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Chang got $267,000 to leave BPS early

By adamg on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 11:32am

CommonWealth reports on the payout and glowing letter of recommendation now former School Superintendent Tommy Chang got in exchange for his "resignation."

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Boston
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Boston Public Schools
Tommy Chang


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Comments

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 11:52am.

I am the superintendent
I have a lot of dependents
No one will know
About cash to go
'cause Johnny can't read it

By Bobp on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 12:05pm.

It is really sad that BPS faces many of the same problems that it had in the 1970’s. Inequality among local schools, horrible school assignments, and overblown busing budget. Chang gladly took the money and ran. Maybe the Mayor should take a long look at the school system as a whole before we get a new superintendent.

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 12:14pm.

The mayor just used $267k of the city's money so that he WON'T have to take a long look.

By frobot on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 12:49pm.

We, the taxpayers, just dropped $267k on this clusterf***. Nice.

By Belmont on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 6:25pm.

When I read about the amount of $ that has been and continues to be paid to the State Police for "overtime" and their very demanding positions on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, I feel like $267K is a bargain.

By bostondriver on Sun, 07/22/2018 - 8:36am.

doesn't make it right. and you got to stop it somewhere

By TrophyWifeLinda on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 1:52pm.

I had cocktails (!) last night in Back Bay (#richgirlsgottohavefun) with a good friend who teaches in BPS. The teacher was the coach of the middle school girls soccer team at their school. Program cut for lack of funds. No funds for soccer (or football as we call it in Liverpool). No funds for a soccer ball and a bus for 10 to 14 year old girls to goto games? $267,000 will buy a lot of soccer balls !!! But first you have to have the balls to actually care about your children and all the children in the city instead of just using your balls to have children.

What I think is funny is how lemming like the voters of Boston are. They keep electing the same people over and over and as the previous poster noted, the problems are still the same. They keep reading and buying our Boston Globe that tells them that their schools are getting better every year when of course they aren't, and that our politicians are doing a great job for them. (they are doing a great job for the rich...and so cheaply!) Our faux columnists like my girl Shirley Leung move out of the city into rich suburbs like Milton where citizens actually insist on good schools and soccer balls for their kids.

The funniest moment of the election between Marty Walsh and Tito Jackson came at their debate at Hibernian Hall moderated by our Globe's own affirmative action poster child Adrian Walker. Adrian Walker loved and worshipped Mayor Tom Menino, no one in Boston kissed his derriere more than Adrian: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/30/tom-menino-accidental-visio...

For 20 years or so of Mayor Menino our Globe wrote puff pieces about the fantastic job Menino was doing with the schools. During the debate, Adrian Walker asked the inevitable question about what the candidates were going to do with the schools. The first thing Marty Walsh said was something along the lines of "the first thing you have to understand is the terrible shape of the Boston Public Schools when I took over!" Of course, like a good tool of the rich, Adrian sat there and didn't say a thing, didn't write about it, didn't inform the voters and Globe subscribers that in fact Mayor Menino had turned over the schools to Mayor Walsh in great condition. Which is it Adrian??? Did Menino do a great job with the schools or were they in terrible condition when Mayor Walsh took over? Both can't be true....but when did the truth matter??? Now look in the mirror and say 'this duality of falsehoods is why people believe President Trump when he says Fake News". Two wrongs do not make a right !

It's all a show folks! Keep reading our Globe, we'll keep telling you to keep voting for our puppets that keep the rich getting richer, with the highest income inequality in America! https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2016/01/14/boston-is-the-no-1-cit... Your schools are fine, as long as you want your kids to continue to be servants of the kids in Milton, Wellesley, Brookline, Newton, Andover. We need good service when we come into the city for cocktails. The immigrant bartender last night could not make a good Old Fashioned!!! BPS grads, there is room for you to move up in the world! You need to muddle the orange rind: http://www.thewhiskeyauthority.com/cocktails-recipes/old-fashioned-muddled/

The politicians you elect are doing a great job for us rich girls and our cocktails :)

#metoo
#snapchatoldfashioneds
#whyareglobesubscriptionsdown?
#bringbackcaroljohnson

By Pete Nice on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 1:39pm.

