THE PIONEER BLOG

Editorial Staff

Fordham report predictable, conflicted

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Guest Post by Richard P. Phelps On November 17, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) will decide the fate of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) and the Partnership for Assessment of College Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) in the Bay State. MCAS is homegrown; PARCC is not. Barring unexpected compromises or subterfuges, only one program will survive. Over the past year, PARCC promoters have released a stream of reports comparing the two testing programs. The latest arrives from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in the form of a partial “evaluation of the content and quality of the 2014 MCAS and PARCC “relative to” the “Criteria for High Quality Assessments”[i] developed by one of the organizations […]

Mary Connaughton

A Step Forward on Meaningful Public Records Reform?

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Yesterday’s Boston Globe editorial has it right – the time for the legislature to act on meaningful public records reform is now, while at least a modicum of momentum remains for its enactment.  Waiting much longer likely signals the bill’s death knell. Sadly, though, if a bill does emerge from the House Ways and Means Committee it may be something far less than what we’d hope for.  The bill proposed by Rep. Peter Kocot, which drew swarms of government transparency enthusiasts to Beacon Hill to testify in its support, contained meaningful tools to promote open government.  Among them: penalties for untimely compliance, reduced costs for requestors, requirements for digital responses and provisions for agencies to reimburse legal fees to those […]

Editorial Staff

What True Education Reform Leaders Think About MCAS & Charters

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An op-ed in Tuesday’s Boston Globe urges Massachusetts policymakers to adopt the Common Core-aligned PARCC test because MCAS is supposedly too outdated to help prepare our schoolchildren for future success. But as Pioneer has argued in our recent book, and numerous reports, op-eds and public appearances, Common Core and PARCC are academically mediocre and inferior to the Bay State’s homegrown MCAS and historically successful standards. Education leaders and the public should be reminded about the tremendous progress that Massachusetts’ students have made as a result of the implementation of the state’s previous standards and MCAS tests. At a Pioneer forum in 2013, two of the three co-authors of Massachusetts’ landmark 1993 Education Reform Act questioned the state’s decision to jettison […]

Lauren Corvese

How UMass can cut the $11 million

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Yesterday, the Statehouse News Service reported that UMass President Marty Meehan announced UMass needs to cut $11 million because the Legislature did not include this sum in their supplemental budget bill.  Meehan is upset that his lobbying efforts did not yield state funding for the collective bargaining agreement UMass reached with faculty and staff unions to pay $10.9 million in retroactive wages.  Since the wages have already been paid, the university will have to look elsewhere to offset the cost. Meehan, who is “puzzled” and “disappointed,” said it will be difficult to find $11 million to cut from this year’s budget. Really? Pioneer recently looked into UMass’ spending and found a lot of fat to cut. From 2009 to 2014, […]

Lauren Corvese

5 Reasons Students will Love the New Higher Ed Bill

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Expanding scholarships, savings incentives, refinancing loans, collaboration efforts, and finding a new funding formula are all a great start, but could more be done? Tuition and fees at UMass have gone way up, average student debt for UMass Amherst graduates has hit $30,000, and if the relationship between university costs and debt continues, this year’s freshmen are looking at owing over $36,000 when they graduate. The rise in college costs and student debt remain prominent issues with no relief in sight.  With the recent media buzz over the UMass tuition and fee hikes of more than 5 percent, it’s no wonder that the state legislature has teed up a new higher education bill: H. 1068.  The bill, sponsored by co-chairs […]

Scott Haller

MBTA Scorecards: A Work in (Backwards) Progress?

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Three weeks ago the MBTA announced the long-awaited return of comprehensive performance reports. These ‘weekly’ scorecards include on-time performance data for both the commuter rail and the T’s subway system, the first regularly posted data regarding the subway since 2014. The MBTA has expressed that these reports are a work-in-progress and that they will be bolstered in quality and scope over time. Regaining the public’s trust is a critical part of the MBTA’s mission following disastrous winter performance, and while the new scorecards are a step in the right direction, Pioneer has already noted various ways that they could be improved. It seems that there is another way to improve the reports: Actually post them! As a constant watchdog of […]

Editorial Staff

Pathways to Equal Opportunity: Vocational-Technical Education & the Liberal Arts

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A century ago, two prominent African-American educators, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, initiated a national debate between proponents of vocational-technical education and those who favor liberal arts as the best means of achieving equality of opportunity. This debate continues today. Please join us as a noted historian, biographer, college president, and reformers discuss this important and timeless education policy topic.

MuckRock

September’s Come and Gone – and Where’s Public Records Reform?

