THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Time to Remember

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Lovett C. Peters died Thursday, November 11, at the age of 97. After a fall this summer that led to a fractured hip, it was his hopeful determination that took him from hospital emergency room to rehab center, to his home, to a walker and even a cane. In October, Pete came to the office and attended board meetings. His death came after a fall at the theater, when his walker got caught on a carpet. His was a great life—a hopeful, principled, determined, and undiscouraged life. We were all touched by it, as were thousands and thousands of children in the Commonwealth and elsewhere in the country, because of his work to improve the academic excellence and equality of […]

Joshua Archambault

Health Care Costs Crushing States– Is the Solution to Drop out of Medicaid?

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The headline says it all. “States’ Woes Spur Medicaid Drop-Out Talk” An article in The New York Times today highlights the serious consideration by at least a dozen states to withdraw from the Medicaid program. Supporters are arguing for either a state financed Medicaid program to allow for maximum “flexibility in benefit and cost design” or a federal waiver for states to make some changes on their own. At first glance, leaving the Medicaid program would seem illogical given the federal match that would be left on the table. However estimates that have been conducted– both by think tanks and independent sources– highlight a budget busting tidal wave on its way if the status quo is followed. Lanhee Chen has […]

Jim Stergios

Too many do-gooders?

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I’ve had a chance to talk by phone with a number of superintendents over the past month. After the election of Vincent Gray in Washington DC and the hammer ready to fall on the now former DC School Chancellor (the equivalent of the city’s superintendent) Michelle Rhee, I wanted to get their thoughts on how things are going. When you talk to superintendents, there are two things you hear. One is predictable (the lack of resources—and it is not just in Massachusetts that you hear it), the other isn’t. So after the first five or ten minutes listening about how there is no money, you often hear quite a bit on this: the number of people who show up on […]

Jim Stergios

Was Galileo Wrong?

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Diane Ravitch, the eminent historian of education, has noted that “[i]n the land of American pedagogy, innovation is frequently confused with progress, and whatever is thought to be new is always embraced more readily than what is known to be true.” Nowhere does public education’s intellectual fog envelope minds more obviously than when American educators think about how to improve the nation’s academic standing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Today’s Globe article makes it crystal clear that we are falling far short of the best countries and especially short of our global economic competitors. Nearly 400 years ago, Galileo Galilei, the “Father of Modern Science,” told the geocentric world, “science is written in the language of mathematics.” And […]

Elizabeth Prasse

Regulating Regulations

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During the gubernatorial campaign, Governor Patrick promised that if he were reelected, he would borrow some ideas from Charlie Baker. One particular idea that he should consider adopting is Baker’s proposed review and reform of regulatory procedures. When Congress and state legislatures enact laws, they authorize certain agencies to fill in gaps in the legislation by issuing regulations that clarify and expand on various legislative provisions. For instance, in Massachusetts, agencies have issued regulations ranging from rules regarding the manufacture of ice cream to procedures governing the licensure of optometrists. (Regulations are available on the state’s website organized by topic.) Lawmakers authorize agencies to issue regulations for several reasons: Agency staffers have greater expertise in a given area than lawmakers […]

Joshua Archambault

Raining Cats and Dogs: Massachusetts Local Budgets

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A Boston Globe headline today seems to imply cities and towns are being irresponsible by saving, yet many local officials appear to be anticipating dark clouds ahead. As Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer is quoted in the article, “They [Massachusetts communities] know the stimulus money is gone, and that in 2011 and 2012, they’re going to get hammered.’’ As the town administrator of East Bridgewater expounds, “Since the state is out of control in the way they dole out their money, you have to solidify your own finances.” When will the state get it? Since 2008, Pioneer has been working with 14 Middle Cities to address some of these pressing fiscal issues in post-industrial cities.  Without measuring performance, improvement […]

Steve Poftak

Patrick-Baker Compared to Brown-Coakley

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Scott Brown’s election in January 2010 was supposed to be the beginning of a Republican wave. Comparing the vote totals between the major party candidates in the special Senate election and yesterday’s gubernatorial race provides some insight. In total*, Patrick beat Baker by 153,000 votes. Comparing raw vote totals with the Brown-Coakley election, Patrick improved his raw votes by 5% – getting 105% of the votes that Coakley got. On the other hand, Baker severely underperformed Brown’s raw vote totals, attracting only 82% of Brown’s votes, an almost 200,000 vote difference. If you put Baker and Cahill’s totals together, you are up to 95% of the vote. Looking at the municipal level shows gives some additional texture: Patrick outperformed Coakley […]

Stephen Lisauskas

Giving Voters the Information They Need

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Here we sit on election eve.  Before us are decisions not only for Governor and Treasurer, but also questions about reducing the sales tax and others.  Our discussions to date – though many, varied and at times heated – have been general in nature.  “Should we cut the sales tax or not.” “Cutting the sales tax will reduce State Aid to your community by $2 million.”  These discussions are interesting but largely unhelpful (though I appreciate community-by-community data, which at least provides a basis for discussion).  The question is, however, what does this mean to you, to me, to the people government serves?  Would a loss of $2 million cause 1,000 fewer potholes to be paved in Town X each […]

