Tommy Chang is resigning as superintendent of the Boston public schools, only three years into his five year contract. The reasons are unclear, but the story suggests it may be because of failure to relate to parents or the mayor was dissatisfied or sharing of information with ICE, which led to a student being deported.
If you know more, chime in.
Chang was formerly a top deputy to John Deasy in L.A.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is amazing to me how, in education, you see the recycling of incompetent people run leadership positions. I’ve seen it where I live in NJ (NJ, a school administrator paradise) where incompetent people, tossed out of districts, are eagerly hired by other districts. It is too easy to get certified for these positions and too easy to keep them.
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You-know-what rises to the top…
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This story is going big, and getting national coverage.
Here’s CBS Network News:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boston-public-schools-lawsuit-alleges-ice-cooperation-superintendent-tommy-chang-resigns/
It’s interesting to note the contrast between what Chang says in his farewell letter and his actions:
TOMMY CHANG’S FAREWELL LETTER TO PARENTS AND STUDENTS:
“Thirty-seven years ago, as an immigrant from Taiwan, I showed up in public schools without a word of English,” the farewell letter said. “Public school teachers guided me in a journey that gave me one of the greatest responsibilities a human being can have —the education of a city’s children.
“In this moment more than ever, I want every immigrant
child to know that’s the country America strives to be,
must be, and will be.”
… so I secretly helped ICE arrest your fellow immigrant classmates and throw them all out of the country.
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There is no way at all that Chang made the decision to inform ICE without the knowledge and consent of Mayor Walsh and likely Police Commissioner Evans, who oversees school police. That’s not how this works.
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and in the process of being ‘tossed out’ so often MUCH contract compensation is paid
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Quid pro quo for taking the fall for the mayor and police commissioner.
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My allies in Boston were very disappointed with him
Sent from my iPhone
>
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My first thought was maybe Chang is on his way to LA after this from Twitter with Kyle Stokes, ed reporter for KPCC:
Kyle Stokes @kystokes
INBOX: #LAUSD’s new superintendent, @AustinLASchools, has named his Chief of Staff: @RKockler — a @broadcenter alumna and currently a top official in Louisiana’s Dept. of Ed.
Show this thread
Kim Kaufman @KimKaufman
Kim Kaufman Retweeted Kyle Stokes
Oddly, LAUSD left out Broad Center or TFA connection in their announcement: https://home.lausd.net/apps/news/article/883101 … @kystokes Also of note, New Orleans is all charters.
I assume Beutner will be hiring a lot of Broadies to help him out in his job. However, then someone sent me this:
Chang, BPS sued over secrecy surrounding student information sharing with ICE
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/06/21/chang-bps-sued-over-secrecy-surrounding-student-information-sharing-with-ice/AWsz0zx7M8xhRwya9qrvhM/story.html?p1=Article_Recommended_ReadMore_Pos2
Hope this makes sense and isn’t too confusing.
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Beutner’s first hire is not only TFA and Broadie. Whatever she did to push Common Core failed, as Louisiana dropped even lower on NAEP 2017. Methinks she is bailing out of John White’s sinking ship to jump to new one.
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I’m sure he is getting a pretty penny for “resigning”.
Ka Chang!
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It is likely that this scandal was simply the final straw for the Mayor and the School Committee. As a Board chair, when the District forcibly disenrolled 100+ of our students last fall, the Headmaster and I struggled to get this Superintendent to acknowledge the risks of disenrollment on students with indeterminate status. I was shocked by Chang’s seeming indifference then—I’m now horrified that he was apparently proactively putting students in potential danger.
This scandal, the IRS scandal, the start time debacle, and the disenrollment crisis all add up to a deeply troubling pattern. It is highly unlikely that the current ICE news reflects the full scope of his problematic tenure, and it raises serious questions about which
of Chang’s actions, decisions, and policies may have been ethically or legally compromised.
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From his Broad Academy bio:
https://www.broadcenter.org/alumni/directory/profile/tommy-chang/
“As superintendent for Boston Public Schools, Tommy is working with educators, parents and community leaders to bring a similar approach to improving schools.”
… by covertly helping ICE throw kids out of the country, and then, when busted on this, desperately trying to cover it up.
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Maybe this time in-house candidates will not be excluded.
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The major policy initiative Chang failed to institute was to propel Boston’s schools further along the route to privatization via charters. The unexpected defeat in November 2016 of Question 2 to remove the cap on charters, notwithstanding the millions of dollars in dark money expended, made it clear that there was no clamor among Boston voters to further harm the city’s public schools. The only wards where the proposal got an up vote were a handful of affluent areas such as Beacon Hill, where the progeny of the well-to-do seldom frequent the schools which serve all, save for The Boston Latin School.
We have a strong mayor government and a school committee appointed by the mayor. Additionally, the major players in the school system remain behind the scenes. The Boston Schools Fund, http://www.bostonschoolsfund.org/staff/,
Harvard Graduate School of Education, TNTP, TFA, EdVestors and The Boston Foundation are a few of the reformy orgs we host (as in parasites). Their ideas are regularly lauded in the Boston Globe, whose owner and publisher John Henry is chums with Seth Klarman, whose Question 2 dark money totaled $3.3 million. (Klarman also holds some $92 million of Puerto Rico’s debt.)
No doubt these players were instrumental in bringing Broadie boy Chang to Boston in the first place, but he seems to have always been out of his depth. Mayor Walsh makes a habit of appearing ignorant of policies which don’t play out well, but he holds all the strings of the schools. On Chang’s watch, we have had repeated slashings of the school budget at a time when the city is flush with cash, repeating the mantra of “It’s the biggest budget ever!” As a parent astutely pointed out at one budget hearing, every budget is always the biggest ever – since 1635.
