THE PIONEER BLOG

Steve Poftak

The Dog That Didn’t Bark — Chelsea Housing Authority and the Auditor

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It feels like a familiar story – an obscure public sector entity with a clueless (or worse) board of directors fails to do their job and the executive director makes off with bags of money. Except this time, the setting is the Chelsea Public Housing Authority rather than the Merrimack Valley (see here and here). Briefly, the Director of the Authority managed to pay himself $360,000 per year (far more than any other Housing Authority director in the state) while claiming that he was only making $160,000. His explanation for lying to the state and federal government: He’s a ‘rebel’. Once he figured out his days were numbered, he got the Authority’s bookkeeper to write him checks cashing out his […]

Jim Stergios

Myths About National Standards: Myth #1

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Being half Greek and long a admirer of Classical Antiquity, I do have a soft spot in my heart for mythology. When it comes to public policy, myths have far less utility, as perhaps the myths about the fate of modern-day Greece shows all too clearly. When it comes to American education, the myths that are bandied about most frequently these days are related to the “Common Core” national standards. Proponents make a number of important claims about them: They’re internationally benchmarked. They’re aligned with workplace needs and also college readiness. They don’t dictate state curricula; and they’re voluntary. Each of these assertions by proponents of the Common Core is highly questionable and in some cases outright false. Friends in […]

Steve Poftak

What a Deal: State $. No Oversight?

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Imagine getting money from the state on a no-bid basis. Even better, a state law names you as the sole entity eligible to get the cash. If you are lucky enough to be BDC Capital, you don’t have to imagine. As recently as 2008, the program it runs, the Capital Access Program, got $5 million in the life sciences bill. BDC Capital (known as the Massachusetts Business Development Corporation) receives money from the state and other sources and supposedly uses it to support small businesses. And someone is looking out for them, an attempt to open the program to other providers in the last Economic Development bill was dropped in conference. I say ‘supposedly’ above, because no one cares to […]

Steve Poftak

Pressley’s Victory and Connolly’s Regrets

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The more you look at Ayanna Pressley’s first-place finish in Tuesday’s at-large race, the more impressive it looks. As I noted previously, she was able to hold onto a lot of votes from the 2009 at-large election that had much higher turnout (she held onto 90 percent of her ’09 votes with only 57 percent of the total turnout). Now, the exact same people didn’t necessarily vote for her in each election, but I think it’s a useful proxy for a candidate’s popularity and GOTV effort. In fact, in a number of cases across the city (79 of 254 precincts), Pressley exceeded her vote totals from ’09. And it was relatively spread out across the city from a demographic standpoint, […]

Jim Stergios

Does Mass. Exclude Low-Achievers from National Education Tests?

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Last week, in reporting the national test results on how our public schools are doing, I noted that while It is wonderful that Massachusetts has maintained its lead nationally, … [o]ur students are no longer improving at the rate they were and in fact their performance has largely flatlined. On the scaled scores for the Commonwealth, the loss of momentum is very clear with no change on the 4th and 8th grade math scores, and a slight increase on the 4th and 8th grade reading scores (which amount to scores that are statistically unchanged). Let me share an additional reasons to be concerned and it starts with a solid piece from Nirvi Shah of EdWeek entitled “How Many Students With […]

Jim Stergios

What will adoption of national standards cost Massachusetts schools?

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It’s always struck me as odd that with all the talk about federal money coming from the federal Race to the Top effort to support state implementation of national standards (the so-called Common Core), no one has done a solid cost estimate for what it will cost. Let me say that again: We have at the state and federal level changed policies that are far-reaching for our states, districts and schools, and yet we have had no idea what it will cost to do so. McGraw-Hill’s February 2011 Education Brief notes that States and districts are unsure what the true cost of implementing Common Core will be and worry that the money needed will not be available in state or […]

Steve Poftak

Brief Thoughts on Tuesday’s Election Results

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Monster win for Pressley: She topped the ticket unequivocally. In the last at-large race, 354 votes separated the two ticket-toppers (Connolly and Murphy). This time around, Pressley beat her closest competitor (Arroyo) by more than 2,000 votes with closer to 50,000 fewer voters to work with. City-wide for Pressley?: Pressley ran strong citywide, with the notable exception of South Boston. I’ll take a deeper dive into those numbers later this week and draw some conclusions about the results, particularly who gained votes where.

