THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Chinatown bus

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I know there have been, let’s call it, some issues with the Chinatown bus service. I liked when it was called Sunshine Tours, or similar. Sure, there are more comfortable (and some, ahem!, safer) ways of going to NY. But my daughter, Teruha, and I used to like going to NY, with the styrofoam coolers of eels, scampi and fish heads in the aisles. Were those scampi? Were they what the Italians call aragostelle (whip lobsters)? For a picture of the February esoteric culinary reference, see below, for a great place to eat them see here, and for an unorthodox recipe see here). Then there are the passengers, for example, the Chinese women of a “certain age”, as the French […]

Jim Stergios

Concentrating poverty in our cities

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The Globe reports in “Warehouse for the Poor” that Holyoke and other cities in Western Massachusetts are serving as destination cities for the poor and homeless, who are nudged there by the state agencies. Holyoke’s homeless shelters can accommodate four times the number of families per capita than homeless shelters in Boston. And when shelters are full in other places, the state Department of Transitional Assistance sends homeless families to shelters with open spots, often in Holyoke. Last year, 40 families from the Boston metropolitan area were referred to Holyoke, Sullivan said. “Our goal is to place families as close to the local office as possible, based on the availability of units,” said Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the state […]

Jim Stergios

Milwaukee Voucher Students Have Diploma Edge

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Thanks to the folks at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition for passing on word of a study reported in Ed Week. Perhaps you will remember a series of stories a few months back on on a study of Milwaukee’s “school choice” program. The study supposedly stated that parents did not use the choice opportunity significantly. Slight problem with that study and the reporting: The survey did NOT include parents in the Milwaukee choice program… Hmm, golly, reporters getting a story wrong. Shocked. Yes, shocked. Well, EdWeek gets this one right in an article entitled “Milwaukee Voucher Students Have Diploma Edge.” Students who participate in Milwaukee’s private-school-voucher program graduate from high school at significantly higher rates than those who attend regular […]

Jim Stergios

Progressive idea? Regressive in practice

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That health care benefits are provided through employers for the most part as a pre-tax benefit is the most regressive kind of tax policy around. Let me get this straight: I work and therefore can pay taxes, and I get my health care benefits, which are really a form of compensation, free of tax. But then there are people who are without a job temporarily (or worse) or work for a company that does not sponsor their health care, and that person has to pay taxes on the coverage they purchase? So the folks who are better off get health care pre-tax and the employer can deduct the cost, but folks who purchase their own coverage have to buy it […]

Liam Day

A lack of imagination

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As Dennis Miller used to say, I don’t want to go on a rant here, but it beggars the imagination how glib some public officials can be when it comes to talk of budgets. This from Holland Selectman James E. Wettlaufer, in an article in the Springfield Republican about the town’s rejection of two Prop 2 1/2 overrides in yesterday’s election: “This means we will have to sit down and craft a budget that fits within the levy limit, which means reduced services.” Crafting municipal budgets within the levy limit is what the law intended. Under the law, it is what town selectmen are supposed to do. It’s not supposed to be a last resort. Then, of course, Mr. Wettlaufer […]

Jim Stergios

Change or Die

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Vermont Technical College President Ty J. Handy, in the Winter 2008 New England Journal of Higher Education, writes an interesting article (Differentiate or Die”) about the future of New England higher education. His argument is that, given the significant decrease in the number of students coming out of the K-12 “pipeline” in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the smaller decline in Rhode Island, and the static population in Massachusetts, New England colleges and universities will have to differentiate their brands to appeal to people farther and wider. The numbers are pretty depressing for ME, NH and VT. They are not great for the other New England states (see below). But what leapt off the page was what the demographic trends […]

Jim Stergios

Tough fight but they are right

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Lenore and Skip Schloming of the Small Property Owners Association play in rough waters, where landlords are seen as the Grand Exploiters. SPOA represents folks who own 5, 10, maybe 50 units and don’t get the big state support enjoyed by big developers. They’re essentially small business owners, many of whom buy in urban areas because they can build up equity and grow. In addition to fighting back on ever-more ingenious attempts to reinstate rent control, SPOA is pushing some ideas that make eminent sense–and could actually do something for the low-income market and the homeless. First, from a recent newsletter: Officials and nonprofit leaders keep pursuing the same old housing strategy for the poor–try to get more tax money […]

Liam Day

3 trillion and counting

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Of note today, a milestone somewhat akin to watching your car’s odometer hit 100,000 miles: President Bush will submit to Congress his 2009 budget proposal for the federal government, the first ever to exceed $3 trillion. I don’t think you need to be fiscally conservative to blanch at that figure.

