THE PIONEER BLOG

Editorial Staff

Massachusetts Gubernatorial Candidates on K-12 Education Policy

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K-12 education policy too often is the province of powerful special interests. It is important for candidates for public office to speak directly to citizens and parents about what they will do for the next generation of schoolchildren if elected. That’s why we invited all five Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates to respond to a questionnaire on K-12 education policy. Our purpose is to share their views on eight big education issues relevant to what children learn in the classroom, career and college preparation, and equitable choices for all families. All of the gubernatorial candidates responded to our questionnaire, with the exception of Martha Coakley. As soon as we receive her responses, we will share them with you as well. A few […]

MuckRock

When It Comes to Disclosing Public Official’s Financial Interests, Mass is in the Sad Minority

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Last week, we looked at some of the bureaucratic obstacles that transparency advocates in Massachusetts can find themselves faced with, eventually singling out the Ethics Commission’s Statements of Financial Interests (SFIs) as a particularly egregious example. Not only does the Commission require you to fill out a completely superfluous additional form and attach a copy of your driver’s license (both flagrant violations of state public records law) but they then share this information with the individual you’re requesting information on – something utterly without precedent in public records, and really, intimidation by any other name. This week, we’ll see how this policy compares to SFIs in other states, and how it touches upon the larger issue of Mass’ commitment to […]

Editorial Staff

State Internal Docs Contradict Gov. Patrick: Show $1B Price Tag for ACA Transition

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Governor Patrick has now called our Health Connector cost estimate report “politically motivated,” “spurious” and “inaccurate.” He’s gone back and accused Pioneer of “making stuff up out of thin air.” He can employ whatever words he likes, but he cannot deny the cruel mathematics of public finance. The Governor needs to ask his staff for more information, as their documents in federal filings show stunning and accumulating costs of the state’s effort to develop a Health Connector 2.0. On Saturday, the Boston Herald reported (“Internal documents suggest $1B Obamacare cost“) that confidential “internal working papers” confirmed by state officials project that putting hundreds of thousands of applicants on temporary Medicaid plans will cost $560.2 million in FY15. These plans were made available to […]

MuckRock

In Mass, records are available on a “Why-Do-You-Need-To-Know” basis

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Last week, MuckRock journalist Todd Feathers wrote about a recent change to Boston public records policy, introduced by the Walsh administration, which required that members of the media submit their requests through the City Hall PR office … even if those requests had nothing whatsoever to do with City Hall. It’s to assist in the processing, you see. If that seems a bit off, that’s only because it completely is – requiring requests to go through some sort of external vetting process that doesn’t even involve the agency you’re requesting records from is a clear violation of Massachusetts public records law: “Every person having custody of any public record, as defined in clause Twenty-sixth of section seven of chapter four, […]

Editorial Staff

An Open Letter to Governor Deval Patrick about Healthcare Cost Overruns

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This letter was sent via email to the Patrick Administration earlier today.  October 9, 2014 Governor Deval Patrick Massachusetts State House Office of the Governor Room 105 Boston, MA 02133 Dear Governor Patrick: On Monday the State House News Service reported your statements that the additional cost to fix the state’s healthcare exchange website will not surpass $26 million and that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Massachusetts, along with the enrollment of more than 400,000 people, is within budget. Official representations from your administration directly contradict these assertions.  In an Official Statement dated July 31, 2013, your administration disclosed the existence of projected cost overruns: The fiscal 2014 budget assumes base caseload growth of 2.8% over fiscal […]

Sandra Stotsky

Those Mathematical Societies That Supposedly Endorsed Common Core’s Standards Didn’t

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Stanford University mathematics professor R. James Milgram included an informative e-mail in his packet of information for state legislators when he testified at a hearing on Common Core in Milledgeville, Georgia on September 24, 2014. The e-mail explains why presidents of many of the major mathematical organizations in the country endorsed Common Core’s standards in July 2013. The author of the e-mail seems to believe that the societies themselves would be unlikely to endorse Common Core’s standards, but that readers (i.e., the public) might be misled into thinking they had if they saw that the presidents had endorsed the standards. Consequently, the e-mail wants just the presidents’ signatures because they would “likely” be just as “effective.” The underlying assumption is […]

MuckRock

Why do Massachusetts police departments have tanks? And more importantly, why are they hiding them?

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Ever since media coverage of the Ferguson protests brought us images of local law enforcement armed with weapons and gear that looked more at home in Fallujah than a suburb of St. Louis, the increased militarization of the police has been a topic of much controversy and debate. However, while the national scrutiny is new, the practice of state and local agencies stockpiling military-grade ordnance – and the Pentagon’s program that makes it possible – has been happening for over a decade. Originally started by the Department of Defense in the mid-to-late nineties, and now handled by the Defense Logistics Agency, the 1033 program, as it is known, makes excess and obsolete military equipment – everything from hand tools to […]

MuckRock

For transparency advocates, with friends like Galvin …

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A report in the Globe last week made public what those who deal with government transparency in Massachusetts knew all too well – the state’s terrible reputation for public records laws is well-deserved, and only made worse by the lack of help, and not direct hindrance, of the Secretary of State, William Galvin. Galvin oversees the Supervisor of Public Records Office, which in theory serves in the public interest as an open records watchdog, ensuring state and local agencies properly fulfill requests in a timely manner and don’t redact more than the law-mandated minimum. As we wrote back in 2012, in practice, the SPR has served as yet another obstacle between the requester and their documents. Though there were a […]

