THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Close Hughes?

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Pioneer has always taken the view that the state should close failing schools (including charter schools). They should also take corrective action including perhaps closure when schools prove incapable of living up to fiduciary basics like handling money and reporting results honestly. Some charter supporters have urged us to come out and support shutting Hughes down. Some are worried about the bad PR for charters. I am of a different view. If the facts demonstrate failure (academic or fiduciary), then, yes, by all means close it. But I know enough from all the work we do in Springfield and our other cities that you don’t jump to conclusions from Boston. The Hughes case is way beyond a “misunderstanding.” But will […]

Jim Stergios

Gentle tap on the shoulders

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The governor gave everyone a less than gentle reminder of why he got elected, and why he will be a tough competitor throughout this campaign. Going after the consolidation of parole and reining in the judiciary’s probation system — these are tasks not for the meek or weak of heart. Kudos to him for putting it out there. Good messaging, hits some of the people he would enjoy hitting, as the Globe pointed out, and allows him to point the finger at Senators and Reps — i.e., good political strategy — because he will need their approval to consolidate parole (currently a $20 M exec function) and probation (a $100+M judicial function) in any executive branch office.

Amy Lischko

New Report on MA Reform

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It’s too bad that this new Cato report on health care reform in Massachusetts http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11115  is not in a policy journal like Health Affairs as many more people would read it.  It certainly provides some interesting analysis and food for thought regarding the reform’s outcomes.  The results are in line with what I reported recently in the first chapter of Pioneer’s series evaluating the reform http://www.pioneerinst.wpengine.com/pdf/100113_interim_report_card1.pdf  The authors use CPS data to look at reductions in the uninsured, crowd-out from private to public coverage, and improvements in health.  They provide some interesting data assessing the effect of non-response on insurance questions pre and post reform.    They posit that the misreporting of insurance status is greater given the mandate to have […]

Jim Stergios

Sleeping through the election

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Two quick hits on yesterday’s election. One’s obvious. The geographical coverage of Brown’s victory is stunning. Coakley took western Mass, the tip of the Cape and most cities, but the rest of the state (again, the rest of the state went for Brown). Bad news for the Governor (no, scratch that – incumbents generally) with the 60+% of independents going for Brown. Second thing that strikes me from the data is that the cities may have gone for Coakley, but they really sat this one out. Voter turnout as a whole was high, and averaged around 60% outside the cities. But it was only in the high 20s to mid 40s in the cities. Boston 43% Chelsea 37% Fall River […]

Jim Stergios

NEA $1M to Kennedy Institute

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From our Education Intelligence Agent: The National Education Association board of directors approved a $1 million donation from the union’s contingency fund to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. The contribution will be made in $200,000 installments over the next five years. Among other things, the institute will have a training program for incoming U.S. Senators. Hmm. If the first senator-elect to use it is Scott Brown, I think the NEA may need to do some extra training.

Steve Poftak

MassDOT Developers Must Be Stopped

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Dear Secretary Mullan, Last year, I criticized manual toll collection, saying “Few other government services are executed with the deliberate inefficiency and expense of manual tolling.”. But I have a confession – its practices like this that make my job necessary. That’s why I’m so concerned about the MassDOT Developers project. What could be a standard issue example of overly long and complex government procurement, with expensive consultants, millions of dollars of custom code, and little interest in actual customers, is becoming something very different. Although in a pilot phase, they’ve shown the ability to bring products to market quickly, leverage outside skillsets the state could never hope to hire, and do it at minimal cost. Most importantly, the results […]

Jim Stergios

Nit Twit

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Twittering is not something I do, but Dearest Colleague Poftak does. Seems Republican gub candidate Charlie Baker criticized Guv Patrick for having to be kicked and dragged to support hard changes to schools that are failing. I suppose all is fair in politics and war, but I wonder if the response from Sydney Asbury, the Guv’s campaign manager (“Gov Patrick delivers where you & Weld failed and MA kids now benefit- facts beat spin every time”) shows the weakness I have seen over and over in the Guv’s staff. They don’t know history, and it hurts them. Just weigh this: Ed reform of 1993 + best academic standards in the country + kickoff of MCAS process + charter cap lift […]

