THE PIONEER BLOG

Steve Poftak

MBTA Doing More With Less

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Rather than big dollar expansion projects, the MBTA’s Key Bus Routes program stands as an example of modest incremental investments that can yield improved service (and potentially increased ridership). The program released its initial design for improvements to the 39 bus route on Tuesday and the results are promising. They are eliminating a handful of stops, moving some bus stops, marking them more prominently, and lengthening several of them. The goal is to lower the number of stops and create stops that are clear of illegal parkers and can be more easily used by drivers (as opposed to having them stop in the flow of traffic). The presentation also makes non-specific commitments to improved traffic signal coordination and technology-driven ‘anti-bunching’ […]

Steve Poftak

Public Pensions and Workforce – State Police Version

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The recent announcement that State Police Superintendent Marian McGovern was going to retire prompted me to look into her compensation and her choices. (N.B. I don’t know the Superintendent and don’t question her commitment to public service. The point here is simply to look at the economic incentives provided by the current public pension system.) My first question was: Why did she wait so long? The State Police are “Group 3” employees and the only Commonwealth employees who do not have a retirement age factor in their pension calculation (only years of service). That contributes to relative early retirements — the average State Police retiree in 2009 was 53.7 years old while the average Group 1 retiree (the majority of […]

Joshua Archambault

The Myth of Cost Control Legislation

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The House passed their version of “cost control” last night in a 148-7 vote. Sadly for taxpayers and the general public, there was little debate on the bill itself and the few minutes of debate on the floor revolved exclusively around a handful of amendments. Changing 18% of our state economy with little debate, no hard questions, in a few hours, no problem? Was this how we did it for health reform 1.0? The leadership accepted most special interest amendments in an effort to garner votes. Most of these provisions will be taken out in conference committee. What We Know 18% of the Massachusetts economy is health care related; 20% of patients account for 80% of costs, 5% of patients […]

Joshua Archambault

Guide to Mass Payment Reform Amendments: Sex Ed, Podiatry, and Acupuncture

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Find me on twitter: @josharchambault For those following at home, the House will debate their version of payment reform today and tomorrow. You can watch here starting at 1 pm and read the redraft of the bill here. 275 amendments have been filed, and legislators appear to be more focused on social policy, labor policy, and special-interest carve outs than health delivery and payment reform. Some of the more colorful amendments consist of: Social Policy: Studying sex ed in charter schools.(#30) 4 amendments dealing with family planning (#32, 139, 264, 265), removing ultrasound diagnostic imaging from the definition of an advanced diagnostic imaging service (#179), and health care equity (#217). Labor Appointments: There are 5 amendments giving appointments to the Massachusetts Nurses Association […]

Jim Stergios

Falling short on the Lawrence school turnaround

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In November 2011, the Board of Education decided to put the city of Lawrence’s public schools into receivership. With that announcement the power to install a receiver for the district was given to the state’s education commissioner. The January appointment of Jeffrey Riley as receiver by the Education Commissioner was well received. Riley has experience as a Teacher for America and also as a principal of a challenging school. His work as the Chief Innovation Officer in Boston’s schools was marked by a steady but persistent push for change. So, yesterday the receiver and the commissioner made public the state’s turnaround plan for the Lawrence Public Schools today with fanfare and much talk about urgency. The Lawrence Eagle Tribune lists […]

Jim Stergios

A big test at Madison Park Vocational

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Over the past decade, while there has been incremental success in most suburban schools, and limited incremental success raising achievement in a few urban school districts, the big stories in raising student achievement have come in the state’s 70 or so Commonwealth charter schools and its 27 regional career-vocational technical schools. Currently, there are 63 CVT schools in the Commonwealth with about half serving regional populations while the other half is under the direct jurisdiction of larger districts. The regional voc-techs have many similarities with charters: They operate outside the direct control of a single district superintendent, and in fact have their own dedicated leadership (superintendents and elected school committees); they are schools of choice; they are highly focused on […]

Joshua Archambault

Mass House Pulls a “Charlie Brown” on Payment Reform Redraft

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The Massachusetts House rushed the release of their payment reform bill to beat the Senate the first time around. As a result, the next few weeks provided time for House lawmakers to receive feedback and improve the bill before it was to be voted on. Unfortunately, the bill’s authors missed the ball again, and made only small changes. Unfortunately, the House has decided to follow the Senate precedent of rushing passage of the final bill. 48 hours to file amendments, and only a couple more days before it is debated and voted on next week. [Changing 18 percent of our economy in two days, with many unanswered questions about added costs, lack of evidence of savings, and lots of new mandates, […]

Joshua Archambault

Video: But Will The Cost-Cutting Bills Really Save Money?