The debacle of changing start times, rolled out just before Christmas break this school year would have changed the beginning bell at 105 of 125 schools, some by as much as two hours. Start times at 44 schools were at 7:15, with dismissals of kids at 1:15, all to save a few bucks on bus transportation as it turned out. Charters and Catholic schools largely had the preferred later start times (Boston pays for their transportation).That proposal had to be rescinded after a huge outcry.
Prior was a “scandal” about the use of money raised at individual schools for student activities on which the city did not pay nearly a million dollars in taxes to the IRS – until the very day of the Mayoral election.
A community newspaper opined that Chang took one for the team.
“Yet the Walsh administration paid a total of $944,000 on Nov. 7 — Election Day — when an unnamed city official handed off a check to an IRS representative in City Hall. The school department’s share of that — $32,000 for paying employees off the books from student activity funds — represented a tiny share of the total payoff. Most of the fees and penalties came from the city’s failure to deduct Medicaid withholdings from some employees paychecks.
The seeming improbability that the Walsh administration could a) receive the findings of a major IRS audit; b) negotiate a nearly million dollar settlement and c) cut a check for that settlement without the knowledge or imprimatur of the city’s chief executive had some critics questioning Walsh’s version of events.”
https://www.baystatebanner.com/2017/12/06/irs-audit-of-city-raises-questions/
Then, on this Thursday, Chang was named in a lawsuit by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice seeking documents on the interactions between the school department and ICE. After a verbal altercation at his high school, school police officers wrote up an incident report, charging with scant evidence that a student was a gang member. The student, whose green card was pending, was detained 16 months and then deported. Again Mayor Walsh claims to know little.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/06/21/chang-bps-sued-over-secrecy-surrounding-student-information-sharing-with-ice/AWsz0zx7M8xhRwya9qrvhM/amp.html
For a Broad supernintendo, Chang lasted a long time – three years! Tommy, we hardly knew ye! No doubt he’ll find a soft landing. We can hope the privatizers who’ve wormed their way into the administration slither away too.
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Saugerties, NY superintendent, Seth Turner, also announced plans to move to ‘a leadership position in education.’ He has a poor reputation among the Opt Out movement and is a believer in charter schools. My mind immediately goes to Devos and her plans for privatization.
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Man, how is it that these guys keep failing up into positions of responsibility for which they have demonstrated manifest incompetence. This happens quite a bit in the New York CIty Department of Education. The superintendent in the district in which I serve ran a school of which she was a principal into the ground, then failed up into the position she currently holds.
I don’t understand why this continues to happen.
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At companies, the incompetent people often get promoted to VP positions because the competent people working under them can’t stand having them around messing things up.
In other words, they are promoted to get them out of the hair of the people actually making money for the company.
But I don’t know why it happens in education since the incompetent people end up even more in the hair of the competent people.
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The Patriot Act, which gave us ICE, inspired other watch lists as well. Boston, though considered a liberal city, has such a list that may have a dispropotionate impact on our immigrant communities. Below is a link to how the Boston Police Department identifies people for their gang database. Chicago also has such a database, which has been widely flagged as containing many errors. The school to detention pipeline is of concern to anyone whose work involves young people. These profiles seem to be built on the flimsiest of indicators. It’s unclear whether persons are notified of their inclusion in the database or if they are able to have their names removed.
“GANG MEMBER VERIFICATION:
The Department uses a ’10 Point Verification System’ to determine when an individual will be considered a Gang Associate or Gang Member. An individual that does not have a minimum of six (6) points using the 10 Point Verification System will not be included in the Gang Assessment Database.
The following list of items or activities are examples of conduct that could result in an individual’s verification for entry into the Gang Assessment Database and are not meant to be all inclusive.
Prior Validation by a Law Enforcement Agency (9 points)
Information Received from an Unaffiliated Law Enforcement Agency (8 points)
Self Admission (8 points)
Use and or Possession of Group Paraphernalia or Identifiers (4 points)
Group Related Photograph (2 points)
Known Group Tattoo or Marking (8 points)
Information from Reliable, Confidential Informant (5 points)
Information from Anonymous Informant or Tipster (1 point)
Victim/Target Affiliated with Member of Rival Group (8 points if not in custody
or incarcerated; 3 points if in custody or incarcerated)
Possession of Documents (8 points if not in custody or incarcerated; 3 points if in
custody or incarcerated)
Named in Documents as a Member (8 points)
Possession of Gang Publications (2 points)
Participation in Publications (8 points)
Court and Investigative Documents (9 points)
Published News Accounts (1 point)
Contact with Known Gang Member/Associate (FIO) (2 points per interaction)
Documented Association (BPD Incident Report) (4 points per interaction)
Membership Documents (9 points)
Information Developed During Investigation and/or Surveillance (5 points)
Information Not Covered By Other Selection Criteria (1 point)
10 Points will result in a person being identified as a Gang Member. 6-9 Points will result in a person being identified as a Gang Associate.”
Click to access rule335+%28gang+database%29.pdf
Here’s an in-depth look at the policy:
“But Walsh’s own police department was at that moment putting immigrant youth at risk of deportation by sharing information with those very federal immigration officials, who were newly emboldened to seize undocumented young people alleged to be gang involved. Indeed, even the Boston Public Schools Police were, and continue to be, involved in what some advocates are now calling a ‘school to deportation pipeline.’
In order to understand how that pipeline works, Walsh and other city policymakers should take a closer look at both the Boston Police Department’s local spy center and its gang database — which, whether out of ignorance or cowardice, they have largely ignored to date. Then officials should follow the lead of other big cities, and make necessary changes to protect our youth.”
https://theappeal.org/from-gang-allegations-to-deportation-how-boston-is-putting-its-immigrant-youth-in-harms-way-de3b0edc9327/
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