As we await the Alvarez & Marsal report on efficiencies to be found in Kansas, including Kansas public schools, we think this article is worth another read.
“‘They pretty much destroyed the district academically,’ said Ray Cummings, vice president of St. Louis branch of the American Federation of Teachers. ‘We were two points away from accreditation when they brought them in. They had no particular concern about academics. It was just about cut the budget. Cut, cut, cut.’…
“Among the cuts enacted was the closing of 16 school buildings. A & M also outsourced the district’s custodial and food services, and it redrew bus routes and bus stops to make transportation more efficient.
“’They consolidated bus stops that were farther from students, so kids would have to walk across a highway construction site and past a known drug dealer’s house,’ said Byron Clemens, a former teacher in the district. ‘Somebody who lived in the city and drove the streets like some of our administrators used to do would have known that. It’s an example of how relying on a computer and an outside consultant didn’t work.’
“Peter Downs, a parent in the district who published a book about the district’s troubles at the time, accused A & M of using a flawed philosophy about public schools to begin with…
“’Their background was in business enterprise, and that makes sense in business,’ he said. ‘But in education, the main cost is teachers. So if you become a low-cost producer, the only ones who show up are the ones who can’t afford anything better.’…
On its own website, A & M cites the New Orleans project as a “
‘case study’ for its style of turnaround management… But Shane Riddle, a lobbyist for the Louisiana Association of Educators, one of the state’s two major teachers unions, remembers A & M primarily for the way it handled laying off more than 7,000 teachers….
“Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that the layoffs were handled improperly because many teachers were not afforded due process and were entitled to be hired back as jobs reopened.
“Total damages that could be owed to those teachers, including back pay and benefits, have been estimated at about $1.5 billion.”
Read more here: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/oct/11/consulting-firms-record-st-louis-new-orleans-publi/