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Is student achievement in Massachusetts falling flat?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byThe short answer that will come in this and blog posts in the next days is, in important ways, yes. So why the image of a big churn? Let’s start with the immediate news of this past year’s MCAS data and what they tell us. The Globe’s Peter Schworm, in a piece entitled MCAS scores appear stuck in stubborn income gap, nailed it in three places: Educators have made only modest gains in narrowing the gulf in achievement between low-income students and those who are better off… The percentage of [low-income] 10th graders who were proficient at English, for instance, rose from 48 in 2007 to 69 this year. In math, the figure climbed from 47 percent to 56 percent… […]
Dumb and Dumber – Proposed Bill
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by Jim StergiosYou can agree or disagree on most bills in the State House. The merits of casino gambling bill? Is it a third-world job creation strategy or an opportunity we are missing? The upcoming pension reform? Reasonable incremental improvements or a half-fix after lawmakers added billions in future pension costs this summer to free up $1 billion in immediate program money? But every so often you bump up against some really bad ideas—and unfortunately many of them happen to be in education. Whole language instruction, weakening academic standards, and weakening teacher tests are the usual sort of items you have to fight against. But even after the Wisconsin and Massachusetts collective bargaining changes, on Tuesday a hearing will be held on […]
Obama Admin Rethinking Massachusetts Model? Part 2
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare, News /byMy now monthly blog post wondering if there will be agreement soon between the Obama Administration and the Patrick Administration on a multi-year extension of the Massachusetts health care waiver. As a review, the Massachusetts MassHealth 1115 waiver from the federal government allowed the 2006 health reform to become a reality. The waiver was last negotiated by the Patrick Administration in 2008, and was extended until June 30, 2011 at that tome. Quietly this summer, the new deadline was pushed back three times, and is set to expire again tomorrow. The Boston Globe’s Liz Kowalczyk and Chelsea Conaboy were kind enough to ask CMS Administrator Dr. Don Berwick about it in a recent interview: Berwick would not comment on negotiations with Massachusetts over […]
Pull Back the Curtains
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakLocal news over the past few years has had plenty of stories about state government — corruption scandals, employee benefit reforms, and spending battles. Wouldn’t it be useful to have a way to dig behind the headlines and get the facts about where the state spends its money, what it pays employees, and what are the actual pensions received by state retirees? Now you do — www.massopenbooks.org — provides detailed salary, pension and state disbursement data. The disbursement data has multiple layers to filter down to what really interests you, and plenty bubbles up. Did you know the state spent $6.5 million on office furniture in 2009 or $7 million in the same year for interns at UMASS? Salaries reveal […]
Learning From A Tragedy
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by Steve PoftakOn the afternoon of January 9, 2009, the brakes on Ladder Company 26 failed and it ran down Parker Street in Mission Hill, cutting across Huntington Street, and crashing into a building, taking the life of Lt. Kevin Kelley and injuring the driver and several other passengers. Following the accident, the City commissioned an outside study of the Boston Fire Department’s fleet management practices that put forward some harsh findings about the BFD and provided a clear set of recommendations. The study found that the fleet’s management was largely haphazard, as evidenced by a vicious cycle of poorly qualified mechanics who either did questionable work or were unable to properly judge work done by outside vendors, so firefighters became reluctant […]