Editorial Staff

The Ugly Truth About State Healthcare Costs

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Last week, Pioneer Institute released a report showing that the cost of transitioning to an Affordable Care Act-compliant health insurance exchange is likely to top $1 billion over two years. The figure includes $540 million in 2014 for a new transitional Medicaid program that was created when the state exchange failed last year. Read our report: [wpdm_package id=425] In response, Governor Patrick issued a sharply worded statement that received widespread media coverage, dismissing our report by saying, “The truth is that Massachusetts is still successfully expanding health care and doing so within budget.” But the facts tell a different story. According to a Boston Business Journal (BBJ) report by Craig Douglas, far from being “within budget,” MassHealth is anticipating a $500 million […]

Editorial Staff

Public Statement on the New MBTA Union Contract

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PIONEER INSTITUTE PUBLIC STATEMENT ON THE NEW MBTA UNION CONTRACT Yesterday, the MassDOT board approved a new labor agreement with the Boston Carmen’s Union that sidesteps real reform at the MBTA Retirement Fund. The fund is in dire condition, with a $700 million unfunded liability that jeopardizes both retiree benefits and the MBTA’s finances. The pact promises to close certain loopholes that have allowed MBTA employees to bank back pay to spike their pensions. This is a long-overdue and welcome reform, but one that barely scrapes the surface of the many fundamental problems the retirement fund faces. It is also the only significant gain for taxpayers from the deal. ?he fund promises to share information about retiree allowances with the […]

Greg Sullivan

The Health Connector Authority Protesting Too Much

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In FY2011, the year prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act, the administrative budget of the Massachusetts Health Connector Authority was $29 million.  By FY2013, while the Connector Authority struggled to implement its change to ACA, its budget had risen to $55 million.  By FY2014, it had risen to $118 million.  In FY2015, its budget is $98 million.  These whopping annual increases in administrative expenditures have paid for converting to the new Affordable Care Act system. Pioneer Institute issued a report today adding up these and all other administrative costs of converting from our pre-ACA connector system, stating “there has been little transparency about the full taxpayer cost of the state-based exchange. Estimates often have been released piecemeal, and […]

Joshua Archambault

Deval’s Big Dig: Responding to the Governor on Connector Report

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When we talk about the Big Dig, we talk in big, round numbers. Why?  Because it cost gobs of money. You can debate whether it was worth it, and for years we did. Journalists dug into the story. Careers were dashed and fortunes were made in the process. We don’t distinguish between federal and state dollars in discussing the Big Dig. We say it cost $16 billion, not $XX for the state and $YY for the Feds. And rightfully so: The question has always been about value and how the associated costs spiraled out of control. [quote align=”right” color=”#999999″]We join that call on the Administration to release a full and detailed response to the report, so we all can settle […]

Jim Stergios

BPS’ all-in adoption of PARCC is bad for kids, and is illegal

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A front page article by Jamie Vaznis in the Boston Globe today carries the news that all lower-grade Boston district schools will drop the MCAS and adopt the new Common Core-aligned PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career) test. Most Boston public schools would drop the MCAS next spring in favor of a new online testing system the state is trying out… The recommendation, being presented to the School Committee Wednesday night, would affect more than 22,000 Boston students in grades 3-8 who must take state standardized tests every spring. Tenth-graders would continue to take the MCAS, which remains a state graduation requirement. The most important consideration here should be the impact on learning and the pace […]

Sandra Stotsky

Doubling Down on Doublespeak

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This past week, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by William Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues and once chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in which he defended Common Core as a conservative approach to school reform—allowing, he claimed, the preservation of our civic and cultural literary heritage.  Several days earlier, Politico published a blog in which David Coleman, now president of the College Board and widely acknowledged as the chief “architect” of Common Core’s English language arts standards, is quoted as claiming that Common Core had been inspired by the work of E.D. Hirsch, Jr., founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia. All of this rightly sounded bewildering to those familiar with […]

Editorial Staff

Celebrating Great Ideas: The Better Government Competition Awards Dinner

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Pioneer Institute Hosts 23rd Annual Better Government Competition Boston Mayor Martin Walsh Delivered Keynote at Awards Ceremony  Pioneer Institute recognized the winner and runners-up of its annual Better Government Competition at an awards dinner on Thursday, featuring a Keynote Address by Martin J. Walsh, Mayor of Boston.   In his Keynote Address, Mayor Walsh described his comprehensive agenda for the City, emphasizing his civic engagement initiatives. His remarks were followed by a Q&A session. Watch the Mayor’s speech: [youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soN-B_kHK7o&index=2&list=UUxPr4y_MBrcdji_ockXjuPA[/youtube] “Compass® CoPilot,” a proposal to integrate data collection and reporting at state and county human services agencies, is the winning entry in the 23rd annual Better Government Competition. This year’s contest sought ideas that leverage technology to improve the public sector. The winning […]