THE PIONEER BLOG

Liam Day

Strategic Debate is Good for the Country

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President Obama and former Vice President Cheney delivered competing speeches yesterday, addressing the broad issue of national security, with specific reference to the issues surrounding Guantanamo, indefinite detention of suspected terrorists and the use of waterboarding. Whatever one thinks of either our current President or former Vice President, they are both serious men and, wherever one stands on these issues, publicly debating them is only good for the country. As our executive director Jim Stergios wrote in an op-ed that ran this past weekend in both the MetroWest and Milford Daily News, we seem to have proved ourselves incapable of engaging in serious, strategic debates. At the federal level, passing an appropriations bill now amounts to action. Money is great. […]

Steve Poftak

Can He Say That?

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Treasurer Tim Cahill went down to New Bedford and told them: the chances that Massachusetts will build [South Coast] commuter rail by 2016 are “bleak” and that “it is virtually going to be impossible” for the state to build it in the foreseeable future. Wow, that’s quite a mouthful, considering that our current Governor publicly threw his then-Secretary of Transportation under the bus for even suggesting that the South Coast rail line wouldn’t be paid for by revenues created by new jobs.

Liam Day

An absolute must read

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Again, I have to give Michael Graham his props. As a colleague of mine wrote in an e-mail this morning, Mike absolutely nails it. I would go so far as to defy anyone to find a better summation anywhere of the parochial, retchingly chummy nature of Boston’s politics. Actually, check that. It is possible that Kyle Cheney’s coverage of the special commission on pensions on the State House News Service (subscription required) is in the running. Watching the commission in action Monday, or lack of action I should write, I was reminded of a high school cafeteria and its division between the nerds and the cool kids, in this case the unions and their legislative representatives on the commission, who […]

Jim Stergios

Harry Lime in Africa

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Remember Harry Lime (Orson Welles) in The Third Man (1949, dir. by Carol Reed)? For a reminder of this classic noir based on Graham Greene’s novella, check out the sewer chase scene (sublime notwithstanding what he is wading through). Or, perhaps, you might enjoy the American trailer with its quaint marketing of Anton Karas’ haunting score – “He’ll have you in a dither with his zither…” Many of you will remember the horrible racket that Harry Lime was involved in. Lime stole penicillin and diluted it, reselling it at astronomical profit. In the process he maimed and killed thousands. I write all this because a colleague Franklin Cudjoe, who directs the IMANI Center for Policy & Education, has found very […]

Jim Stergios

A great debate on unions and improving our schools

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For those of you who need a smart debate about the role of unions in advancing better student outcomes in our schools, there is a pretty smart debate occurring at the Flypaper blog. Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute started off this string, and it has attracted thoughtful contributions and some sharp elbows. It all started with a post of mine that argued that Diane Ravitch is wrong to say that Massachusetts’s situation proves teachers unions to be a non-factor in education reform. After Ravitch responded with a rebuttal post, Jay Greene added a follow-up that challenged her to “point to a rigorous piece of social science research that supports her argument.” Sol Stern then joined the discussion to add […]

Liam Day

Massachusetts, yet again

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There’s an entertaining feature on the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference in the most recent edition of the Weekly Standard. Amid the satirical pokes the author takes at participants’ jargon and over-reliance on Power Point, there is a serious point being made about how “the mix of lightweight courses, make-work assignments, and tired progressive ideology” at our nation’s ed schools often deter those who might otherwise pursue careers as teachers. (I speak here from personal experience. I might still be a 6th grade teacher if it weren’t for the fact that my provisional certification required I obtain an MEd.) However, it is a concluding quote in the piece that most caught my eye. It comes from James Fraser, education […]

Steve Poftak

13 Questions for the Special Commission on Pension Reform

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1) How many members of the commission really think pensions and other employment benefits need to be reformed? 2) Does the Governor’s office have specific ideas as to what they would like to see in the commission report and a game plan for achieving it? 3) When PERAC presents information but states that the data is not really comparable, why doesn’t anyone ask them to come back with comparable data? 4) For that matter, for a liability as large as the state’s public employee pension system and other benefits, why don’t the Administration and legislative leaders insist on better data collection? 5) Did the Commission really have a discussion of disability without even touching on the “Heart Law”, section 94 […]

Steve Poftak

The Laws of Economics Still Apply

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Senator Bruce Tarr of Gloucester has filed an amendment to the budget that would allow the state to grant ‘racino licenses’ that would let racetracks operate slot parlors. We had this same discussion in 2006 and we’ll restate our position: giving licenses away to a fixed group of bidders at a fixed price is not the way to maximize the value to the state. It will result in a subsidy to racetrack owners (and perhaps their employees, perhaps). If we must allow gambling of this type, let’s maximize the value to the state by allowing an open auction of the licenses, not a fixed process. I’d note that the pending legislation practically concedes my point (see Section 7, subsection i, […]