Jim Stergios

Nearing victory on charters

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President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Duncan changed the conversation on charter schools with their call for urgent action to lift arbitrary caps on charter public schools and promote good schools via the Race to the Top competition. The conference committee agreement on the education bill does a lot that builds on the proven performance of the Commonwealth charter school model. And the addition of 27,000 new charter school seats is vitally important. There are two problematic provisions. The RTTT calls for states to scale up proven charter providers, such as the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) and SABIS networks. Yet one provision in the final compromise requires non-high schools to backfill open positions in the first half of the […]

Jim Stergios

NEA: $26M to Advocacy Groups

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From our man in Havana (the Education Intelligence Agency) comes an analysis of NEA’s financial disclosure report for 2008-09 fiscal. What did our EIA agent find? The national union contributed almost $26 million to a wide variety of advocacy groups and charities. The total more than doubles the amount disbursed in the previous year… In this list, EIA has deliberately omitted spending such as media buys, or payments to pollsters or consultants that have no obvious ideological component… All of these were paid for with members’ dues money (the union’s federal PAC is a separate entity funded through voluntary means): A Smarter Colorado – $87,000 ActionAid UK – $5,000 All Stars Helping Kids – $5,000 Alliance for Justice – $7,000 […]

Steve Poftak

Pleading For A Naked Display of Public Power

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Ok, not a typical request from these pages, but the ongoing delays in moving the Fort Point Channel Post Office and General Mail Facility boogle the mind. Having spent a summer working out of another local GMF, I can assure you there’s no business case to be made for having the facility in this location (that can’t be met by hundreds of other available locations in the city). The building itself is a constructed in the manner of a giant shed, with no architectural or historical significance. The utility of a 24 hour retail location is clear but, again, could be met by hundreds of alternative locations. And the potential value of alternative uses are crystal clear — South Station […]

Steve Poftak

Spinbusting — State Workforce Numbers

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Rejoice, rejoice, the 2009 CAFR is out and with it, a consistent, 3rd party source of numbers on the state workforce. Here is the data itself. You may recall some back and forth between various parties — see here and here — about how many folks have been added to the rolls of state government during the Patrick Administration. Part of the problem has been semantics — the Administration insists on using the construction “positions eliminated”, which is really HR-speak for changes in an administrative database, but sounds good. What really matters is headcount. And the data shows that from June 30, 2007* to June 30, 2009, state government added 844 employees, net of layoffs, positions eliminated, etc. To be […]

Steve Poftak

Confused by Menino's Inaugural

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He hits the right note early on in the speech: The right bill for our children increases the charter cap, but also provides turnaround capacity for districts in three places: One, the authority to create in-district charter schools. Two, the flexibility to assign the best teachers where they are needed most. And three, the ability to bypass lengthy arbitration at persistently under-performing schools. It’s this combination — the entire mix — that makes good on the promise of education reform in the first place: to help ignite a transformation within districts and bring innovation to scale. But then goes on to say: If real reform wins, we can look to a day with one system of education in Boston. When […]

Jim Stergios

You think we have problems

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Italy is nice. I am in Italy. So things are good, right? Well, not for the kids here. Look, I am no flogger of things Italian. I spent the first six years of my adult life here, and the people are great, the food is good, and above all they adore children. All things that rank high in my book of the necessities of life. Well, my pals and I all have school aged kids now, and as boring parents will do, after we tease them, turn them upside down and get them to try wine and too many sweets, we sit around discussing them. Eventually, we center our talk on the schools we entrust them to. Two of my […]

Jim Stergios

It's not nice to call the President a liar

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The Lowell Sun reported a week or so back that Teachers Union President Paul Georges decried what he called “lies” from the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank, that linked charter-school funding to the state’s ability to qualify for Race to the Top funds. “We do not need a bill to qualify for the money,” Georges said. “Massachusetts is in the top tier of two or three states.” I am sure Mr. Georges is a nice man and is not a liar. That said, I would suggest better reading materials than MTA talking points. Fact is, with states across the country making hard reforms, Massachusetts cannot simply live in the past and expect its crown of laurels to remain in […]

Steve Poftak

But Did He Go To Handshakes?

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The Governor has used his site visits to make a point in the past, most recently dropping in on the Excel Charter in East Boston during the ed reform debate, raising the ire of Speaker DeLeo whose district is very short distance away. So I read with interest today about his eating tour of Quincy — grabbing a slice at Napoli’s, eating some lunch at Nick’s. Maybe a message to gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill, who hails from Quincy and has been holding a number of events there?