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Running the Numbers, Stimulus Style

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You’ll forgive me for being a skeptic about job creation numbers. There’s a history there. So, the GOV’s announcement that Stimulus Act Spending had “created or retained 23,533 jobs” caught my eye. Reading the press release more closely, I saw this qualification: Stimulus spending has created or retained 8,792 full-time equivalents (FTEs), representing 23,533 individual citizens put to work. If we take the $1.9b already spent by the state on stimulus and spread it across the number of FTEs, that comes to a subsidy of over $200k for each preserved or retained full-time job. I don’t have a good frame of reference (and I’d be curious how other states are doing) but that strikes me as a pretty big number […]

Time to Activate the PAFNDAS

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UPDATE BELOW What’s that? Why, its the Patrick Administration Friday News Drop Alert System. We noticed the habit of shuffling certain pieces of news out the door late on Fridays and so have others. So, I note that as of 10 AM on Thursday, the Governor’s Office has not released his Friday calendar (to SHNS, that is). Yet, the centerpiece of transportation reform, a central authority — MassDOT, springs to life on Sunday, November 1. MassDOT will be governed by a five member board that will take on a massive array of responsibility — oversight of transportation policy in general and, through incorporation, will take over the responsibilities of the former Turnpike and MBTA Boards of Directors. But we still […]

Good news on charter performance

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From Marc Kenen of the Mass Charter School Association comes some good news. The new MCAS growth model analysis shows that charter public schools are producing very strong academic gains for their students statewide (see the data at the Boston Globe online): * In Grade 6, charters represented 9 of the top 10 growth districts in math and 6 of the top 10 districts in English; * In Grade 8, charters represented 7 of the top 10 growth districts in math and 4 of the top 10 districts in English; * In Grade 10, charters represented 5 of the top 10 growth districts in both math and English.

How is this for pushing hard, part 2

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Whitney Tilson passes on additional news from RI. Given that the state department of education certifies schools of education, RI Education Commissioner Gist also raised the minimum score required to get into RI teacher training programs. “cut score” required to enter the teacher training program at all RI colleges. We previously had the lowest cut score in the country, tied with Guam. To set the new cut score, she asked her staff to research who had the highest in the country, and learned it was Virginia. So she set our cut score one point higher than theirs. From Jennifer Jordan’s report in the Providence Journal: It’s going to get harder to become a teacher in Rhode Island. Education Commissioner Deborah […]

How is this for pushing hard to obtain Race to the Top Funds?

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In a recent post, I pointed to the new Commissioner of Education in RI, Deborah Gist, and her moves to remove seniority from decisions about teacher hiring and deployment. (Springfield, MA, is the only other place in the Northeast to be trying hard to address this issue. And while the contract in Springfield is great, I am not at all sure where implementation is.) Take a listen to the Dan Yorke show on WPRO for both Commissioner Gist’s view and NEA-RI Executive Director Bob Walsh’s reaction. Kudos to Dan Yorke for pressing his guests and his civility. Really great stuff. Note to the Chairs of the Education Committee, Marty Walz and Bob O’Leary: Lots of other states (even RI) are […]