Transcripts

Massachusetts is the first state to require that individuals purchase health insurance, and the first to propose a “Connector,” or state-mandated health insurance market for consumers and small businesses. As part of the well-regarded Colby Hewitt Health Care Series, Pioneer held “A Blueprint for the Future” featuring an in-depth presentation by Health and Human Services Secretary Tim Murphy, as well as presentations by two nationally recognized health policy leaders: Professor Regina Herzlinger of Harvard Business School and John Goodman, President of the National Center for Policy Analysis. Biographies of the presenters and the moderator, Susan Connelly of Mercer Consulting, can be found on the last page of this transcript.

This event featured a keynote address by Joseph Giglio, entitled "Rethinking Mobility for the New Century." Professor Giglio is Executive Professor for General Management at Northeastern University, author of a new book entitled Mobility, a Board Member for Pioneer Institute’s Shamie Center for Better Government, and Vice Chairman of the Hudson Institute.

On Friday, April 28, 2006 Pioneer Institute and the Clean Water Council held a forum on the issue of MWRA’s potential expansion as a water supplier for more communities. The issue is significant because of its what it means to the environment, development and the cost of water for millions of residents in Massachusetts. The forum featured a panel including: Mary Griffin, General Counsel, Executive Office of Environmental Affairs; Peter Hechenbleikner, Town Manager, Town of Reading; Fred Laskey, Executive Director, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority; and Mark P. Smith, Director, Eastern U.S. Freshwater Program, The Nature Conservancy and former Water Policy Director, EOEA.

On Tuesday, January 31, 2006, Pioneer Institute held an event entitled “School Choice and Education Reform in Massachusetts: Competing in the 21st Century,” featuring a presentation by Chris Whittle, CEO/President of Edison Schools. “School Choice and Education Reform” is part of Pioneer Institute’s ongoing mission to present ideas, lectures, and experts on topics of significance to the Commonwealth, and to the country.

Angus McBeath was Superintendent of Schools in Edmonton, Alberta, until October 2005. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies in Halifax. We are indebted to AIMS for making Mr. McBeath available to us.

Frederick (Rick) Hess, an education scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, led a team of experts in evaluating a seven-year comprehensive reform of the San Diego school system. He presented the team’s findings at Pioneer Forum June 9, 2005. The Forum also included remarks by Nonie Lesaux, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and one of the San Diego review team members, and Thomas Payzant, Boston schools superintendent, who once served in the same capacity in San Diego. Excerpts of all three participants’ remarks follow.

As a follow-on to Peters Paper #2 titled “Rescuing 16,101 Drowning Students,” Pioneer Institute brought Harvard education scholar Paul E. Peterson to a standing-room-only Pioneer Forum on March 30, 2005, to outline his ideas of what might be done to rescue the 16,101 students in 25 Massachusetts schools that have failed to make “adequate yearly progress” in any of the last six years.

The 2004 Lovett C. Peters Lecture in Public Policy focused on the disturbing gap in the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates that the United States turns out compared to other nations. Robert J. (Bob) Herbold, (pictured at right), a retired Microsoft official and chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s Workforce/Education Subcommittee, argued the situation threatens our nation’s position as the world’s industrial leader and requires immediate action to strengthen science and math education in our schools— including instituting merit and differential pay for teachers in such subjects. An edited transcript of his remarks follows.

At a Pioneer Forum held March 18, 2004, Frederick (Rick) M. Hess, the author of a new book titled Common Sense School Reform, outlined his prescriptions for making schools more effective. Respondents were Mark Roosevelt, managing director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and an architect of the Commonwealth’s 1993 Education Reform Act, and David P. Driscoll, Massachusetts’ commissioner of education. The discussion was moderated by Charles Glenn, professor of educational policy at Boston University. Excerpts of each speaker’s remarks follow.

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 sets forth reforms in the public education system to spur academic improvement. It allows parents with children in schools that do not meet certain standards to transfer their children to schools within the same district that do meet performance standards. What has been the response so far in Massachusetts? At a February 12, 2004 Pioneer Forum, Harvard government professor William G. Howell presented the results of a Pioneer-commissioned statewide parental survey. Local school district and national perspectives were offered by, respectively, Joseph Burke, Springfield’s school superintendent, and Michael Sentance, New England regional representative for the U.S. secretary of education. Excerpts of each speaker’s remarks follow.