THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Closing time for some libraries

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There is a reasonable accommodation that has to be made as regards the libraries in Boston. Here are a few facts that no one debates: More and more information, and more and more books, are being viewed online; There are specific areas and groups who have less access to online resources; The libraries are currently understaffed, and that will be more so if no changes are made; The library hours will need to be cut down if no changes are made. The mayor deserves praise for raising this issue and noting that we have to change with the times. Does that mean shuttering all the libraries. Heck no. We need libraries as physical spaces where children and moms, people who […]

Steve Poftak

How to cut health insurance costs by 18%

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Got your attention? The State has put a wealth of disclosure from health insurers and providers up on the web. I lack the time and, frankly, the chops to really get at all the good stuff but I did find a few interesting pieces of disclosure. In Partners’s disclosure, they note the rates they charge insurers could have been 18% lower in 2008, if government funded programs had covered their costs. (Yes, I am naively assuming that the insurers would pass that savings along to consumers.) Put another way, Partners had negative operating margins of -33% on Medicare and -44% on Medicaid in 2009. Also, floating around in the ether around the federal health care reform debate is a proposal […]

Jim Stergios

A big question on Lawrence

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The Senate is hard at work on its version of a rescue package for the city of Lawrence. Most people expect something quite a bit more directive – more power for an overseer – than what the House did, which was, to be blunt, irresponsible to the City and to the residents of the state. I have to wonder how we got here. Sure, there are the charter issues, and the Senate would do a great service to all by insisting that the city council and the mayor, as a condition of the line of credit, revoke the entirety of Section 3.7 of the city’s charter, which ties the executive’s hands on department heads. Essentially the city council has to […]

Jim Stergios

Let me rise

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Listen to Juan Williams on the DC Scholarship program. Folks, we have to do something about this. From Virginia Walden at DC Parents for School Choice: Sens. Lieberman (I-CT), Collins (R-ME), Feinstein (D-CA), Voinovich (R-OH), Byrd (D-WV), and Ensign (R-NV) have sponsored a bipartisan amendment that would save the successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) – a program that has been an educational lifeline for more than 3,330 children from very low-income District of Columbia families. Despite assuring Senate supporters of OSP more than a year ago that they would have floor time to offer their reauthorization legislation, the Senators have not been allowed a vote on this program. Yesterday, after the Lieberman amendment was filed, all Senators received threatening […]

Steve Poftak

Senator Brian Joyce is right

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The Herald has a piece today on Senator Joyce getting flak from various Milton residents about his proposal to put the rink out for a long-term lease. Residents are concerned about cost and availability. They should read our case study of what happened after the state put some (the former DEM) rinks out to lease in the mid-90s: More availability, greater capital investment, increased attendance, and continued affordability. This is not the first time that Senator Joyce has stuck his neck out at some risk in his own district to do the right thing. Careful readers of this space will note we lauded him previously for supporting the privatization of the Ponkapoag golf course.

Steve Poftak

Headquarters and Jobs

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If you had a chance to read Steve Syre in the Globe this morning, you know about our latest piece of research. We continue our examination of job creation in Massachusetts by taking a look at how headquarters employment has changed. And the news is not good. Our report, Heading Down: The Loss of Massachusetts Headquarters, details stunning job losses. On a net basis, employment at headquarters is down by over 250,000 jobs. The biggest single driver of this is contraction of headquarters, which cost close to 730,000 jobs. The next biggest driver is the closure of headquarters, which accounts for 440,000+ job losses. A particular issue with headquarters ‘deaths’ is that headquarter births are not coming close to balancing […]

Steve Poftak

Angelo Scaccia Has No Idea What Boston Gets in Local Aid

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In the debate over the Lawrence loan bill, Hyde Park Rep. Angelo Scaccia rose to support the bill, noting: One of the biggest debates every year is local aid. If that’s not a handout to every community, I don’t know what is. How many communities could survive without the local aid, Chapter 70? Is that a bailout? Of course it is. Of course it is. How many communities would flounder today without that subsidy? Many. There are many communities that we help in the area of local aid, 75, 80, 90, 95 percent of their budget. Take for instance the city of Boston. (emphasis added; from State House News, sub. req’d) He’s represented a Boston district for over 30 years, […]