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The debate on Beacon Hill is heating up on payment reform legislation, but the public discourse has revolved primarily around dueling press releases.  There has been little discussion exploring the real challenges of fundamentally changing 18 percent of the Massachusetts economy with new payment and delivery methodologies. With 20 percent of patients accounting for 80 percent of health care costs, is this the right approach? Will it save money and engage consumers? CommonWealth magazine hosted a recent web discussion to cover a few of these topics. WBUR’s CommonHealth blog recently shared the video as well.

Steve Poftak

Our Final Thoughts on The 38 Studios Meltdown

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First and foremost, this is an economic disaster for Rhode Island and a personal tragedy for the individuals and their families affected. Rhode Island is in much worse shape, employment-wise, than Massachusetts, ranking 50th (out of 51) in unemployment rate at 11.2%. Massachusetts is 14th at 6.3%. And this is a big layoff for that state, with 288 employees laid off in-state and another 91 laid off (primarily in Maryland). Over the past 10 years, Rhode Island has averaged 63 “mass layoff” events per year, at an average of 134 employees laid off per event. So 38 Studios demise is roughly twice that. One really puzzling aspect of this for me is how dramatically the company missed. This is the […]

Jim Stergios

Perspectives on the Romney education plan

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A round-up of various perspectives on Governor Romney’s education policy announcement yesterday. I’ll post later on today to help you navigate through the noise, but it is always good to have a broad set of perspectives when big announcements are made. Here is the full education “white paper” entitled A Chance for Every Child and a list of the Romney education team. Here is a transcript of Governor Romney’s speech before the Latino Coalition’s Annual Economic Summit in Washington, D.C. From today’s Boston Globe, here is Matt Viser’s article. The Wall Street Journal‘s video take below: Trip Gabriel’s take in the New York Times. And Paul West of the LA Times. Crossposted at Boston.com’s Rock the Schoolhouse. Follow me on […]

Steve Poftak

Massachusetts’ Jobs-Unfriendly Regulatory Environment

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I know this can seem like a talking point, but there’s some new data to back up the claim. The Kaufmann Foundation and Thumbtack.com have done a survey of small businesses to gauge “small business friendliness”. Massachusetts doesn’t fare so well — getting a D overall. We do well on ‘Networking Programs” but most other categories, like Regulation, Zoning, etc, are terrible. The data is based on a limited number of self-selected responses but its an interesting approach that indicates the importance of licensing and regulation on business creation. One of the most important ways to create new jobs (which we need) is to get new businesses started. So, it would make sense to lower the barriers that prevent people […]

Jim Stergios

The wrong lesson on national standards

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Dear David, Congratulations on becoming the new head of the College Board. I know, as a Founding Father of the national standards effort, you may have read certain things I have written that you do not agree with. While I haven’t met you personally yet, I look forward to it. I have heard universally that you are a smart guy and reputed by all to be a nice person. I hope you and the Coleman family are well, and I am writing to say I’m sorry. In addition to writing about school innovations, charter schools, vocational technical schools, school choice, accountability to results, and teacher quality issues, I’ve written with some frequency about academic standards and curricula—and especially recently about […]

Jim Stergios

Decision Time is Here For Extended Learning in Massachusetts

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The Education Reform Act of 1993 was a complex piece of legislation but its principal components are four: High academic standards for K-12 schools; Accountability through the MCAS test and a state office that performs audits on schools and districts; Improved teacher quality through rigorous testing of teacher’s mastery of the content in the state’s academic standards; and Expanded public school choices for parents through charter schools. The subsequent history of education reform in Massachusetts has been an ebb and flow of implementation of these elements. It took until 1996 for the state to truly embark on any of the first three reforms listed above (and it took a long time and lots of public debate to move them ahead–one […]