The process went too fast to be entirely transparent. Boston tried to communicate as much as they could, and anything can be requested (Freedom of Information Law). We also have a paper that should not be too far from publication that details every detail of the thing.
I would argue that although it could have been more transparent, it is way more transparent than the status quo, where each individual school can try to pressure the district to get the time that they want, without considering the "big picture" and the impact on other schools/neighborhood/budget.
All decisions were made after a lot of group conversations with parents/staff/principals... But I am sure some things could have been better, in the end we were just the grad students trying to help :)
This can happen and did happen before. Maybe being suspicious of an algorithm is not a bad things, we should have extremely high standards for them ! My hope is that some people will just have a better view of how complicated this problem is, and be able to construct their own opinion from there. And this would already be something I would be proud of!
I would argue that although it could have been more transparent, it is way more transparent than the status quo, where each individual school can try to pressure the district to get the time that they want, without considering the "big picture" and the impact on other schools/neighborhood/budget.
All decisions were made after a lot of group conversations with parents/staff/principals... But I am sure some things could have been better, in the end we were just the grad students trying to help :)