Joshua Archambault

Health Care in the Mid-terms: What the Polls really tell us

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Trying to read the tea leaves of poll numbers on the general public’s opinion of Obamacare has been especially confusing this election cycle.  Either 70% still want a public option or 70% deride Obamacare. Pundits gladly spin these numbers in support of their viewpoint, but could there be truth hidden in the seemingly contradictory numbers. An interesting article written by Robert Blendon and John Benson in The New England Journal of Medicine last week tried to uncover some of the nuance. Some of the more interesting numbers presented: “18% of registered voters believed that Congress should implement the bill as it currently stands, 31% thought Congress should make additional changes to increase the government’s involvement… and 41% believed that Congress […]

Jim Stergios

Do we misdiagnose younger students as ADHD?

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The PreventDisease.com website highlighted a couple of studies strongly suggesting that the answer is yes. The two studies in question are: The importance of relative standards in ADHD diagnoses: Evidence based on exact birth dates, by Todd E. Elder is available in the Journal of Health Economics. Measuring Inappropriate Medical Diagnosis and Treatment in Survey Data: The Case of ADHD among School-Age Children, by William N. Evans, Melinda S. Morrill, and Stephen T. Parente is also available in the Journal of Health Economics. ADHD is a frequently diagnosed behavioral disorder among American students. As the PreventDisease.com folks note, “currently there are no neurological markers for ADHD.” (An excerpt from a great Frontline investigation can be found here.) The website summarizes […]

Jim Stergios

If the feds pay, the states will play

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Don’t worry, Governor Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Murray and Massachusetts Education Secretary Reville have repeatedly said. If at any point we realize that the final testing products being developed by national consortium groups are not as rigorous as the MCAS, we can simply back out. We can simply back out, even after spending a big chunk the of $250 million in Race to the Top funds to train teachers and buy textbooks in line with the new national standards. We can back out even though we, as a state, have committed on paper to adopting the national assessments. Sigh. Then there is the question of whether national standards can realistically be considered voluntary with federal money in the balance. I suppose […]

Joshua Archambault

American as baseball, apple pie and primary care doctors?

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Harvard Medical School recently announced an anonymous gift of $30 million to create a center to “transform primary care medicine.” What I was hoping to read next was a vision for a metamorphosis of the role of primary care doctors. Instead the Boston Globe article went on to say the school hoped to “fix the nation’s shortage of primary care doctors by raising their status.” The news story reignited a discussion– that I have been having with myself– over the reasons such a high importance has been placed on primary care doctors in the American health care system. In policy discussion after policy discussion, primary doctors might as well be lumped into the same camp as baseball and American pie, […]

Steve Poftak

Globe's Puzzling Emphasis on Clean Energy

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Today’s Globe endorses Deval Patrick for Governor, an expected and surely welcome recommendation. My quibble is with the Globe’s overemphasis on clean energy. (Obligatory Throatclearing: Clean energy is undoubtedly important, for many reasons.) Why is clean energy mentioned 8 times in a roughly 1100 word endorsement? The clean tech industry in Massachusetts is, at best, 10,000 to 15,000 jobs (or here), with the prospect of adding 5,000 or so jobs in the next five years. And I suspect that those numbers include a lot of HVAC tech and energy/power automation companies that were around long before the ‘green energy’ wave became high profile. The growth in jobs is welcome and should be encouraged but in an economy with 3 milllion […]

Jim Stergios

Teaching the district a lesson

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We’ve seen this movie all too many times. There was the kerfluffle when the Boston Teachers Union opposed allowing Teach for America fellows into the Boston Public Schools. More recently, there was the story about teachers in Bridgewater and Raynham who opposed letting volunteers staff the libraries so they could keep them open. Those were two that made the papers. Often stories of union pressure don’t. The pressure tactics go under the radar screen… except when they get especially egregious. Fast-forward to a report a couple of weeks ago by Brian McGrory entitled Teachers Need a Lesson. After the usual throat-clearing about teachers (“I’m a huge fan of teachers, and fully understand that most public school teachers are conscientious, hard-working […]

Steve Poftak

Is the job picture improving?

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I confess to being stumped by the contradictory information circulating today. From a survey of households, you get evidence that unemployment is dropping: From August to September, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of unemployed dropped by 12,000 while the number of employed grew by 13,900, resulting in an 8.4% unemployment rate. From a survey of employers, you get evidence that jobs are being eliminated: From August to September, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of jobs declined by 20,900. What gives here? Could it be that people are giving up and dropping out of the workforce? I don’t think so — the first link, the survey of households, actually shows the labor force expanding by 1,900 during […]