Elementary schools in Newton and Brookline don't have traveling soccer teams, so maybe that is where Boston was going wrong in the first place.

By TrophyWifeLinda on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 1:54pm.

You are right, it was 6th to 8th graders I believe!

My head might still be light from my time in the mountains.

https://twitter.com/Linda_Pizzuti?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp...

By Pete X on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 3:19pm.

Appreciate the charming anecdote about soccer balls and immigrant bartenders, but why do you refer to Adrian Walker as an affirmative action poster child?

#idontknowwhyyouhashtageverythingbutthatwasprettyracist

By TrophyWifeLinda on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 4:12pm.

Checked out his wikipedia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Walker

Adrian has been the African American columnist for the paper of record for 20 years. The net worth of African Americans in Boston according to his paper is $8. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/12/11/that-was-typo-the-median-ne...

I suggest you talk to him, get to know him, and congratulate him on the great job he is doing :)

He knows to write articles about why it is imperative that Yawkey Way's name gets changed, but he is not allowed to write articles about why the Yawkey initials are still on the Green Monstah. Daddy wouldn't like that.

Adrian also wouldn't dare write an article about the difference between googling:

Images at 'minority ball girls fenway park'
https://www.google.com/search?q=minority+ball+girls+fenway+park&safe=off...

and
Images at 'white ball girls fenway park'
https://www.google.com/search?q=white+ball+girls+at+fenway+park&safe=off...

Maybe that's why they cancelled softball for minority girls at BPS, we can't have qualified minority women candidates be able to apply to be ball girls at Fenway Park. Not in Boston. #whitefenwayballgirls

Back when Daddy was younger, almost everyone at the Globe was white as they touted the status quo, now we have a diversity of people touting the status quo and being politically correct.

#makingprogress
#politicallycorrect
#girlpower

By Pete X on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 12:26pm.

Surely you understand there’s a difference between calling someone a bad columnist and saying they only got their job because they are black, right?

#issayingyernnotpoliticallycorrectanexcuseforbeingracist?

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 12:27pm.

Can Superintendent of Schools be voted for by the public rather than the closed-door Illuminati ?>

By Parkwayne on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 1:18pm.

I don't think that's fair to Chang. If the mayor comes to him and say he's getting bought out because the city wants new leadership, is he supposed to just say OK and leave without having them honor his contract? Not his fault they didn't want to wait 2 more years to change.

By Kinopio on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 2:26pm.

Is it not at all his fault that they wanted to get rid of him for someone else?

By Parkwayne on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 2:50pm.

Again, was he supposed to just walk away instead of taking what he was contractually owed?

Chang wasn't a perfect superintendent but that is a crazy hard job and my impression is that he gave it his absolute best effort. I have zero problem with him taking the money he was owed.

If we find out that there were other factors than job performance behind this, well then we can reopen the discussion. I have heard nothing alleging that he did something specifically, legally or morally wrong though and to be honest, even then he is owed the money. Unless you're a fan of how folks like Scott Walker do business?

By merlinmurph on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 5:37pm.

One could even argue that the City of Boston got a deal, only having to pay one of the two remaining years on his contract.

By merlinmurph on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 11:37am.

From the Globe:

Under the five-year employment contract Chang signed when he first began the job in 2015, he was entitled to receive a full year of pay if the School Committee terminated him without cause.

By Parkwayne on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 2:21pm.

deleted

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 1:48pm.

Is NEVER coming back to it's glory. Year after year it faces more and more challenges. Unions demanding more money, pension obligations, absurd increases in ELS students and deteriorating infrastructure.

Its sad, but true.

By Parkwayne on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 2:51pm.

What, the 60s? LOL

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 3:52pm.

The 60s > 2018. Or any other decade prior to 1990 was better than today.

By adamg on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 6:31pm.

The 60s? When the Boston School Committee not only illegally segregated public schools but deliberately provided fewer resources for schools in black neighborhoods, so they couldn't even argue "separate but equal?" Those are your glory days of public education in Boston? The 1974 desegregation order didn't just come out of nowhere, you realize (well, actually, you don't, but whatever).

