THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Orchard Gardens Against the Machine

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Yvonne Abraham’s column this week bemoaned the resignation of Andrew Bott from the Orchard Gardens School in Roxburyto take the helm of the K-8 Lincoln School in Brookline The column and most of the commentary I’ve heard focuses on why Mr. Bott, by all accounts an effective principal, is leaving. To the Boston public schools’ long list of woes, add this one: Andrew Bott is leaving. Bott is the principal of Orchard Gardens K-8, the Roxbury school that has become the shining, nationally recognized poster child for successful turnaround efforts. A few years ago, the school defined failure and faced a state takeover. Bott, equipped with a strong vision, federal funds, and autonomy to hire teachers, brought about staggering improvements […]

Jim Stergios

Building the Machine – a review

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What is Common Core?  How did it start–and who drove it?  Are the standards high?  How will it change our understanding of authentic college-level work?  Are Common Core proponents well-intentioned?  Or are they DC office-sitters who’ve rarely had any direct impact on a school or classroom but who really believe that they deserve control of key levers of education policy?  What is the purpose of education?  These are the kinds of questions that make up the greater part of the storyline of  Building the Machine, a documentary film produced by the Home School Legal Defense Association. Let me start this movie review by donning my Roger Ebert hat (decidedly not the Pauline Kael scarf) and getting the movie buff comments out of the way: […]

Wenli Fei

Government Transparency: A Step Forward

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Governor Deval Patrick launched the MassResults web page to promote transparency and accountability in Massachusetts government. Effectiveness, accountability and openness are Gov. Patrick’s goals. He aims to build a “results-oriented culture” in state government and says, “I encourage you to explore the site, ask questions and tell me what you think. Asking government to articulate what success looks like and be accountable for results is something that every citizen should expect.” The MassResults web page includes strategic plans and performance reports for each of the governor’s cabinet secretaries, incorporating the agencies and departments the secretaries oversee. The Web page links other transparency tools, as well, including Open Checkbook, Budget Dash Boards, annual financial reports, and others. [quote align=”right” color=”#999999″]MassResults is a […]

Joshua Archambault

100+ Unanswered Questions about the Failed Connector ACA Website

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As a result of the failed Connector website, 160,000 Massachusetts residents are on temporary public Medicaid coverage even though they don’t qualify for MassHealth. Failure at the Connector will cost Massachusetts taxpayers over $100 million dollars this year. So, Pioneer has questions about how Massachusetts went from having a well-functioning Exchange to one of the worst performances of any state in the Union: 102 questions to be exact. This week legislators on Beacon Hill are finally convening a second hearing in the seventh month since open enrollment started under the ACA, on the failures at the Connector. This follows a recent Congressional hearing featuring the executive director of the Connector, and a February hearing in Boston where legislators simply vented […]

Sandra Stotsky

What Reporters Think They Know about Common Core

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The public is ill-served by reporters who are no longer skeptical of what they are told, can’t read a set of ELA or math standards for K-12, and do not try to find out what is actually happening in the classroom in the name of Common Core. Here is a chart that appeared in an October 15, 2013 Hechinger Report. The comments mingle partial truths and outright lies. Why didn’t Sarah Garland, the reporter, seek a range of perspectives in order to evaluate what he or she had been told? (“Sold” may be the more accurate word.) Six ways Common Core changes English and math classrooms: Before Common Core English classes concentrated on literature, like Huckleberry Finn and Great Gatsby […]

Editorial Staff

Watch “Building the Machine,” New Common Core Movie

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“Building the Machine” is an excellent primer on the fatal deficiencies of Common Core national education standards. It features Pioneer’s Jim Stergios as well as all the major authors of Pioneer’s research on the inferior quality of the Common Core: Sandra Stotsky, R. James Milgram, Ze’ev Wurman and Bill Evers. Watch it here: [youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjxBClx01jc[/youtube]

Joshua Archambault

Mass Connector Called Before Congress To Explain Failed Rollout

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Chris Cassidy at the Boston Herald is reporting that Jean Yang, the executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, will be called before two Congressional committees to explain the failings of the exchange under the ACA on Thursday April 3rd at 10am. It should be noted that Yang will be the only executive director who has not been fired or resigned due to the poor performance of their state based exchange of the states invited that are likely to testify. These states include Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, and Oregon. As I have written about before, Massachusetts has the distinction of currently being the worst performing exchange in the country. Meanwhile, Governor Patrick has expressed his support for the current leadership […]

Audio: Lead Mathematics Standards-Writer William McCallum

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These audio clips are from Professor William McCallum’s remarks on college readiness in Common Core’s mathematics standards at a meeting sponsored by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America in San Francisco, California, in January 2010. Viewers might also be interested in the video clips with Jason Zimba’s comments on college readiness in Common Core’s mathematics standards at a March 2010 meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. https://pioneerinstitute.org/news/video-common-core-lead-writer-jason-zimba/

