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December 26, 2014

How to Make Common Core Useful?

What could be done to make the idea of a common core across 50 states make sense in this country?  I finally have come up with what could be the solution that Governor Huckabee simply missed.  We need to relabel them high...
Education
December 23, 2014

How to Maintain the Massachusetts “Education Miracle”

Not by using Common Core-based standards and tests, for sure, or anything that looks like them. The English language arts and mathematics standards dumped by the Governor Patrick-appointed Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in July 2010 are nothing like Common Core’s...
Opportunity
December 22, 2014

Why We Need Transparency at the MBTA Retirement Fund Now

A story in today’s Boston Globe again reminds us of the secretiveness of the MBTA Retirement Fund (MBTARF) and its complicated funding structure – enabling Fund managers to mask very costly decisions. Over the past year, The Boston Globe published a series of...
American Citizenship, Opportunity
December 4, 2014

What Was Omitted from the Special Advisory Commission Report on Public Officials' Pay

Data left out of the report of the Special Advisory Commission Regarding the Compensation of Public Officials [Click to download a Word version of this post.] On November 30, 2014, the Special Advisory Commission Regarding the Compensation of Public Officials published a study...
American Citizenship, Opportunity
November 26, 2014

The MBTA's $23 Million 11th-hour Sweetheart Deal with Gillette Stadium

$23 million 11th-hour sweetheart deal by the MBTA will stick taxpayers with a jaw-dropping $10 per one-way ride subsidy on a new full-service Gillette Stadium commuter rail line As the curtain falls on Governor Patrick’s administration, officials at MassDOT have been rushing...
Education
November 20, 2014

Jeb Bush's Rhetoric and Reality on Common Core

Pioneer Institute respects Governor Jeb Bush’s education reform accomplishments in Florida and even honored him at a 2010 event.  Unfortunately, at today’s opening of the Foundation for Excellence in Education National Summit on Education Reform, held in Washington, D.C., Governor Bush continues...
American Citizenship, Opportunity
November 20, 2014

In Massachusetts, Asking Agencies to Do Their Jobs Can Be Expensive

Despite its name, the Freedom of Information Act can set you back quite a bit. To cut departmental costs and prevent abuse, every incarnation of public records law on both national and state levels includes some form of provision which allows for...
American Citizenship, Opportunity
November 3, 2014

When it comes to Public Records, What's a Fantasy in Massachusetts is a Reality in Florida

Those who dabble in public records know there’s no such thing as a “painless” records request – only varying degrees of “relatively less painful.” Even the most straightforward process is still a process, one which involves tracking down the right contact, formulating...
Education
November 3, 2014

How Colleges Are Dumbing Our Kids Down, Too, and What We Can Do About It

It’s not just Common Core’s standards and the curriculum teachers are putting into place to address those standards that are dumbing our kids down.  Our colleges are contributing in their own way to the problem by the books they assign incoming freshmen...
Healthcare
October 30, 2014

Possible Civil and Criminal Offenses During ACA Implementation?

The transition to a new healthcare exchange in Massachusetts has gone poorly. In a forthcoming report, Pioneer Institute will examine what exactly went wrong during implementation, with the help of two whistle-blowers and internal audits on the project.   Yet during the...