Transcripts

On December 10, 1996, Pioneer Institute introduced its latest book, Toward a Safer Workplace: Reform and Deregulation of Workers Compensation, by James R. Chelius and Edward Moscovitch.

On November 20, 1996, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Education, The Center for Innovation in Urban Education at Northeastern University, and Pioneer Institute's Charter School Resource Center sponsored a day-long conference on charter school accountability. The keynote address was delivered by former U.S. Secretary of Education and Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander.

On October 23, 1996, a forum co-sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Pioneer Institute focused on the continuing controversy surrounding Massachusetts' charter schools.

On July 25, 1996, Pioneer Institute held a forum that focused on the state and direction of the Boston Public School System. The forum was co-sponsored by the Boston Private Industry Council. Our panelists represented viewpoints that ranged from a positive appraisal of the city's current school reforms, to the opinion that only a fundamental restructuring of the system can bring real progress. Though the panelists have obvious policy differences, they share one characteristic: each is a Boston parent.

On May 30, 1996, Pioneer Institute board member and former Secretary for Administration and Finance Peter Nessen, now a special advisor to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on health care issues, addressed a Pioneer Forum about the then- proposed merger between Boston City Hospital and University Hospital.

On April 19, 1996, Pioneer Institute held a forum to preview our new book, Bilingual Education in Massachusetts: The Emperor Has No Clothes. For 25 years, the Commonwealth has mandated a single approach to teaching students with limited English proficiency (LEP) in Massachusetts public schools, called transitional bilingual education (TBE), despite the fact that there is virtually no reliable evidence to support its effectiveness.

On January 31, 1996, Pioneer Institute Executive Director James A. Peyser delivered an address to the Boston Economic Club in which he proposed radical reforms to the structure of public education. After 30 years of stagnation and decline, only fundamental structural change can bring about lasting improvement in public education.

On January 11, 1996, Mackinac Center for Public Policy President Lawrence W. Reed addressed a Pioneer Forum on the course of education reform in Michigan.

On November 27, 1995, Professor James Q. Wilson delivered the keynote address at a dinner to honor the winners of Pioneer Institute's fifth annual Better Government Competition. In his address, Professor Wilson discussed the problems of illegitimacy and proposed that young, pregnant, unmarried girls who wish to establish an independent household at public expense be given this support only on the condition that they live in a family shelter or group home managed under private auspices, including religious groups.

In our November 1995 Policy Dialogue, "Responses to a Harvard Study on School Choice: Is It a Study at All?" we gathered nine school choice experts to critique a draft manuscript of Who Chooses, Who Loses? Culture, Institutions, and the Unequal Effects of School Choice, edited by Harvard Professors Richard Elmore, Gary Orfield, and Bruce Fuller.