THE PIONEER BLOG

Jim Stergios

Disappointing piece from Dave Driscoll in the Globe

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Former MA education commissioner David Driscoll opined today in the Globe that we should just move ahead with the Common Core standards. Uh, how about no. His is a pretty disappointing piece. It conflates participating in the Common Core Standards process with accepting the final product. Everyone agrees that MA should be involved in the CC standards process. But I hope we also all agree that we should NOT accept the proposed CC standards if they are weaker than our current standards. For some reason, the former commissioner divines that they will be better than our current nation-leading standards. How does he know that? They currently are not – not by a long shot. And while the recent drafts are […]

Jim Stergios

Kansas: Keep your Race to yourself

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Kansas is not applying for Race to the Top funds, according to the Lawrence Journal World: KANSAS BOARD DECIDES NOT TO APPLY FOR RTTT PHASE 2 FUNDS — In a 9-0 vote, the Kansas State Board of Education chose not to apply for up to $166 million in federal Race to the Top funds this spring because of some of the competition’s caveats. Interim Commissioner Diane DeBaker said the state fared poorly in the first round of applications because it does not have an alternative system for teacher certifications, no statewide system of evaluations for principals and teachers, and teacher pay is not tied to student performance. Board member Sally Cauble said Kansas’ system of local control works against it. […]

damittell

MBTA: Walking the Tightrope

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On the face of it the MBTA and its new General Manager Richard Davey are to be praised for taking action against 8 managers accused falsifying maintenance records at 3 garages. Could this actually be the beginning of reform? Ah, but in the 18’th paragraph of The Globe’s story on the subject, one of the disciplined managers asserted (anonymously) that recording phantom maintenance is longtime standard procedure. If one recalls (as I do) 30 years of stories of greed, dishonesty and contempt for the public at the MBTA, the claim is to be taken seriously. The larger question is, Is the MBTA not too big not to fail? Until 1964 the Metropolitian Transit Authority ran buses and rapid transit in […]

Jim Stergios

Who's Milquetoast? The envelope please…

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So some of you did not get the reference to Caspar Milquetoast, even though I provided the wikipedia link. Hmm. Ok, the envelope please… Jesting, of course…

Jim Stergios

Watering down Milquetoast

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Jamie Vaznis in today’s Globe presents a bombshell: The state’s second-largest teachers union organization, which represents teachers in Boston and other big cities, has decided to boycott Massachusetts’ application for the Obama administration’s innovative educational fund, possibly jeopardizing $250 million in grants. Massachusetts lost points on its Race to the Top application because it only got buy-in from about 2/3 of the local teachers unions. In the first round of RttT, the state application received support even from key federation units. While it is devoutly to be wished for, the Obama administration is wrong to insist on union buy-in. Unions may not be the buggaboo they are often made out to be – often the superintendents are worse enemies of […]

Jim Stergios

A missed opportunity to fix small business insurance

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Small business insurance has been a mess in this state for a while. The health care reform act of 2006 was supposed to help make it work better. It did not. Julie Donnelly of the Boston Business Journal notes that Fallon and some other insurers in the state are seeing the small business market as costing them a lot of money. And they could pull up stakes. That might be the “nuclear” option as Fallon put it, but the sad thing is that the governor could have taken a different approach from his current “wallpaper” policy. Patrick circa 2010 is saying essentially who cares about the cost of health care, let’s set the price. That is akin to someone who […]

Jim Stergios

He is a maestro

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Watch the video clip of Governor Patrick speaking in Lowell, while police officers are outside picketing him at the Tom & Todd/WRKO show. Give him a baton and the orchestra would swoon. Such a strong speaker and so at ease.

Steve Poftak

Did He Say That?

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From today’s Jack Spillane piece on SouthCoastToday.com (and the New Bedford Standard-Times): Tim Sullivan, the legislative director for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, pointed to the problem: Private sector workers — even unionized ones — resent having to pay for public-sector union benefits that are increasingly superior to those available in the private sector A surprising claim from a surprising source. Bobby Haynes, call your office!

Jim Stergios

Donal Fox!

