Boston leaders apparently think voters have short memories.
It’s possible some Boston Public School parents forgot Mayor Michelle Wu’s October State of the Schools speech, the one in which she declared “Boston doesn’t back down.”
“Boston has been a target in the federal political storm,” she said. “We’ve had grants pulled. Funding cut. Even as we do everything we can to protect our communities, we’ll have some hard decisions to make.”
And yet, the mayor continued, “We’ve created 16 new bilingual programs.”
This month, as the Herald reported, the BPS’s FY27 budget features staffing cuts, including bilingual education teachers.
BPS officials presented the initial draft of a $1.7 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 to the School Committee, painting a stark picture of costs outpacing revenues and falling enrollment hitting the coming year.
According to the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, the district would lose 13.8% of all general education teacher slots, 159 positions, and 11.7% of all bilingual education teacher slots.
Bilingual aides alone would drop by over a fifth, with about 24 positions.
So in October, even as federal funding cuts were in the mix, bilingual education was deemed important enough, and necessary enough, to warrant 16 new programs.
What happened?
According to Chief Financial Officer David Bloom, “The main areas of reduction are related to decline in enrollment, decline in multilingual learners.”
So if there’s a decline in multilingual learners, why where we creating new bilingual programs?
“Let’s not think that we need to close classrooms, bilingual classrooms, because we are getting fewer immigrant students,” said new school committee member Franklin Peralta, speaking of his own efforts to get his child into a bilingual program.
“We need to open more bilingual classrooms, because it’s not just for bilingual is also for the English-speaking families that are looking around and seeing this society being so diverse and wanting their kids to grow up also multilingual.”
The Michelle Wu of October 2025 would have likely agreed with that. Now, however, the ax is falling.
BPS superintendent Mary Skipper pointed to several financial factors placing stress on the schools, including escalating health insurance costs, transportation expenses, special education costs, and collective bargaining agreement increases.
None of which are surprises, surely. And if we’re highlighting union raises as budget burdens, it would be a good time to address Skipper’s roughly 15% pay hike approved by the School Committee in October. That brings her total compensation to $393,943 for the 2025-26 school year. Breaking it down, that’s $324,643 in base pay, a $60,000 annuity, $7,800 for transportation costs and $1,500 for dental care.
Let’s not forget the White Stadium Elephant in the room. Taxpayers are on the hook for $135 million for the public-private stadium overhaul, but we’re cutting school positions, including bilingual programs we deemed important.
The Boston Teachers union is not happy with the budget-cutting blow. The BTU said it will continue to advocate for “a budget that centers students, protects essential jobs, and ensures every child in Boston has access to the well-resourced public schools they deserve.”
Good luck with that.
