State deal buys time for BPS — now hard work begins

The deal between the Department of Elementary and Second Education and Boston Public Schools was a win for BPS and Mayor Michelle Wu.

But it’s a win with an asterisk. By tapping the brakes on state receivership, the DESE let Boston buy some time to fix the many problems that brought the BPS to this point.

“Under this plan, BPS and the City of Boston will take immediate action to address long-standing deficiencies in special education, English learner instruction, student safety and transportation, along with other problems detailed in DESE’s recent district review,” the DESE said in a statement.

Now the city and BPS have to get cracking.

It helps to have the inherent deadline of a three-year plan hanging over the proceedings and someone looking over their shoulders. DESE is hiring an independent auditor to make sure data is accurate, and provide $10 million in financial support and technical assistance, it said, adding “the department is very pleased that BPS and the City will now move forward to improve the educational experiences for all children in the City of Boston.”

Wasn’t that always on the todo list?

State Education Commissioner Jeff Riley’s earlier report didn’t mince words on the state of Boston Public Schools, and he is far from the first to point out problems.

Of particular interest in the plan is the looming Aug. 15 deadline, when the district must begin a safety audit. A quick scan of news reports detailing recent gun and violence incidents across the district would be a good place to start. The return of police officers to Boston schools would be a welcome move for both students and school staff.

Some are taking a wait-and-see approach to changes the BPS will ultimately make.

As the State House News Service reported, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education member Michael Moriarty said he remains “skeptical” about the impact the resolution will have. Moriarty criticized the length of negotiations, and described the process as “a lot more like a mere fight about control of money, jobs and power among the adults between a large, urban bureaucracy and the state bureaucracy.

“Going forward, if there’s any sense of intransigence about the vital work that needs to be done, I implore you, Commissioner Riley: drop the other shoe and recommend receivership,” Moriarty said. “For the sake of the children and families, I hope my skepticism is unfounded. We’ll see. A lot rests on the capacity of the next superintendent.”

Indeed it does, which is why NAACP Boston President Tanisha Sullivan’s call to halt the superintendent search process is ill-timed at best. While the majority of students in Boston Public Schools are Black or Latino, neither of the two finalists are Black or Latino. Sullivan, who’s also running for secretary of state against Bill Galvin, wrote to Boston School Committee Chair Jeri Robinson “the lack of representation in the finalist pool should have immediately caused the process to pause, review, and reopen (if necessary). How can we hold school leaders accountable for representative candidate slates, if we are not leading by example at the top?”

With a district teetering on the edge of receivership, time is a luxury the BPS doesn’t have. Boston needs a new superintendent, stat.

This must be the last report slamming the performance of Boston Public Schools.