Taylor Armerding

Preserving Benefits Trumps Public Safety

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Police union leaders are forever claiming that their highest priority is public safety. But the evidence says otherwise – it is more about money, even if that means cannibalizing their ranks. As the Boston Globe reports, a lawsuit brought by Boston police went before the Supreme Judicial Court this week. And if the union wins, the likely outcome will be cuts in police staffing throughout the state. The suit is over funding for the Police Career Incentive Pay Program, more commonly known as the Quinn Bill, which has drained public safety funding since 1970. It is one of the reasons that police base pay, which the unions regularly cite to claim that officers are underpaid, is such a fiction. In […]

Michael Morisy

Focus group, dog and pony show, or both? Early Results from Health Connector FOIA

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If government agencies had nothing to hide, perhaps they would follow public records laws. I’ve written before about how non-responsive state agencies can be to public record requests, and in particular to requests dealing with Evergreen Solar, and it now appears somebody has been listening. Eight days after my blog post on the delayed Evergreen Solar request, and just 175 days after it was originally filed, I finally received 66 pages of responsive documents. The Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development kindly waived potential fees. Shortly before that I received the results of another overdue request, this one to the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector for the results of early focus groups the state used to shape the simple Gold/Silver/Bronze selection now […]

Steve Poftak

5 Things to Watch in Tuesday’s At Large City Council Race

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Next Tuesday’s municipal election in Boston has a competitive at-large race and its outcome will provide some advance info on what to expect in the next mayor’s race. Here are 5 things to watch: 1) Is the Flaherty-Pressley Competition A Legit Thesis? The narrative for the early part of the race was based on Michael Flaherty’s entry into the at-large race after giving up his seat to run against Mayor Menino. This created the dynamic of four incumbents, and Flaherty (practically a incumbent as well with strong citywide name recognition) running for only four seats. As the lowest votegetter in the last race, Ayanna Pressley was viewed as the most vulnerable. Her potential exit from the council raised the possibility […]

Jim Stergios

Massachusetts: Flatlined on national tests?

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EdWeek‘s Erik Robelen is reporting on the just released national test data. He notes that they show that 4th and 8th graders have inched up in mathematics, but the results are more mixed in reading, with 4th grade scores flat compared with two years ago. Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and current chairman of the national tests’ National Assessment Governing Board, David P. Driscoll, is paraphrased as saying that: the nation has made major gains in math over the past two decades, but that in reading, the growth has been “quite small.” And he called the 4th grade reading scores “deeply disappointing,” noting that they have been flat since 2007… Mr. Driscoll, a former commissioner of education in Massachusetts, highlighted […]

Michael Morisy

Could Solyndra have happened in Massachusetts?

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Solyndra could serve as a textbook case for the dangers of government trying to turn investor, mixing ideology, economics and the appearance of favoritism. The Department of Energy’s $535 million loan guarantee also seems to echo Massachusetts’ own failed investment in luring Evergreen Solar to Devens. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Solyndra, which manufactured solar panels and was a poster child for President Barack Obama’s green jobs push, is now being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over allegations that executives knowingly misled the government to secure the loan guarantee. These are currently just allegations and Solyndra executives are innocent until proven guilty, but the matter is further complicated by the fact that the company had financial ties with the White House, […]

Steve Poftak

Horses for Courses; Fire Trucks for Fires

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I’ve written previously about Boston About Results and I’ll repeat my recommendation. It’s fascinating to see what city government does when its presented as data, rather than anecdote. Here are some facts that caught my eye…. The Boston Fire Department responds to approximately 70,000 incidents per year. How many of those responses are for fires? Less than 6,000. (To be fair, that count is for actual fires, not false alarms, so that low percentage shouldn’t be construed as a knock on BFD.). How about medical incidents? Those are much more prevalent — about 40 – 45% of incidents are medical in nature. (See Boston About Results for the above data and more.) So, why are we sending 10 – 25+ […]

Jim Stergios

Halloween, Headless Horsemen and Literature in our Schools

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The Headless Horseman, painting by John Quidor. In this season of ghosts and goblins, it seems only appropriate to think about the stories that for many generations served to frame our imagination of what Halloween should look like. For generations, schoolchildren of all backgrounds learned about literature and life in America via Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, Herman Meville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. That list is a partial trajectory of the American spirit. On Halloween a different sort of literary spirit has […]

Steve Poftak

BPS Meets the Market

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Boston Public Schools are competing for students, whether you like it or not. In the early 1970s, the system had enrollment of over 90,000. This school year, they only have enrollment of just over 57,000. Just under a quarter of the school-aged children are educated outside the district – private, parochial, charter, METCO, special ed placement, or homeschooling. If the BPS wants to stem this long-term trend, it needs to compete for students (and parents). And that message seems to have gotten through. For years, the BPS has had access to an incredible wealth of data about what parents want – what do parents pick as their most desirable schools in the dreaded school lottery? They seem to tapping into […]