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Nice job by Regional Planning Agencies
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity /byKudos to the state’s planning agencies for coming together to do a great service for communities and businesses statewide. The Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies has cobbled together the basic premises for effective local permitting in its A Best Practices Model for Streamlined Local Permitting. The document lays out ways to improve communication, standardize procedures and how to implement expedited permitting for select sites, per legislation (Ch. 43D) passed in 2006. Timely and helpful work.
Obama on charter schools and vouchers
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, News, Related Education Blogs /by Liam DayI like Barack Obama. I like the rhetoric he uses and the hope he embodies and, unlike some people, I believe rhetoric is as important as policy. More important even, for rhetoric defines the parameters in which policy operates. In a sense, rhetoric sets strategy, whereas policy only defines the tactics to achieve the strategy outlined by rhetoric. To refer to a prior post of mine a leader must possess clearly stated strategic goals that are based on deeply held principles and from which he or she refuses to waver. A candidate’s rhetoric helps define the strategic goals he or she seeks to achieve and from which he or she refuses to waver. That being said, rhetoric without policy is […]
Two connections are missing
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /byIn a number of articles in the Boston press on the Governor’s plan to pump $40+ million into biotech firm Shire (The Globe’s Todd Wallack and AP) and on the forward movement of the $1 billion biotech plan (The Globe’s Matt Viser and the Herald’s Christine McConville), two connections are missing. Sure, the “picking winners and losers” trope is being heard, though not with the seriousness it requires. It should be noted that during a recent Joint Committee on Long-Term Debt hearing on the biotech bill, the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Dan O’Connell noted that the state might even consider investing in certain companies if the state could hold a stake in the company… Guys, if you want […]
ED Hirsch on education in Massachusetts
/0 Comments/in Blog, Related Education Blogs /byI’ve always been a little perplexed by the claims that teaching to the test is “narrowing” the curriculum and thereby not giving kids access to a liberal arts education. The fact is if a student cannot read, do math or perform at a minimal level in science, it is hard to believe that he or she will be able to access a liberal arts education. And, in fact, Massachusetts is known nationwide for having the curriculum frameworks — the basic material from which the MCAS is drawn — that have the strongest academic content. Don’t ask me. See an op-ed in the WaPo entitled The Knowledge Connection from education guru E.D. Hirsch. Language comprehension is a slow-growing plant. Even […]
The Dome does not get it
/0 Comments/in Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /byBut Steve Bailey does. Not because he mentions Pioneer’s work in yesterday’s column on business costs and unemployment insurance (UI), but because he is the one reporter who understands that the freeze on UI does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of UI. As Bailey summarizes: Freezing the rate is a little like skipping a credit card payment – eventually the bill comes due. As with your credit card, the way to cut your bill is to cut your spending. Bailey noted earlier in his piece that the Legislature, cowed by labor, has shown no appetite about doing anything about the underlying costs. Right you are, again, Mr. Bailey. The UI rate freeze was passed without a roll-call vote to […]
Chinatown bus
/0 Comments/in Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /byI 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 […]
Concentrating poverty in our cities
/0 Comments/in Blog, Economic Opportunity, Housing, News /byThe 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 […]
Milwaukee Voucher Students Have Diploma Edge
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byThanks 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 […]
Progressive idea? Regressive in practice
/0 Comments/in Blog, Healthcare /byThat 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 […]
A lack of imagination
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, News /by Liam DayAs 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 […]
Change or Die
/0 Comments/in Blog, Related Education Blogs /byVermont 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 […]
Tough fight but they are right
/0 Comments/in Blog, Economic Opportunity, Housing, News /byLenore 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 […]
3 trillion and counting
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, News /by Liam DayOf 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.
The 100,000 student mark
/0 Comments/in Blog, Related Education Blogs /byA 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% […]
To lead or follow
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Liam DayI 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 […]