Jim Stergios

Shocking: AFL-CIO comes out aganist Central Falls superintendent

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Yeah, I know. That’s. Not. News. The only thing worth pointing out is the title of their press release related to the position taken by the AFL-CIO’s Executive Committee: Supporting the Students, Teachers, Staff and Community of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island So, they’re against the superintendent, but supporting everyone else. Yup. I am not close enough to the situation to know if firing is the end-result that is necessary. But I am plenty close enough through friends, relatives and having grown up next door to know that the only way to get the unions to sit down and think seriously about the city’s 50 percent dropout rate was to do something radical. The super and the unions […]

Jim Stergios

WSJ: MA not at top of RttT applicant pool

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Neil King of The Wall Street Journal puts Massachusetts out of the top echelon of appllicants: Experts said Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Delaware, Colorado and Rhode Island put forward particularly strong applications, with Georgia, Illinois and Indiana also mentioned. Some state legislators have also officially started to worry. Fingers still crossed, but, as a Rhode Island native I have to say that if Rhodey’s new commissioner Deb Gist beats out MA some real soul-searching has to go on as to how we regain our leadership role in education. Again, let’s all cross our fingers.

Jim Stergios

Big dates with the feds

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Here they are! – March 4th United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be announcing the roster of Race to the Top awardees. From a friend: Duncan will announce the RTTT Phase I finalists this Thursday. States will know around 11:30 a.m., with a press release coming at about 12. Sharpen your pens, reporters! – March 8th the draft of the “K-12” Common Core Standards will be released by the Common Core Standards Initiative on March 8 . They are being put out for public comment and posted at www.corestandards.org. You’ve got three weeks to make your comments. Fingers crossed on the first item. On the second, well, CCSSI has had its work cut out, because the previous drafts […]

Steve Poftak

The Governor No One Voted For

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I’ve written about New York’s insane political world in the past, and it took another turn this week, when the NY Times finally (after two whiffs) printed its stunning piece on NY Governor David Paterson. To start at the beginning, Eliot Spitzer got elected Governor with a little known LG, David Paterson. Spitzer had to resign after the “Client 9” scandal and Paterson took over. During the fighting over control of the state senate, Paterson appointed Richard Ravitch as LG. To give you a sense of the drama involved, Ravitch was sworn in tableside at Peter Luger’s steakhouse to beat a court injunction. His appointment was invalidated, then allowed up the rungs of the court system in NY, before finally […]

Jim Stergios

Why soft skills are pernicious

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Way back in February 2009, we criticized a report issued by the 21st century skills task force report produced by an ad hoc committee established by the chair of the board of education. The report pushed for a move away from the state’s focus on rigorous content-based academic standards and objective tests toward soft skills and portfolio assessments. We criticized the report on many fronts, including its focus on skills rather than content, lack of familiarity with existing state standards, lack of facility with empirical evidence, and on and on. One of the key criticisms we had was that the report wanted to focus this effort on underperforming districts. Hold that thought. The Board of Education has never voted to […]

Jim Stergios

Time for nailbiting

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Massachusetts has submitted its Race to the Top application and the feds have their scales out, weighing all of the documents, included MA’s 900+ pager. So you’d think that a visit from the US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the Hub of the Universe would be newsworthy, right? Hmm. The USED website noted that Secretary Duncan to speak at the Harvard Graduate School of Education Askwith Forum. 2:30-4:00 p.m. at the Askwith Lecture Hall, Longfellow Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Education. 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138. Limited space for press. Calls into USED provided no information and rather asked things like – who are you? why do you want to know? Not an auspicious start. Everybody tightlipped. You […]

Steve Poftak

Murphy Beats Grossman!

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See, I told you so, someone needed to join Steve Grossman in the Treasurer’s race. Right there in today’s Suffolk poll at Question 19, Murphy leads Grossman in the race. OK, its only 15% to 13% but still… early momentum?

Steve Poftak

Where's Martha?

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Its not easy being the Attorney General. You step on too many local officials and you end up like Scott Harshbarger — you might get nominated but everyone sits on their hands when you need them to work for you. Martha Coakley seemed to have solved that problem through her office’s seeming disinterest in public corruption of high-ranking public officials. During a period that has seen an unprecedented level of indictments and investigations, the US Attorney’s office has done almost all of the heavy lifting. Now, the Amy Bishop case has captured the headlines and raised serious questions about who among the major players — then-DA no-Congressman Delahunt, Braintree Police, and State Police — was delinquent in their duties. The […]