Consultants Draw Fire in Bus Woes

Everyone agrees that the logistics could have been handled better, but this has turned into a ridiculous tempest in a teapot.  Here's my New Year's wish: that the parents, politicians and media who have worked themselves into such a frenzy over this issue would get even 10% as PISSED OFF over the thousands of lousy teachers and hundreds of failing schools in New York City that, year in and year out, commit educational malpractice on HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of New York City's most vulnerable children!!!

 

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Consultants Draw Fire in Bus Woes  

 

By ELISSA GOOTMAN and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: February 3, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/nyregion/03bus.html

When Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein hired the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, without competitive bidding, one provision of the $15.8 million contract called for “restructuring the Office of Pupil Transportation to obtain annual cost savings.” Simply put: drive down the cost of busing children to school.

For the firm, which specializes in rescuing bankrupt companies, it was a logical task. After all, Alvarez & Marsal had helped the St. Louis schools carry out a consolidation of bus routes in 2003 as part of a broad effort to overhaul the financially strained school system.

But as the plan in New York combusted this week, leaving shivering students waiting for buses in the cold and thousands of parents hollering about disrupted routines, the complaints threatened to morph into a renewed attack on Mr. Klein’s reliance on outside consultants.