Education as Funny Business

Boston was the scene of a rare event the other week. A group of prominent business leaders actually talked tough about the city’s rotten schools and sought to use the private sector’s financial muscle to press for change.

No, they didn’t refuse to pay Massachusetts’s exorbitant property taxes. But they did decline to contribute more corporate funds to the much-touted “Boston Compact” until significant reforms were visible in the school system. “We are not prepared,” said Ferdinand Colloredo-Mans-field, chairman of the Boston Private Industry Council, “to endorse the expenditure of another $100 million over the next four years if the rate of improvement will be no greater than it was the last four years.”

About the Author

Chester E. Finn Jr.

Mr. Finn is the president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

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Boston was the scene of a rare event the other week. A group of prominent business leaders actually talked tough about the city’s rotten schools and sought to use the private sector’s financial muscle to press for change.

No, they didn’t refuse to pay Massachusetts’s exorbitant property taxes. But they did decline to contribute more corporate funds to the much-touted “Boston Compact” until significant reforms were visible in the school system. “We are not prepared,” said Ferdinand Colloredo-Mans-field, chairman of the Boston Private Industry Council, “to endorse the expenditure of another $100 million over the next four years if the rate of improvement will be no greater than it was the last four years.”