Jim Stergios

The 100,000 student mark

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A number of states have now reached or are approaching the 100,000 student mark in terms of enrollment at charter schools. Arizona with its 500 charter schools Texas with its almost 300 charter schools California has over 200,000 students with its 600-plus charter schools Florida with its 350 charter schools Michigan with its 250 charter schools Ohio is approaching 100,000 students with its 300-plus charters With the number of charter schools in places like LA, DC, Detroit, and New Orleans growing fast, they are increasingly a key part of the urban education landscape. Consider that almost two-thirds of New Orleans’ students are now in charters, and that they constitute the following percentage of students in other cities: Dayton, OH: 28% […]

Liam Day

To lead or follow

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I apologize, but I need to digress from Pioneer’s usual topics of research and commentary. Though politicians are ultimately responsible for public policy, politics is not something Pioneer usually delves into. That being said, David Runciman’s piece on political hypocrisy in the Ideas section of today’s Globe bothered me. To begin with, Mr. Runciman never exactly defines what he means by political hypocrisy. In fact, the definition, at least as he conceives it, seems inordinately broad, including, for example, a politician who might change his or her stance on an issue in the face of evidence supporting a contrary position. What is hypocritical about that, I don’t know. I would have thought the hypocrite is the politician who, having considered […]

Jim Stergios

A taste of feuds to come

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It is interesting to view from afar what is happening with other governors. If you want to get a taste of the fight to come on pricey new proposals, the appetite for new revenues and dependence on casinos as a cure-all, read a report by Steve Stanek of Budget & Tax News reports on Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. The Illinois General Assembly in 2007 was supposed to finish its business in May, but seven months later lawmakers remained in session to wrestle with mass transit funding in Chicago and the surrounding counties. Political observers say the record overtime session was due at least in part to personal animosities between Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and key lawmakers. As the Italians […]

Jim Stergios

Why go down this road again

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More on the Patrick administration’s moves to gut education reform. The Patrick proposal creates a Secretary of Education. It gives the Secretary broad budgetary power, reducing the Commissioner of Education to being a department head. It stacks, packs and racks up the members of the Board, so that the power starts from the Governor, flows through the Secretary and leaves the Commissioner and Board to rubber stamp. Once upon a time, in a not far off time, the current Chairman of the Board, S. Paul Reville, did not think this such a good idea. For the full testimony see here. The testimony was provided in June 2003, when a previous Governor proposed a weak Secretary (no real budgetary power, no […]

Steve Poftak

Transportation and Technology

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A tip of the pen to the newly created Metrowest Regional Transportation Agency. Have you ever waited endlessly at a bus stop for a bus that never came? They’ve used their GPS capability to provide a real-time map of all their buses, which is viewable by rout.  Would that larger transit system would utilize technology in the same way.

Jim Stergios

To tell the Whole Truth, Nothing but the Truth

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Some people have noted that Pioneer is overstating the risk to education gains posed by the Governor’s proposal to “pack the board.” Some even take exception with the term “pack” which clearly refers to FDR’s notorious attempt to jam through legislation that could not pass muster at the Supreme Court. Well, none other than Governor Patrick’s pick to be Chairman of the Board of Education has opined against the major elements of the Governor’s plan: “So, Horace Mann and generations of subsequent leaders in the State House saw fit, for well over a century, to insulate educational policy from the ebb and flow of politics. This as accomplished by putting some distance between the chief policy making entity, the Board […]

Jim Stergios

MATCH School inspires my home town

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The Mayor of my home town (Cumberland, RI), Daniel McKee, is engaged in a very interesting experiment. As Ed Week noted, if McKee: and a coalition of other Rhode Island town leaders have their way, they’ll ditch public education’s current bureaucracy and start over with a clean slate. It’s just not clear yet exactly what they will be able to write on it. The plan, as Mr. McKee and his Coalition of Communities Improving Rhode Island were planning to announce it late last week, is to set up a regional, mayorally headed network of charter schools—something that charter school experts say has never been attempted in quite the way the coalition is proposing. Yes, the Cumberland teachers union rep is […]