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Angelo Scaccia Has No Idea What Boston Gets in Local Aid

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In the debate over the Lawrence loan bill, Hyde Park Rep. Angelo Scaccia rose to support the bill, noting: One of the biggest debates every year is local aid. If that’s not a handout to every community, I don’t know what is. How many communities could survive without the local aid, Chapter 70? Is that a bailout? Of course it is. Of course it is. How many communities would flounder today without that subsidy? Many. There are many communities that we help in the area of local aid, 75, 80, 90, 95 percent of their budget. Take for instance the city of Boston. (emphasis added; from State House News, sub. req’d) He’s represented a Boston district for over 30 years, […]

Shocking: AFL-CIO comes out aganist Central Falls superintendent

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Yeah, I know. That’s. Not. News. The only thing worth pointing out is the title of their press release related to the position taken by the AFL-CIO’s Executive Committee: Supporting the Students, Teachers, Staff and Community of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island So, they’re against the superintendent, but supporting everyone else. Yup. I am not close enough to the situation to know if firing is the end-result that is necessary. But I am plenty close enough through friends, relatives and having grown up next door to know that the only way to get the unions to sit down and think seriously about the city’s 50 percent dropout rate was to do something radical. The super and the unions […]

WSJ: MA not at top of RttT applicant pool

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Neil King of The Wall Street Journal puts Massachusetts out of the top echelon of appllicants: Experts said Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Delaware, Colorado and Rhode Island put forward particularly strong applications, with Georgia, Illinois and Indiana also mentioned. Some state legislators have also officially started to worry. Fingers still crossed, but, as a Rhode Island native I have to say that if Rhodey’s new commissioner Deb Gist beats out MA some real soul-searching has to go on as to how we regain our leadership role in education. Again, let’s all cross our fingers.

Big dates with the feds

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Here they are! – March 4th United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be announcing the roster of Race to the Top awardees. From a friend: Duncan will announce the RTTT Phase I finalists this Thursday. States will know around 11:30 a.m., with a press release coming at about 12. Sharpen your pens, reporters! – March 8th the draft of the “K-12” Common Core Standards will be released by the Common Core Standards Initiative on March 8 . They are being put out for public comment and posted at www.corestandards.org. You’ve got three weeks to make your comments. Fingers crossed on the first item. On the second, well, CCSSI has had its work cut out, because the previous drafts […]

The Governor No One Voted For

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I’ve written about New York’s insane political world in the past, and it took another turn this week, when the NY Times finally (after two whiffs) printed its stunning piece on NY Governor David Paterson. To start at the beginning, Eliot Spitzer got elected Governor with a little known LG, David Paterson. Spitzer had to resign after the “Client 9” scandal and Paterson took over. During the fighting over control of the state senate, Paterson appointed Richard Ravitch as LG. To give you a sense of the drama involved, Ravitch was sworn in tableside at Peter Luger’s steakhouse to beat a court injunction. His appointment was invalidated, then allowed up the rungs of the court system in NY, before finally […]