Sandra Stotsky

Debunking Common Core Myths

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One of the most interesting phenomena in the “Common Core War” is the number of “myths,” “claims,” and “facts” that have been put out by the advocates of Common Core’s standards. What they claim are “myths” are usually the facts, and what they claim are “facts” are usually myths or simply claims. No wonder uninformed legislators and journalists are confused. Some still think that the “fundamental” source of conflict in the Common Core War is growing opposition by members of a nation-wide Tea Party to a uniform set of demanding standards across this country, even though most of the Common Core opponents clearly identify themselves as parents and teachers. That is not the basic problem. The stakes are much, much […]

Mary Connaughton

Pioneer’s Transparency Update: “Sunshine Week” Edition

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While sunshine in government operations should be a 365-day calling, the dedication of this week gives focus to the necessity of transparency in a healthy democracy, the success of which is dependent upon actively engaged citizens. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Truth never damages a cause that is just.”  That statement that should apply to all governments. And that’s why we find it so troubling that our state legislature continues to shield itself from open meeting law, public records law and audits by the duly elected state auditor.  Legislators spend our money and make laws that impact on daily lives. Yet we, whom they represent, remain in the dark Once again during Sunshine Week, we took a look back at Pioneer’s […]

Editorial Staff

Massachusetts Deserves Better Education Leadership

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Massachusetts Deserves Better Education Leadership Education Secretary Matt Malone’s views on charter schools characterized by bigotry and demonization Can Matt Malone provide educational leadership in a state with the nation’s most successful charter public school sector? Emails recently obtained by Pioneer Institute show that Secretary Malone engaged in various forms of bigotry and demonization when, as superintendent of the Brockton Public Schools, he fought against opening the city’s first charter public school. After the 2008 rejection of a proposed Brockton charter public school under highly unusual circumstances, another charter proposal was submitted by a founding group with deep ties to Brockton.  The leadership group included former Mayor Jack Yunits, City Councilor Jass Stewart, and longtime advocate and business leader Faelton […]

Joshua Archambault

ACA Spiking Premiums in Massachusetts, More Than 300 Cancellations of Plans

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The Patrick Administration has been publicly touting that health care premiums are only going to go up 2% this year in the Commonwealth. However the anecdotal evidence fails to back up that assessment, and in a future post I will explain the intentionally misleading nature of that number. In short, the Division of Insurance asked the insurance companies to restate 2013 rates as if the ACA was in effect, to make the premium difference seem lower for 2014 under the ACA. I have written numerous times on this blog about the changes come to the Bay State under the ACA, and the roller coaster effect we can expect small companies to experience, and now we have some evidence. I asked […]

Mary Connaughton

Step it up, UMASS

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You’ve come a long way, baby! Or maybe not. It’s been 42 years since President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law. While the legislation was enacted to ban gender discrimination in educational programs, over time it became a game changer for school-based athletic programs. School girls and young college women seized the opportunity to abandon the sidelines and join the game like never before. According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, in 1972 only 1 in 27 girls participated in high school sports compared to 2 out of 5 today. Female participation in college sports also grew markedly, increasing by 500%. Athletic excellence became a core value for women across the country. In 1972, the top female runner completed the […]

Setting the Record Straight on Common Core Part 2

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Pioneer Institute has been a prime mover in the debate over Common Core national education standards.  Pioneer was among the first to call attention to the nature of the threat, producing rigorous research and relentlessly raising public awareness. Last month, Pioneer released the first of two videos setting the record straight on Common Core, questioning its legality, transparency and financial toll. Today, we release the second video, to shed light on the mediocre academic quality of Common Core and its negative impact on school choice. Since 2010, Pioneer has commissioned academic-quality research exposing the mediocre quality of Common Core, which put Massachusetts’ two decades of educational gains in jeopardy. The reports, authored by national academic content experts, showed that Common Core contained weaker content in math […]

Jamie Gass

Common Core Math’s House of Hay

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More than once, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has described himself as a frustrated architect. But nothing highlights our governor’s questionable architectural chops like his unwise decision to dismantle the nationally-recognized K-12 academic standards that were central to Massachusetts’ landmark 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act and replace them with weaker national English and math standards known as Common Core. A third-grader educated under Massachusetts’ state standards, might recall the fable (and lesson) of the three little pigs. And they would likely notice that Gov. Patrick is like the character in the fable who built his house of hay. Too bad for him and proponents of Common Core that it doesn’t take a big bad wolf, a monsoon, or even the growing […]