Yesterday, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and the Mayor of Boston reached an agreement not to label the Boston Public Schools “underperforming” and the state backed away from taking control of the district. Perhaps they realized that state takeovers typically make things worse, not better.
Our reader Christine Langhoff is a retired teacher in Boston. She added the following informed comment.
Christine Langhoff writes:
Despite the Boston Globe’s heartfelt desire for privatization – its education reporting is outsourced to privatizers and charteristas at The Barr Foundation – public pushback had an impact. The state has had zero success in the school systems where it intervened, when measured by the metric the state board loves: test scores. Boston scores, even during the virtual schooling of the pandemic, have been higher than in Lawrence, Springfield, Holyoke and Southbridge, where the state is in charge. They failed to get this done before Governor Charlie Baker – funded by the Kochs and the Waltons – leaves office this year.
Our newly elected mayor, Michelle Wu, has her own two young sons in BPS and is committed to public education. She has refused to back away from her advocacy for the schools. Her predecessor, Marty Walsh (now Biden’s Secretary of Labor), was himself a founder of a charter school, and underfunded the schools during all seven years of his mayoralty. He made no effort to solve the issues cited in the state’s report in his quest to defund, destabilize, and destroy the school system.
Wu has managed in a brief time to recruit two excellent finalists for the superintendent’s position. Both of them are true public school educators who live in Boston. Mary Skipper’s three children are BPS graduates and Tommy Welch’s kids are presently enrolled as well. Contrast with Laura Perille, who was named superintendent by Walsh, despite being completely unqualified save for the fact that she ran an umbrella group for the foundations bent on privatization. (Perille took over from Broadie Tommy Chang, who was responsible in LA for the disastrous rollout of laptops.)
It’s a new day for public education in the city of Boston. The Waltons are somewhere, licking their wounds in defeat once again.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks, Diane.
In a time beset by more and more dire news, it feels like it’s possible to take a deep breath this morning.
thanks for sharing that moment with all of us 🙂
Delighted to have something positive, Ciedie!
Thanks, Christine!!!
I don’t think the Waltons are licking their wounds.
When narcissists, psychopaths, or sociopaths, such as the Walmart Walton family, doesn’t get what they want, they plot how to get revenge and win anyway. They send out their thugs/minions to find someone to buy, bribe, bully or destroy.
True, Lloyd, but this isn’t their first defeat by those who’ve organized to save our public schools. This is the revenge they’ve been seeking since 2016 when their ballot question to eliminate Massachusetts’ charter cap was roundly defeated 2-1 due to resistance and organizing led by the Boston Teachers Union. Their thugs and minions have seats on the state board, which apparently just didn’t have the needed votes to do the foul deed.
Thank you so much for posting Christine’s excellent report on the BPS success and her valuable information!
THIS is the information and research the Boston Globe should be reporting not the privateers lies!
Several years ago, I visited Boston to talk my about a new book and the dangers of privatization. The reporter who interviewed me (Scott something) was strongly pro-privatization and hostile to my message.
That would have been Scot Lehigh of the Boston Globe. He’s spent more than 20 years denigrating the work of the teachers, the performance of our students and the judgment of our families.
Yes, it was Scot Lehigh.
I had a similarly hostile reception at the editorial board of the Seattle Times. In 2011 or 2012 , I visited Seattle and the local unions organized an amazing event. They filled the Convention Center, all 3,000 seats. The Seattle paper didn’t send a reporter but wrote it up as an event with “a few hundred” people. The reporter did not attend.
Lehigh’s role has largely been filled now by James Vaznis, who has lots to say about Boston, though he lives in Cambridge.
At least in the North when a misfit administrator is brought in and parents smell a rat in his bad ideas, there is a potential for changing course. In the South where the Republicans rule, the ideas go from bad to worse, and toxic privatization often recycles on the merry go round of failed policies.
Ah, some good news. Thankful.
I know, in the light of the revelations at the January 6 committee hearing this is small potatoes, but it matters. Autocracy – minority rule over the will of the people – is never acceptable, especially when it comes to the cornerstone of our democracy, our public schools.
Here’s a report on the protest outside today’s meeting of the state board. The demonstration went on as scheduled despite the last minute accord because “they need to know we’re going to show up”.
A good education, Nguyen said, depends on the relationships between teachers and students. “Ask any student or educator what’s their favorite part of Excel. The majority will say, ‘The people here.’”
Instead of pushing schools to focus their time and energy on MCAS, she said, the state should provide the money that’s needed for smaller classes, more academic offerings and extracurriculars, and other programs before and after school.
Several parents also spoke against state intervention at the rally, in both English and Spanish. They could not talk directly to the state board because the board limits public comment to 30 minutes.
https://schoolyardnews.com/bps-teachers-and-parents-rally-against-state-intervention-cb3e061cc1f1
Thank you, Christine, for your activism! xoxoxoxo!!!!
And, Bob, thank you for the term, Immunity Card. I was slow to make a connection. The Gates-funded study that identified the religious as inclined to authoritarianism should have led me to the reasoning that the religious would demand an immunity card for their sect.
“Under performing” is a dishonest label based on an irrelevant artificial test. However, there is a bigger problem that will take courage to fix. This blog has done a great job of finding legitimate faults with the fly by night charters. However, like the GOP, don’t have a clue how to fix the public schools.