Jim Stergios

NYPD not so blue

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Police Chief Ed Davis has calmed the spikes in crime seen before his arrival. It would be good to see some numbers on crime rates in the past few years in case anyone wants to pass those on. That said, New York’s police commissioner Raymond Kelly brings some good news in a recent New York Post short that he penned. Noting that NYC is still the number 1 target in the country for terrorists, he points to a slimmer police force (5,000 fewer officers) AND lower crime rates. Today, despite having 5,000 fewer officers, crime is down by nearly 40 percent from eight years ago. At the year’s start, many predicted that crime rates would spike as a result of […]

Jim Stergios

New York 20, Boston 0

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Tip of the cap to Whitney Tilson for directing me to this article by Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice, who calls on mayor Bloomberg to “roll the union.” My, how far attitudes toward charters have changed on Left. Everywhere, that is, except in Massachusetts. If Bloomberg wins this year, it will be the fifth consecutive time that a Republican candidate has carried a 5-1 Democratic city. This time, the mayor isn’t running as a registered Republican—as he did the first two times—and he wants us to believe that he is an Independent with a Democratic tilt. Democrats just can’t take back the big office in Gotham, and the Union of Federated Teachers has learned new tactics to gain the […]

Steve Poftak

The Buddy-Boy World of Massachusetts Public Pensions

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Remember Tim Bassett? He’s the guy who retired, took a pension, then got special legislation written just for him that allowed him to go back onto the public payroll while retaining his pension. (And who’s wife just had her pension reduced because she tried to count years as a library trustee, except she didn’t attend the meetings.) Read the details here. He’s currently the Executive Director of the Essex County Regional Retirement Board, where the Globe estimates he is paid $123,000 annually (and don’t forget the $41,000 pension too). But that’s not enough. In his spare time, he lobbies for a variety of clients, among them are other retirement boards. The Salem Times reports today that his firm was paid […]

Liam Day

Haute Cuisine, anyone?

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A little behind on this one, but I did want to direct people’s attention to a recent piece on the SAT in The Weekly Standard. Fascinating history and interesting little tidbits. (For example, did you know that the letters SAT no longer stand for anything?) It also raised in my mind a question. Objections to the SAT often center on alleged bias. One of the examples of bias most often cited (at least according to the article) is a question dating from the 60’s that asks students for an analogy to “runner is to marathon”. The correct answer is “oarsmen is to regatta”. In this narrow context, I would agree with the test’s opponents. A prep school student would clearly […]

Liam Day

Boston's proposed school assignment plan

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Today’s Globe describes the coalition that is forming to fight back against Boston School Superintendent Carol Johnson’s plan to move from three to five school assignment zones to save roughly $10 million in transportation costs. My thoughts on the topic are, in no particular order of importance: 1) The opposing coalition is right. The city should not be reducing the number of schools from which students and their parents can choose, which is what would happen if the city moved from three to five assignment zones. I would argue the city should expand choice through charter schools and other mechanisms. 2) Which brings me to point #2: would this same coalition be willing to support charter schools as vocally as […]

Jim Stergios

Obama v. Patrick

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No, silly. There is not going to be a lawsuit just because the President isn’t going to nominate His Excellency the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (HETG to the BlueMassGroupies, see line 3). It’s that HETG has not once, to my knowledge, ever recognized charter schools during National Charter School Week. And below follows the proclamation made by POTUS. Hmmm, perhaps HETG v. POTUS is a catchier title for a blog entry. While pondering such imponderables, let me cue the presidential proclamation: Improving our schools is the collective responsibility of all Americans—business owners and workers, educators and parents, students and their communities. We must ensure that all students receive a high-quality education that delivers the knowledge and skills needed […]

Liam Day

The Trust Deficit Grows

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Yesterday, I got up on my soapbox and railed about the trust deficit our state and local leaders need to close before they think about closing the fiscal deficit. Well, today, unfortunately, based on some anecdotal evidence, it appears the trust deficit may be opening, not closing. Jim Stergios has an interesting post just below mine about the fiscal shell games going on in Haverhill’s school system and – poor Wilfredo Laboy – the Lawrence Eagle Tribune reported yesterday that the embattled superintendent was made aware of the illegal background checks his assistant was conducting long before it came out in the press. To turn his ridiculous quote back on him, where is Wilfredo Laboy’s transgression in all of this? […]