying attention now?
They were paying attention when they dumped the tea.
Good point.
Make that 300 years.
ooops, 200+
Yes, we are paying attention in Boston! Parents, students, educators, and community members are working together to try and stem the tide. We see lots of examples of cities that are many steps ahead of us in the privatization of their schools and we’re doing our best to fight the trend. QUEST (of which I’m a member) is only one of many groups and individuals fighting this fight. Nice to know that many eyes are on our struggle.
“Reality gets defined not by facts and reason but by power and propaganda.”
Robert Parry
To use the common idiom, Boston is “woke”!
Parents, teachers and allies of public education protested on a frigid January night outside the mayor’s State of the City address. A few days earlier, 350 teachers, parents and students attended an informational town hall during the evening, as the issues of the hidden McKinsey report were publicly aired. There was another rally on February 17, during school vacation week.
Some 3400 students walked out of their classes on March 7 and went to City Hall and the State House to demonstrate after rallying on Boston Common. Some of them testified at the State House against the lifting of the charter cap. This was a student led and organized protest, which the mayor tried to dismiss with the classic “outside agitators” line. On March 17th, a group of parents, following the students’ lead, demonstrated outside City Hall, demanding the release of the report.
There have been a series of public hearings on the city’s budget, all of which are very well attended. A coalition of parents, educators and students are all on the same side of this argument, and though progress has been slow, we are not discouraged. Up next is walk-in day on May 7.
Much of this is organized on social media. In addition to the parents’ group QUEST, BEJA, Boston Education Justice Alliance http://bostonedjustice.org and the student groups YOUNG and BSAC http://www.youthonboard.org as well as Citizens for Public Schools are working together to keep our schools. The Boston Teachers Union has taken a page from our fellow unionists at the Chicago Teachers Union, allying with and supporting all these groups.
The question that has not been answered is why cuts to the budget, decreasing services to our SWD, and diminishment of offerings for students (closing high school libraries!) is necessary. Boston is in the midst of an unprecedented building and real estate boom; tax receipts are up by $95 million this year alone. (Massachusetts weathered the 2008 catastrophe pretty well.) We’re ranked number one (for what it’s worth) in urban school systems. What pretext is there for closing 30-50 schools? None.
But here’s the scenario we’re up against:
No elected school board, appointed by the mayor (since 1993)
The mayor founded a charter school
The superintendent is a Broadie
More parasites from TFA, TNTP, StudentsFirst are being hired at the school department
86% of our students aren’t white; most of them are poor and nearly half have English as a second language.
The governor wants more charters
The state board of ed is appointed by the governor
The state board is a cabal of privatizers from HGSE, the Pioneer Institute, New Schools Venture Fund
The former PARCC chairman is the state Commissioner
Walton is pouring money into the city
DFER sponsored successful candidates in the most recent election
Boston is a signatory to the Gates CRPE contract
The mayor and superintendent want One Enrollment
It’s an uphill battle and we can’t afford to lose.
To use the common idiom, Boston is “woke”!
Parents, teachers and allies of public education protested on a frigid January night outside the mayor’s State of the City address. A few days earlier, 350 teachers, parents and students attended an informational town hall during the evening, as the issues of the hidden McKinsey report were publicly aired. There was another rally on February 17, during school vacation week.
Some 3400 students walked out of their classes on March 7 and went to City Hall and the State House to demonstrate after rallying on Boston Common. Some of them testified at the State House against the lifting of the charter cap. This was a student led and organized protest, which the mayor tried to dismiss with the classic “outside agitators” line. On March 17th, a group of parents, following the students’ lead, demonstrated outside City Hall, demanding the release of the report.
There have been a series of public hearings on the city’s budget, all of which are very well attended. A coalition of parents, educators and students are all on the same side of this argument, and though progress has been slow, we are not discouraged. Up next is walk-in day on May 7.
Much of this is organized on social media. In addition to the parents’ group QUEST, BEJA, Boston Education Justice Alliance http://bostonedjustice.org and the student groups YOUNG and BSAC http://www.youthonboard.org as well as Citizens for Public Schools are working together to keep our schools. The Boston Teachers Union has taken a page from our fellow unionists at the Chicago Teachers Union, allying with and supporting all these groups.
The question that has not been answered is why cuts to the budget, decreasing services to our SWD, and diminishment of offerings for students (closing high school libraries!) is necessary. Boston is in the midst of an unprecedented building and real estate boom; tax receipts are up by $95 million this year alone. (Massachusetts weathered the 2008 catastrophe pretty well.) We’re ranked number one (for what it’s worth) in urban school systems. What pretext is there for closing 30-50 schools? None.
But here’s the scenario we’re up against:
No elected school board, appointed by the mayor (since 1993)
The mayor founded a charter school
The superintendent is a Broadie
More parasites from TFA, TNTP, StudentsFirst are being hired at the school department
86% of our students aren’t white; most of them are poor and nearly half have English as a second language.
The governor wants more charters
The state board of ed is appointed by the governor
The state board is a cabal of privatizers from HGSE, the Pioneer Institute, New Schools Venture Fund
The former PARCC chairman is the state Commissioner
Walton is pouring money into the city
DFER sponsored successful candidates in the most recent election
Boston is a signatory to the Gates CRPE contract
The mayor and superintendent want One Enrollment
It’s an uphill battle and we can’t afford to lose.
The inimitable Peter Greene has a nice summary:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2016/04/ma-how-to-gut-schools-boston-edition.html
(HR file for a Massachusetts public school teacher is not a public record.)
Diane Ravitchs,
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