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 9:56pm.

I thought the 1974 desegregation order came out of an activist judge.

By adamg on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 12:10am.

There's this whole lawsuit process in the US. How do you think Garrity even got to the point where he could rule on the racist system set up by the school committee? Hint: A lawsuit was involved.

By anon on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 8:35am.

From one anon to another, your comment is seriously mis-informed. The School Committee intentionally and overtly discriminated against minority students and schools that served them. The evidence was overwhelming and voluminous. The " neighborhood schools" defense was a lie. They were drawing districts to move students AWAY from the school closest to them, and in some cases actually busing students, both to achieve intentional segregation. If Louise Day HIcks and her racist cohorts actually believed in neighborhood schools, and drew district lines to achieve true neighborhood schools, the lawsuit and eventual decision would not have happened.

I would invite anyone to actually read Judge Garrity's decision.

By Parkwayne on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 8:17pm.

If you were a white person in the right neighborhood, BPS was better. It was also massively inequitable to the vast majority of black and Latino kids.

Let's hope and work for better outcomes for everyone.

By Waquiot on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 8:54pm.

I read a book a while back whose name I forget. It was about the “recent” history of the BPS. Leaving out the disparate quality of education afforded white and black children, the system was a failing cesspool of patronage in the 1960s. That was probably the most corrupt era of the BPS. After 1974, there was at least federal oversight.

Was there a better time for the BPS? Probably, but we might be talking the Horace Mann era. I don’t know how old you are, but the odds are that unless you are talking some time this decade, you were not alive for the golden age of BPS.

By BostonDog on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 3:00pm.

1923?

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 10:05pm.

According to this, Boston's peak is right now. It has the highest per-pupil spending compared to all the big USA school systems.

By anon on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 4:31pm.

damn those "students" and their "academic needs". What, is a school system supposed to just, like, "adapt and respond" to that?!? Insane.

Its like they're "members of the community" or something, right?

By anon on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 8:48am.

The UNION should get teachers more $. They are teaching the next generation without a lot of help from parents or the administration.

I have several friends that are educators and they bust their asses. They buy the paper, pens, notebooks, FOOD, clothing, etc for their kids on a salary that doesn't let them live in the city they teach in.

People bitch they have the summers off? Good - they need it because they are your kids teachers, nurses, psychiatrists, etc. They get to school at 645am and aren't home until 7pm and then work on Sundays to grade and lesson plan.

So please - enough with the union busting.

By Parkwayne on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 1:16pm.

Unless we're going to find out something actually bad about Chang other than Walsh wanted to make a change, this is a fiasco. Any reform of BPS will require years to pull off with meticulous planning along the way. Any yet we're pulling the rip cord on this guy after three years.

I know some people are very unimpressed with Chang to date and if you thought he was terrible then $250k was not too high a price to pay to move on but I don't see it. I don't see where he's f-cked up seriously enough to warrant throwing out $250k to change leadership.

Feckless Marty Walsh strikes again.

As for his replacement, regardless of her suitability for the job, the way she was installed was also terrible and against all normal process.

By Hugo_JP on Wed, 07/18/2018 - 4:35pm.

I want to leave Boston too but you will only need to pay me $100,000 and 6 months of health insurance.
Please forward me the necessary paperwork.
sincerely,
Hugo

By bosguy22 on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 8:38am.

every public official seems to take exactly zero vacation time while they're working for the city/state. Any time someone retires/resigns, they have an absurd amount of vacation time they're paid out on....as if they didn't take a single day off the entire time they were in the position. How exactly did Chang accrue 27 extra vacation days in 3 years? How much vacation time was he given? How much is he allowed to carry over to the next year?

By Michael Kerpan on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 2:28pm.

... there were many years when I took virtually no vacation leave. We could only carry over a limited amount into the next calendar year -- so I often wound up giving away several weeks of leave at the end of each year (typically to unknown fellow employees with dire medical issues -- who then could use the leave, if needed, during the next year). Too busy to take time off.