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How fitting is it that a bill meant to strengthen our anemic public records law morphed into a perfect illustration of just how sorry government transparency is in Massachusetts? As I wrote about at the beginning of the month, public records reform came in with a roar at the start of summer. The combination of journalists, open government advocates, and even everyday concerned citizens who packed the State House, bringing testimonies of the abuse, incompetence, and neglect they’ve experienced first hand made one thing clear – we needed change, and we needed it now. Massachusetts should take its rightful place as pack leader when it comes to good government, not a straggler, lingering among the worst of states. And it […]

Barbara Anthony

How To Tell If The Price Is Right: Fostering Transparency in Healthcare Prices for Massachusetts Consumers

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Notwithstanding a Massachusetts law requiring the clear, prompt disclosure of price estimates to patients upon request, recent studies by Pioneer of a sample of hospitals, specialist physicians and dentists throughout the state showed that it is still not easy to obtain this information, often requiring some persistence and longer than the two days allowed by law (“Survey: Price Information Difficult to Obtain by Massachusetts Hospitals,” June 24, 2015; “State Healthcare Price Transparency Law Still Not a Reality,” August 12, 2015). The 2012 Massachusetts law requires healthcare providers to give consumers procedure prices within two business days of request (Chapter 224 of the Acts of 2012, “An Act Improving the Quality of Health Care and Reducing Costs Through Increased Transparency, Efficiency […]

Scott Haller

New MBTA Performance Reports: Work In Progress

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This week, the MBTA began publishing new weekly performance reports which provide daily summaries of on-time performance for all subway lines (except the Green line), buses, and commuter rail lines. The reduction in quality compared to previous performance reports raises questions following terrible winter performance and the resulting diminished public confidence. The MBTA used to publish monthly performance reports for all modes of transit including data on vehicle availability, distances traveled between breakdowns, on-time performance and more. The reports also included a summary page at the beginning describing ridership changes, and an addendum explaining the performance measures. The new reports contain only on-time performance data. (Examples of the previous scorecard layout for commuter rail and subway lines) The last report […]

Scott Haller

T Has Failed to Hold Keolis to Commuter Rail Operating Contract

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Over two-dozen rail operators initially expressed interest in the MBTA’s commuter rail contract, but only the incumbent, Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company (MBCR), and a French newcomer, Keolis Commuter Services, submitted final bids. Keolis ended up winning the contract for at least the next 8 years with a $2.68 billion bid, making it the largest transit contract in the history of the Commonwealth and the most expensive rail operating contract in the country. Many saw this agreement as a turning point for the beleaguered commuter rail system. MBCR had been in charge for more than a decade, and long-standing criticisms of an absence of meaningful performance incentives were purportedly cured in the “no-excuses” contract. Under the new contract, each late […]

Editorial Staff

Statement on 2015 MCAS Results and Preliminary, Incomplete 2015 PARCC Results

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The release of 2015 MCAS results together with a patchwork of preliminary 2015 PARCC testing results provides little new information to help Massachusetts choose between the two tests. PARCC supporters claim the test’s rigor is evidenced by the fact that fewer students scored in its top two categories compared to those who took MCAS at some grade levels. But the evidence doesn’t support such a claim. First, school districts were simply allowed to choose which test to administer. Districts also had the option of offering PARCC by computer or on paper. The data released yesterday covers only the 59 percent of students taking PARCC who did so by computer. Though both MCAS and PARCC are based on Common Core English […]

Greg Sullivan

How to Save the MBTA Over $100 Million a Year

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The first step in reforming the MBTA has been taken by the Legislature and the Governor. It included the establishment of a Finance and Management Control Board focused on the Authority’s operations as well as the new power to contract out services over a limited period of time. The second step for the MBTA has to be addressing the issues of immediate and short-term concern such as transit safety and the maintenance, upgrade and repair of assets that will allow the MBTA to function throughout even a difficult winter. Even as the work is underway, in order to ensure that the MBTA can address operational finance issues and make further investments and progress in addressing its multi-billion maintenance backlog, the […]

Scott Haller

There’s No Excuse for a ‘No-Excuses’ Contract With Excuses

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Despite a “no-excuses” contract with Keolis Commuter Services for the commuter rail system, the MBTA has dropped the target on-time performance rate to 92% from its historical level of 95%. As Pioneer has shown before, this is a step in the wrong direction for the T. On-time performance is the most important metric for determining a commuter rail system’s performance and reliability; high marks improve rider confidence and can boost ridership. The MBTA’s contract with Keolis indicates that 92% on-time performance is the remedial performance level, i.e. the lowest acceptable value. In fact, achieving on-time performance levels below the remedial performance level for two consecutive months, or for three months within a twelve month period, is grounds to terminate the […]

Lauren Corvese

The Impact of UMass Tuition and Fee Hikes on Student Debt

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Student debt has reached astounding levels.  At nearly $1.2 trillion, outstanding student debt is nearly the highest form of debt in the country, second only to mortgages.  The situation has become a salient issue, not only part of a national conversation but also here in Massachusetts. Recently, Pioneer published a blog on the rising cost of tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts that questioned why UMass was not looking to cut costs instead.  This past June, the Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition and fees for in-state students at UMass by more than 5 percent. Graduating student debt at UMass Amherst grew by nearly 20 percent from 2010-2014, highlighting the crippling long-term effect of the hikes.  Stakeholders […]