THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Boom market for teachers in Denver

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Next thing you know, it won’t just be the skilled workforce in the private sector. Soon, the teachers will be leaving! A crosspost from Mike Antonucci’s Education Intercepts: The autonomy movement in Denver is leading to a strange phenomenon: a boom market for quality teachers: Diane Kenealy interviewed for a teaching job at West Denver Preparatory Charter School on Jan. 9, received a job offer within 24 hours and accepted the position three days later. Compare that rapid hiring to this spring’s staffing calendar in traditional Denver Public Schools, which dictates principals can’t schedule interviews with teaching candidates until the middle of March. Even then, they can only talk to candidates already working in a city school. A DPS principal […]

Steve Poftak

Is Christy Available?

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On the heels of Tuesday’s results, Obama’s ability to take a punch and deliver an effective counterpunch is the key question going forward in this race. But I’m not sure that the Axelrod Formula, summarized by the NYTimes: Over the last year, though, Mr. Obama has struggled to deliver that examination [of Clinton’s record]. He picks up the cudgel, and then sets it down. The problem is that Mr. Obama has built a campaign persona as the man of hope, a young candidate with oratorical skills who promises to build bridges across the ideological divide. allows for this type of behavior. If you recall the experience of another Axelrod client – Deval Patrick – he was able to avoid most […]

Jim Stergios

Louisiana beat us

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A follow to Meister Poftak’s post on the Grading the States report card released by Governing magazine and Pew’s Government Performance Project on the quality of governance in the 50 states. Just think about it: Last year Governing magazine splashed House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi’s face all over America for the work that he, former Senate President Travaglini and former Governor Romeny did in crafting the health care reform act. So much change, so fast. Governing rates Mass governance a C after a review of fiscal management, the use of technology, the state workforce, and infrastructure. (I understand the rating on the workforce – the grade must have taken a nosedive after I left…) Where do we stink? Well, we are […]

Steve Poftak

We beat Rhode Island and New Hampshire

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But that’s about it. In the latest Governing Magazine assessment of state management, Massachusetts finished 48th out of 50. In particular, our performance on infrastructure was quite poor, meriting just a D+ grade, but you may have already heard about that. A tip of the pen to the redoubtable Robert David Sullivan of Beyond Red & Blue for the point about infrastructure. 031308-testimony-to-bonding-cmte.doc h4409-governors-transportation-bond-bill.pdf h4562-house-transportation-committee-transpo-bond-bill.pdf masstrans-framework.pdf driving-questions-powerpoint-edited.ppt 2008-02-19-ian-bowles-on-sect-13-parkways-letter.pdf Language for Proposed Transportation Reforms DeLeo Letter on Transportation Bond BillLanguage for Proposed Transportation ReformsLanguage for Proposed Transportation Reforms

Steve Poftak

Farm Subsidies, Part XXXVI

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This space takes a dim view of almost all farm subsidies as market-distorting and wasteful. And as part of the nascent Pioneer Staff Caucus for good food, I find the evidence that the incentives contained in the farm bill to produce a handful of commodity crops — in essence creating a market through government interference — is neither healthy nor good for farmers in the long run. Yesterday’s NYTimes ran an op-ed from a farmer in Minnesota who pointed out another wrinkle in the farm bill — if you try and plant fruits and vegetables on land that had commodity (corn, soybean, rice, wheat, cotton) crops, you lose your government subsidy and you are penalized the market value of that […]

Steve Poftak

Counterintuitive News

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It’s too early, I realize.  But the state is $245 million ahead of where we projected we would be at this point in the fiscal year and $674 million ahead of the same point last fiscal year. Given all the chatter about a recession, its interesting that we aren’t (yet?) feeling the pinch tax-wise. If that $245 million holds, keep an eye on where it ends up — spent out in a ‘supp’, flushed into the Bay State Competitiveness Trust Fund, or put back into Stabilization.   What, you thought it would fund an income tax rollback?

Steve Poftak

Healthcare Cost Control

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Senate President Murray presented her ideas about controlling medical costs today. I don’t agree (or fully understand all of them) but I give her credit for setting out a broad array of potential areas for reform. And count me in as a fan of Section 20, expanding the role of Nurse Practitioners.

Steve Poftak

So, which is it?

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Our friends at CURP and A Better City held an event on Oct. 31st to promote a new study that advocated for additional transit spending to aid the biotech industry in Boston and Cambridge. But this Sunday’s Globe reports that biotech firms are moving to the less costly suburbs. Which suggests that additional transit spending is not required to aid this industry.

