Friends, Bay Staters, educators, lend me your ears

With apologies for not having this complete for Friday’s date which made the rewrite work, to the Bard of Avon, and to all those who will quickly note that this doesn’t scan perfectly
Dedicated to anyone who spent 2020, 2021, and 2022 dreading Friday afternoons 

Written, as it says, “to speak what I do know” and on no one else’s behalf 

Friends, Bay Staters, educators, lend me your ears!
I come to commended Jeff Riley, not to critique him.
The fulsome praise of retirement lives on after men,
The injudicious interred with their careers.
So may it be with Riley. You have been told
Jeff Riley is the “radical center.”
If it were so, it was not apparent,
And bitterly have we answered for it.
Here, the data-driven Commonwealth, we’re told,
Jeff Riley is the “radical center” —
Yet even so, three receiverships stay,
‘Though research says nay to state enjoinment.
He was a harbinger of Friday news,
But the press says he was decisive,
And Riley is the “radical center.”
He hath brought many demands home to Boston;
Whose buses did he make to run on time?
When real life did intrude, Riley hath fumed.
Ambition should be made of measured stuff;
Yet the press says he was effective,
And Riley is the “radical center.”
You all did see that on Board of Ed;
We oft presented him evidence,
Which he did oft refuse; was this effective?
Yet the press says he was accomplished,
And, sure, Riley is the “radical center.”
I speak not to disprove what was said,
But I am here to speak what I do know.
You all did quiz him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then, and praise him yet?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And some have lost their reason. Bear with me.
My heart is in the classrooms there with all,
And I must pause til it come back to me.