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I know I am supposed to spruce up the blog with references to pop culture, but I don’t know how to do that. I’ll leave that to education bloggers at the Fordham Institute and to Jay Greene’s crew. It’s Sunday so cut me some slack, and let me tell you about an incredible night of music. Last night I was blown away by one of the greatest nights I’ve spent listening to music in a long time. Scullers has some great acts, but last night I went to see Donal Fox and was completely blown away. I mean completely blown away. Technically blown away, musically blown away, still blown away. Donal Fox owns his piano in a way few people […]

Jim Stergios

How Washington is undermining the Bay State's high education standards

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We did not miss out on the Race to the Top primarily because of the fact that we have not yet adopted the Common Core standards that are still in draft form. But that is the easy give for the Patrick administration. First, the Patrick folks don’t want to do the hard work necessary to address the major failing in the application — the lack of any sense as to how they would evaluate teachers using student and other data. That would take imagination, the expenditure of political capital, and good blocking and tackling. They lack all of the above. Adopting the Common Core standards is an easy one for an administration that has been willing, as Charlie Chieppo and […]

Jim Stergios

Why MA finished 13th of 16 on the Race to the Top

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Yesterday’s piece in the Globe by Jamie Vaznis strikes me as making pretty clear that Legislative leaders are pretty soured on how the administration handled the RttT. We finished outside the winners’ circle (the winners were TN and DE), and we got trounced. The Senate President’s quote in particular shows that she expected the legislative actions taken in the fall and January to be matched by a strong proposal and equally difficult actions on the part of the administration. Now, it seems that the Patrick administration is blaming the state’s poor finish on the RttT on MA’s non-adoption (yet!) of the national standards. OK, let’s go to the facts, and they are all written in black and white in the […]

Amy Lischko

MA vs. US: Round 1: Individual Mandate

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A mandate made sense in MA for a few reasons.  First, it was clear that our non-group market was failing due to adverse risk.   It was sort-of like a high-risk pool but there were no options for healthy people.  Because of changes that were made to the insurance laws in the mid-1990’s including guarantee issue, adjusted community rating (no underwriting allowed), and very limited product choice in the non-group market, the market was unaffordable.  The only people purchasing in this market were people who really “needed” insurance.  We saw large drops in enrollment each year  (insurance jargon calls this a death spiral) leading up to the reforms in 2006. Second, we had VERY EXPENSIVE safety net, the Uncompensated Care Pool, […]

Steve Poftak

A Low Cost Counterweight to Partners?

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I’m fascinated by the thinking behind the Caritas-Cerberus tie-up and today’s Globe speculates that the plan is to create a low cost provider of health care. I suspect that the Globe is right and I’d throw a few more ingredients into the pot: First, if Cerberus wants to play nationally in this market, they need to establish a reputation as an operator and not just short-term financial engineers. Building out the Caritas group gives them a chance to do this and get some rub from Caritas’ brand equity. Having Ralph de la Torre on your team doesn’t hurt either. Second, Caritas has tried to extend their value chain into insurance once before and almost succeeded. Depending on the structure of […]

Steve Poftak

How to Kill Off Manufacturing in Massachusetts

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Manufacturing in Massachusetts is dead, right? Rusted out and superseded by other, sexier industries. Wrong, its still the fourth largest employer in the state (behind healthcare, retail and education). And its disproportionately important in places like the South Coast and the Merrimack Valley. Plus manufacturing wages are above the state median wage. Check out this 2008 manufacturing chartbook put out by the state. What’s one of the key challenges facing the manufacturing industry? Its heavily reliant on energy as one of its major inputs (as opposed to other industries like financial services) and Massachusetts has one of the highest energy cost rates in the country. So, a new solar power mandate that may add up to $250m per year to […]

Jim Stergios

Race to the Top out of reach

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Holy s^&*! Jamie Vaznis of the Boston Globe is reporting that Massachusetts is not among the winners of the first round of the Race to the Top competition. Kudos to Delaware and Tennessee for wining the first round. A lot of hard work (900 pages of it in the application, plus a legislative process, lots of print, lots of arguments, and a few fried political relationships) in Massachusetts did not get us there. Time for a deep breath. How is it that the top performer on the Nation’s Report Card did not make it? Vaznis reports on Ed Secretary Paul Reville’s view: “We are committed to reworking the application and filing it again,” said Reville, who added that he is […]