Jim Stergios

Debating biotech on NECN

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Some improvements in the House version of the biotech bill resulted from the good work of Pioneer and other groups like the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. For Pioneer’s testimony click here, for a Pioneer op-ed in the Globe click here. That said, apart from the research components and some of the infrastructure funding, the bill still stinks, as I think came out in the back and forth on NECN’s NewsNight with Jim Braude. In retrospect there is a better answer to Jim’s query “If the bill is so bad, why is it getting the support of the Governor, the Senate President and the Speaker?” I should have said something like the following: It’s borrowed money (a kind of funny money), […]

Jim Stergios

Slate on Guv Patrick and education

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Picking up on Fred Siegel’s piece on the politics of hope and the reality of Governor Patrick’s moves to undo education reform (= giving in to special interests), Mickey Kaus from Slate asks Isn’t it incumbent on those prominent NEA-bashing neoliberal Obama supporters to explain just why his term as president won’t quickly descend into a Patrick-like interest-group quagmire? Jon Alter, this means you! And Charles Peters as well. … P.S.: Patrick could function as Obama’s wrang-wrang, Vonnegut’s term for a pioneer who by his bad example steers others away from a false course. Before neolibs go into a permanent campaign swoon, shouldn’t Obama send them at least a subtle signal that he understands this? Kaus then needles “Hope= casino […]

Jim Stergios

Yes, We Can’t

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Tough article on Barack Obama and the politics of hope from Fred Siegel in the February City Journal. The reason for Fred’s less-than-hopeful take on Barack? The record thus far of Governor Deval Patrick. Fred calls the politics of hope a bust in Massachusetts, and here is why: Bay State journalist Rick Holmes describes Obama and Patrick, fellow Harvard Law School graduates, as “peas in a pod.” Patrick is the Obama campaign’s national cochair. Obama’s presidential campaign has modeled itself on Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign. Patrick’s 2006 campaign slogan was “Together we can,” while Obama’s is “Yes we can.” The brilliant Chicago political operative David Axelrod has managed both men’s campaigns. Both candidates have made persistent appeals to “the politics of […]

Steve Poftak

Just sayin

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The old grey lady warns today: New Jersey’s problems are magnified by a long history of irresponsible borrowing and spending. In a self-destructive gimmick, the state seriously underfunded its pension plan and used the money to pay for current spending programs. As a result, Mr. Corzine said, the state’s annual debt service now exceeds what it invests in higher education. Fiscal Year 2008 operating budget spending on these items for Massachusetts? $1.77 billion on debt service versus $950 million on the UMASS system and the state and community colleges. Update: The wiseguys over at Beyond Red & Blue laud my strong support for public higher education in the above post. I was hoping to focus more on our relative debt […]

Jim Stergios

A first for the Board of Education

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Yes, it is truly an — ahem — independent Board of Education. Yes, we will continue to hope that it will continue to be objective. Cough, cough. The SABIS proposal for a regional school to be located in Brockton was recommended by the Commissioner of Education and Department of Education staff.  Unlike many other states, Massachusetts has a strong application process that weeds out weak applications. This protects public dollars and has given the Commonwealth the best charters in the country. The proposed SABIS school was to serve 500 students to start and grow by a grade a year until it served 1300 students.  SABIS is a known entity in Massachusetts. It runs a successful charter school in Springfield.  Just […]

Steve Poftak

One down, two to go

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Just a few months ago, a wise man said the proof of success in reforming the auto insurance market would be the entrance of major national firms like Geico and Allstate. Well, there’s at least one firm entering the market — Progressive announced yesterday that it will start selling policies on May 1. No doubt the entry is part of a right-wing free-market plot. To give credit where its due, the Patrick administration, through appointee DOI Commissioner Nonnie Burnes, have stood up to withering criticism on this issue to push for less regulation of auto insurance. Two interesting sidenotes – AG Martha Coakley has been an outspoken opponent of these reforms. And she’s also arguably the most popular politician in […]

Liam Day

Huey Long. . . er, I mean, Hilary on vouchers

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My colleague, Jamie Gass, the cynic that he is, predicted after reading my last post that Barack Obama would backtrack on charter schools and vouchers. And, sure enough, he was right. From an Obama campaign statement Jamie forwarded to me: There have been misleading reports that Senator Obama voiced support for voucher programs in an interview with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers, and expressed his longstanding skepticism in that interview. Still, as Democrats for Education Reform does, contrast that statement with Hilary Clinton’s response to Mr. Obama’s orginal comments (see my last post). As reported in the New York Sun: Senator Clinton had a strong response, saying she […]