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Your vote is sacred, unless we don’t like it

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The vote of the people is sacred. Except when it’s not. And it obviously is not sacred in Nahant, where town officials are perpetuating a dangerous trend – if your vote doesn’t conform with the wishes of those in power, you have to vote again. On April 30, voters in the town election rejected a proposed $260,000 override for the local schools. So, earlier this week, after receiving a petition from 173 residents, the Board of Selectmen voted to hold a special election on June 25 to reconsider it. Such things don’t happen often, but they should never happen. The justifications for it are the same lame talking points always presented in such circumstances, the worst of which is the […]

We’re #5! No wait, we’re #43!

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During last year’s gubernatorial campaign, CNBC ranked Massachusetts #5 as one of the best places to do business. The ranking (and some of the subindexes that weren’t quite so positive) got bandied around by the campaigns as evidence and counterevidence of the state of our business climate. (Even some of my fellow bloggers have referenced it.) If you look at the subindexes for that ranking, you can quickly figure out our strengths and weaknesses – on productivity/quality of life measures, we are very strong; and on business cost/tax policy issues, we are pretty weak. And that gets replicated in lots of similar surveys – depending on which measures are chosen, Massachusetts does very well or quite poorly. So what matters? […]

King of New York

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Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times If the weekend sweep of the Yankees was not enough for you, here is a story of a great Boston reformer who has made good in the Big Apple. John B. King Jr., who credits teachers for helping him surmount an isolated childhood as an orphan in Brooklyn and who ran celebrated charter schools in New York and Massachusetts, was named Monday as the state’s next education commissioner, with a unanimous vote of the Board of Regents. At 36, Dr. King, who previously served as deputy commissioner, will be among the nation’s youngest educational leaders… After losing both of his parents to illness by age 12, Dr. King earned an undergraduate degree from […]

4 lessons from vocational-technical schools

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Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve shared a number of videos on the way in which regional vocational-technical schools have made impressive progress on key metrics of academic learning, leveraged parental involvement and the business community, and provided lessons for all schools on how to support special needs students and lower dropout rates. With such success in the 26 regional vocational-technical schools, which function as standalone schools, two questions arise: How do we show the same level of success in Massachusetts’ other vocational-technical schools that operate within larger districts and do not have the same level of autonomy seen in the regionals? What are the lessons for the rest of the schools or for specific student populations? Here are […]

Gov. Patrick’s Regulatory Regime for Payment Reform

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This was the testimony I submitted today to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing for the hearing on the Governor’s proposal to reform the payment methods we use in health care and to change the delivery system. Thank you to Chairman Moore and Chairman Walsh and to the Committee members for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Josh Archambault, Director of Health Care Policy at Pioneer Institute. The issue before the Committee today—the Governor’s proposal to change the payment methodologies for the delivery of health care—would as currently written set up a framework for momentous regulatory intervention in the health care marketplace, and possible significant adverse impacts on health care access and spending in the […]