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Still Curious About State Workforce Numbers
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byBrian Mooney penned a piece for the Globe last week discussing how state workforce numbers has declined. Its a topic we raised 17 months ago, so its great to see Mr. Mooney’s interest. ANF Sec’y Gonzalez provides data to Mooney that demonstrates that the executive branch has reduced its budget funded workforce by roughly 1,600 jobs since Governor Patrick took office. They’ve also explained it in the Governor’s budget as well. For my own analysis, I rely on the CAFR put out by the Comptrollers’ office, given ANF’s notoriously tight-fisted hold on giving information about headcount to the public. Unfortunately, that data only goes up to FY09 and its shows an overall increase in state workforce and (as near as […]
National scholarship on education
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /byNCLB had its day and advanced some useful trends at the state and local level. But it has foundered on a couple of major shoals, including the downward pressure it applied on the quality of state assessment systems and its inability to advance school options for students in chronically failing schools. With the limbo that NCLB has been in, a number of scholars have looked at the national landscape on education policy, including Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System — buy it at Amazon for $16 rather than $26 at Borders!) and Paul Peterson (Saving Schools — buy it at Amazon for $17 rather than $27 at Borders!). Both give broad historical reads on […]
Collecting Taxes, Outlaw Style
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byMost of us know what will happen if we don’t pay taxes lawfully assessed us: Penalties, interest, liens, attachments and by and by under certain circumstances, criminal complaints betide. We can complain all we like, but the tax-collector will win, because the law is on his side. But what if government tried to collect taxes not authorized by law — and used its coercive powers to extract payment? Preposterous? It is happening today — as communities, mainly Boston, try to get universities, hospitals and other non-profits to make much larger payments “in lieu of taxes” — payments never authorized by the legislature. In most cases these payments are not voluntary. They are vigorish (vygrash, a good Ukrainian & Yiddish word […]
A novel way to present your resume
/0 Comments/in Blog, Healthcare, News /byJon Kingsdale, former executive director of the Commonwealth Connector, has a piece in tomorrow’s (it’s 11:05 pm Sunday) Globe, which is worthy of the Obama teleprompter. The basic point he wants to make is that “Americans are confused” about the federal law, and that MA’s health reform experience has been a rousing success. Uh, no. It’s neither been a flat-out success nor a failure. It’s a mixed bag, and some of the threads at the bottom of the bag are getting bare. Pioneer’s never come out for or against the MA reform. We first believe in state experimentation, and second that empirical data can sometimes surprise you. Given the mandates, credible coverage requirements, the uncompensated care pool, and the fact […]
And now VT takes a pass on Race to the Top
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /bySo now we are at VA, MN, CA and TX all taking a pass on RttT. So is Indiana. Oh, gosh, golly, darn it, so is Kansas. An AP report had the following news (from the Globe) on VT: “When we look at it realistically with limited resources we have to make sure we put our energies and our efforts into places that we know we can be successful in and that fit what the direction of Vermont education is moving in,” Vilaseca [ed note: Commissioner of Education in VT] said. “Vermont has a highly successful educational system, when you look at our NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) results when you look at how our students do across the […]
Eliminating the Competition?
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byState regulations promulgated in December are going to close down church-based shelters for the homeless. The regulations’ given rationale is the state’s legitimate interest in safe and sanitary conditions in overnight shelters. But as written, the regulations would require churches to spend impossible sums to achieve compliance; and, perhaps tellingly, they would delimit a homeless person’s stays to 35 overnights per year, and would ban them altogether from June 15 to September 15. Such restrictions apparently will not apply to state-supported shelters — only to those run by churches and private organizations such as Salvation Army. One wonders if the hidden agenda isn’t to “eliminate the competition” provided by faith-based voluntary organizations in order to clear a path for much […]
Globe down 23%! Is it the price hike?
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byJon Chesto says it is in a WickedLocal report. I wonder, though. After all, if you look at the numbers in a USA Today report, you’d see that a comparable newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is suffering the same kind of drubbing. The San Francisco Chronicle’s weekday circulation fell 23% to 241,330 The Washington Post’s average weekday circulation dropped 13.1%, 478,482. USA Today, which has the second largest circulation, declined 13.6% to 1.83 million. The New York Times’ weekday circulation dropped 8.5% to 951,063. Anybody see the Herald numbers?
