Call it the double-secret probation of Massachusetts public schooling.
State education commissioner Jeff Riley is livid at leaders of the Boston Public Schools, from the mayor on down, and he’s letting everyone know it. But he’s made it clear, so far at least, that he has no interest in exercising his ultimate authority and taking control of the state’s largest school district.
The result: blistering broadsides such as the dressing down he delivered to the district at Tuesday’s state board of education meeting.
Riley tore into the Boston system over its performance in meeting goals set forth a year ago in an improvement plan agreed to with the state to avoid a potential state takeover of the 46,000-student system.
He said Boston has failed to hire a leader of its special education programming or deliver a plan, due last November, for moving more special education students into mainstream classrooms. He also said the district has fallen short of hitting 95 percent on-time performance in its troubled school bus system, and has not met targets for renovating dilapidated school bathrooms.
“The administration signed a document saying that they would hit their goals. At best we can say their grade would be incomplete,” Riley said at Tuesday’s meeting.
The state and school district have been in a tension-filled dance since a March 2020 report, which lambasted the district on multiple fronts. The 286-page report said Boston’s special education services were “in disarray,” faulted its programming for English language learners, and took the district to task over the performance of its transportation system and condition of its facilities, starting with bathrooms.
The state and city signed an agreement pledging to work together to address issues identified in the report, and the state committed $4 million per year toward the efforts.
Two years ago, Riley ordered up a progress report. It pointed to a few areas of improvement, but broadly described a system still beset by deep dysfunction. It also had harsh words for the district over what the state said was “a pattern of inaccurate or misleading data” on everything from graduation rates to bathroom renovations and bus performance.
In a statement released yesterday in response to Riley’s latest criticism, the district urged patience with problems that have been years in the making.
The improvement plan the district and state agreed to “is addressing the long-standing broken systems that have persisted for decades in Boston,” BPS spokesman Max Baker said in a statement. “We recognize that we must act with urgency and engage with key stakeholders as we develop our plans. We cannot do this work overnight or alone if we truly want to create the lasting change that our students, families, and staff deserve.”
But Riley’s harsh words yesterday weren’t limited to Boston’s failure to hit benchmarks in its improvement plan with the state. He also lit into the district over the recent announcement by Mayor Michelle Wu of plans for a big high school shake-up.
Wu called for the relocation of the O’Bryant School of Math and Science, one of the city’s three selective-admission exam schools, from Roxbury to West Roxbury, and vowed to undertake a major renovation and expansion of Madison Park vocational high school school, which the O’Bryant currently shares a campus with.
“We were candidly blindsided by a major plan for high schools that seemed half-baked at best,” Riley said. He said the state – along with parents, teachers, and some school committee members – was not given any advanced notice of the plan.
Riley said it’s hard to evaluate the plans for the two schools without a cost estimate – he speculated that the price tag for a rebuilt Madison Park could be as high as $1 billion – and he raised some of the same concerns voiced by teachers and families about moving the city’s most diverse exam school to a largely white neighborhood far from the neighborhoods where many O’Bryant students live.
Riley’s comments suggested that, while the district is not under formal state control, he expects to be put in the loop on any major initiatives it’s considering. What’s more, as he has done several times in the past, Riley again seemed to hold out the threat that a takeover could still happen. If benchmarks on special education, facilities, and transportation aren’t fully met by the fall, he said, “I expect us to have a different discussion with this board.”
MICHAEL JONAS
FROM COMMONWEALTH
Short circuit: The National Transportation Safety Board issued its final report on the death of Robinson Lalin, who was caught in an MBTA Red Line door in April 2022 and dragged to his death at Broadway Station. The report blames the door malfunction on a short circuit caused by strands of wire inadvertently coming in contact with a mounting screw.
– The report also said the driver of the train didn’t follow proper procedure in checking the platform before departing and couldn’t have seen much anyway from her platform monitor because it had a 19-foot blind spot covering the door where Lalin was trapped.
– The Red Line fatality prompted a number of safety oversight changes at the MBTA and prompted the Federal Transit Administration to step up its safety oversight of the transit authority and conduct a review that is still ongoing. Read more.
Arroyo ethics violation: Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo admitted he violated the state conflict of interest law by representing his brother in a legal dispute involving the city and paid a $3,000 fine. Read more.
FROM AROUND THE WEB
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
A LGBTQ+ “renaissance” has hit Worcester. (Boston Globe)
A Worcester city councilor criticized the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce for releasing a letter last week against a proposed moratorium on clearing homeless encampments. (Worcester Telegram)
EDUCATION
A 32-year-old former state social worker has been identified – and criminally charged – as the person who fraudulently enrolled in three different Boston high schools as a teenager. (Boston Globe)
Massachusetts adjusts its teacher licensing rules to attract more educators. (State House News Service)
TRANSPORTATION
The owner of a pavement reclamation company apologized after an employee hung a Confederate flag at a MassDOT construction site on Route 2. MassDOT prohibits displaying the Confederate flag and required its removal before work could begin. (Worcester Telegram)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS
William Cascone’s sentence is vacated after all parties agree that the science used to convict him in 1987 is no longer valid. He served 35 years in prison. (Berkshire Eagle)
Abhijit “Beej” Das, an attorney who ran as a Democrat for Congress in Massachusetts in 2018, is indicted on fraud charges and accused of diverting client funds for his personal use. (Gloucester Times)