Hub schools need, but lack, decisive action
Boston public schools are in a crisis and if not a state takeover they need a major shakeup — and that has to come top down from Mayor Michelle Wu.
From violence against teachers and students, to a chronically bad graduation rate, to charges of bullying, to an inept school committee, the city’s school system is plagued with problems that are jeopardizing kids’ education on a daily basis.
For decades Boston mayors have promised to fix the troubled school system, and they have all failed. Wu is somehow trying to break that mold. She’s now in the process of trying to find yet another new superintendent, the fifth such search in the last decade.
Groups like the conservative-oriented Pioneer Institute say that state receivership is the answer.
The organization sent a letter to Wu this week appealing her to get behind a limited state takeover — the second time Pioneer has made the attempt.
Pioneer is now calling for a “less comprehensive and more targeted intervention” to address what it calls the “untenable decline” of the Boston school system.
Pioneer’s letter will no doubt go straight to Wu’s “out box” — in other words, the wastebasket. She has no interest in having a state receiver take over BPS — a move that would take power out of her hands.
It’s also highly unlikely that Republican Gov. Charlie Baker would have the guts to publicly take on Wu, and even if he did it would be undone next year by a liberal Democratic governor like Maura Healey.
Not to mention it facing stiff opposition from the Democratic-run Legislature, the teachers’ union and parent groups.
Pioneer is calling for a hybrid school committee made up of state appointees and members appointed by Wu, which is exactly what the school system doesn’t need — run by academics and bureaucrats and mayoral stooges.
The administration needs a fresh infusion of ideas from parent activists and even from elected leaders — at least they have to answer to voters.
Wu has stubbornly resisted an all elected school committee even though voters overwhelmingly approved that idea last year. She doesn’t want to give up her control of the school system, an act that doesn’t have the best interests of students in mind.
Testing scores are not really the major problem now — it’s violence and absentee rates.
In the latest incident, a student at McKinley Middle school reportedly threw a boiling hot cup of ramen noodles at a teacher’s face.
“The victim stated that she was in excruciating pain,” according to the police report of the incident. “The victim stated that her face, ear, and left eye was stinging.”
“The principal stated that they would call 911 but did not do so.”
It’s incidents like this that underscore the urgency to make major changes, and not settle for minor adjustments.