boston public schools

Covid-19 has created a crisis that has led to a path of top-down decision making and a lack of transparency.

As local and state officials are laying groundwork for students to return to school buildings in the fall, some are raising concerns over the potential risks and costs of bringing students back into classrooms.

State law gives the Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education wide discretion in deciding whether to take partial or complete control of a school or school district.

City councilors, parents and teachers lit into board members of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in a meeting last Tuesday, urging them to suspend a controversial memorandum of understanding that outlines the state’s intervention into the Boston Public Schools.

Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius last week signed a memorandum of understanding with State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley agreeing on a course of action to correct inequities in the city’s schools.

Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius has released a $1.26 billion fiscal year 2021 budget that would increase school spending by $80 million, a 6.3 percent increase in the budget.

Brenda Cassellius, the superintendent of Boston Public Schools, released a strategic plan to the Boston School Committee on Jan. 15.

In his State of the City speech last week, Mayor Martin Walsh pledged $100 million in additional funding to Boston Public Schools, funds that he said would be above regular yearly cost increases and would be channeled directly to classrooms.

The Boston Public Schools needs a new way of budgeting. Boston needs to guarantee a baseline quality of education at every one of its 127 schools with foundational school budgets, in addition to equity-based weighted student funding.

The process of replacing Tommy Chang as Boston Public Schools superintendent is ending the way it began: hurriedly, secretively, and with little apparent consideration of either the desires of the BPS community or for the requirements of this job. The superintendent will directly impact the lives of tens of thousands of Boston’s next generation.