2 reasons why the Connector can't meet small biz insurance needs
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byTwo thoughts on why the Massachusetts Connector has done such a horrible job meeting the demands of small business for affordable health insurance choices: (1) Some say that it is all Governor Patrick’s doing. Certainly, elections matter, and the Governor has paid no attention to the issue until recently, and in a really ham-handed way (price controls! yup, that’s a great idea…). But it’s more complicated than that. The fact is that the Connector was created in a very topdown manner that is not helping to meet the needs of a dynamic set of customers. A Boston Globe report on August 4, 2006, three months before the 2006 election, noted the following: The four Medicaid plans that will be offered […]
Award-winning film on public schools – Kendall, 4/30 – 5/6
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byNot to be missed for anyone who cares about public schools is The Cartel is an eye-opening documentary about the disastrous New Jersey public school system that is failing the children, parents, and communities it claims to serve. Director Bob Bowdon exposes the corruption and rampant waste of taxpayer money at the heart of the crisis. New Jersey spends more money per pupil than any state except New York, yet only 37 percent of its fourth-graders are proficient in reading. The Cartel presents all the horrendous facts, and culminates with a persuasive argument for school choice reform. The documentary has won numerous awards, including the Visionary Award and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2010 Washington, D.C. Independent […]
Why's the Connector so slow in providing insurance choices to small biz?
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byIt is amazing to watch the Governor take credit for slapping price controls on insurance companies. Didn’t work for Nixon 40 years ago – and it is no smarter than a homeowner, when faced with a giant leak in the roof, who insists that a contractor keep slapping wallpaper up to hide the water damage. The Commonwealth Connector was supposed to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time — that is provide near-free products to the indigent and also to act as a marketplace where small business owners and employees could shop for lots of insurance options. The near-free products were marketed, with great success on the uptake but mixed results on improving access, improving quality […]
A constitutional threat
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byThe Globe’s editorial early in the month welcoming Sarah Palin and tea party activists was fine. But Globe commentators are flailing wildly at this point about who TP activists are. It’s boring, overwrought and hypocritical. Neal Gabler draws a parallel between the tea partiers and, uh, al-Qaeda leaders. Neal, take the chill pill. (No, not the blue one.) As my daughter puts it so eloquently, Neal is talking a pig pile o’ poopie. (Working on her writing for content: I know “a pile o’ pig poopie” is a more sensible articulation.) In Neal’s world, people who marched against the wars from 2001-2008, accusing the previous administration of blood for oil, fascism, racism, and “genocide” against Arabs are fine. They may […]
Not an American political convention
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /bySaturday post. Off topic but hopefully a fun video. Intro. The Telegraph maps out the broad lines: In a rare public debate among Mr Berlusconi’s Party of Freedom, lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini, a co-founder of the party in 2009, levelled a raft of criticisms at the style and substance of the prime minister’s leadership… Mr Berlusconi stepped up to the podium right after Mr Fini’s speech, criticising his ally for making political statements while holding a post that requires him to be impartial and for not participating in the campaign for regional elections last month to thundering applause. In another life, I lived in Italy, was into the politics, and showed up on TV to comment on American stuff. […]
MA & FL should get together to drive ed reform in US
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /byI often say two things in different ways: (1) MA is #1 on the Nation’s Report Card and in the top 6 “countries” internationally on math and science – yadayadayada. (2) The feds don’t know their &ss from their elbows on education. Not their fault but they are too far away to do anything useful. Name one great reform USDOE has put in place since its creation in the 70s… … still waiting… Yeah, okay, let’s table that. As much as I like what MA has done, there are other states that are hard-charging on reform and have something to teach us. Matt Ladner points out that 64% of FL’s poor 4th grade students (free and reduced lunch) score basic […]
IN says no thanks to RttT
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /bySo I guess Arne Duncan’s “pretty please” letter to the Governors did not do the trick. After Kansas pulled out of the running for Race to the Top, now it is Indiana’s turn. This from the Indiana DOE: Indiana Department of Education: IDOE Halts Race to the Top Efforts, Focuses on Implementing Reform Plans FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, April 22, 2010 Media Contact: Kim Preston 317-232-6615, kpreston@doe.in.gov Yesterday, the Indiana State Teachers Association declined an invitation (letter attached) to meet and further discuss union support for vital components of the state’s Race to the Top (RttT) application that are the foundation for Indiana’s student-focused reform agenda. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett issued this statement in response: “I […]
Letter from Arne Duncan: Please re-apply…
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byWhen translated from the language of the feds, the US Secretary of Education’s April 15th letter to the Governors pretty much can be summed up as “pretty please.” After the round 1 Race to the Top grant awards to DE and TN, the reaction from the states was a little, well, unimpressed. States grumbled about what “reform” meant for the USED, and states like Kansas pulled out of round 2. So Arne Duncan put pen to paper and asked the Guvs to, well, uhm, please re-apply. With a cherry on top. April 15, 2010 Dear Governors: Let me begin by thanking you for your leadership on education. Thanks to you, America has entered a new era of education reform and […]