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January 31, 2007

Being a Master of 'Fuzzy Math', I Declare This to Be

...'fuzzy'.

Parents left in a lurch by new city school-bus routes refused to roll with the changes yesterday, with some defiantly sneaking their children onto buses and others keeping their little ones home in protest.

... "I'm not taking any chances with my children," said Denise Neibel, one of a handful of parents in the Roxbury neighborhood, who put their kids on a yellow bus bound for PS 114, even though they were told to take public transit.

"Anyone who thinks that it's appropriate for a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old to take public transportation to school made a really bad error in judgment," Neibel said, referring to her daughter, Isabella, and son, Sam.

... The department had estimated that the restructuring, which initially included cutting 250 routes and consolidating hundreds of others, would save the city $20 million. It has since lowered the estimate to $12 million annually based on 116 route cuts.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein defended the scheme before Queens parents last night, saying the first two days of the rerouting "went very smoothly" and that $16 million paid to the consulting firm of Alvarez & Marsal to identify the cuts was worth it.


Sure it was.

Posted by tree hugging sister at January 31, 2007 08:02 AM

Comments

Keericed.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at January 31, 2007 08:11 AM

One thing I've learned in a decade in the corporate world: consultants are overpriced, overused, and useless, because they are never around when their recommendations are actually implemented.

I'm thinking of instituting a personal policy: I'll only employ them if they agree to do the work in Singapore, so that I can have them caned one lash for every million dollars they are off on their forecasts. Public enterprises like this one could make it one lash for every $100,000.

Posted by: John at January 31, 2007 11:16 AM

Considering what Bangla-cola has spent on experts of every ilk the past five years (Disregarding 90% of what the 'experts' recommended and ordering new 'experts' to study the previous 'experts' in a remarkable display of redoubtable pecuniary redundancy), we could have bought our own Third World country.

Instead of just being one.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at January 31, 2007 11:40 AM