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Would you take both sides of the deal?

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One of my secret vices is an addiction to sports radio. And a regular feature of that genre is mindless trade talk — “We should trade David Ortiz and a coupla prospects for Hanley Ramirez/Albert Pujols….” Of course, if you consider the other party’s point of view, that’s a preposterous idea. With this in mind, we examine the comments of Lowell School Superintendent Chris Scott. To provide some context, there are discussions in Lowell about what to do with the students in a charter school up there that is facing the possible loss of its charter. From their trade group web site, it appears that Superintendents don’t like the Charter school funding formula which they view as sending money out […]

Richard M. Freeland Delivers the Goods

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The Board of Higher Ed staff has just put out a recommendation that the board approve the UMASS law school. The document hardly qualifies as analysis, as its largely a cut and paste job of the original UMASS application. Here’s my favorite passage: staff finds that the proposed University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Juris Doctor meets review criteria and that the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will be able to start and operate a law school that can achieve ABA accreditation in a reasonable timeframe. This is predicated on attainment of enrollment goals [Emphasis added] Well, of course, and my getting rich is predicated on me making a lot of money. That doesn’t mean its going to happen. One would hope that […]

Gavin to Gavin

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Robert Gavin of the Globe covered our new report Failure to Thrive underscoring the collapse in firm size and the failed policy focus the state has had for 20+ years on relocating firms to Massachusetts. I hope Kofi Jones (spokeswoman for the state’s economic development office) didn’t miss the point. Yes, Gov. Patrick, and all the Governors before him for the last quarter century, have “support[ed] and retain[ed] home-grown businesses and spurr[ed] innovation in Massachusetts.’’ But most of it has been summits (here insert “regional competitiveness councils”) and talk — and, again, not just this Governor. Two takeaways: (1) Governors have long spent way too much energy picking winners and losers (biotech tax credits, film tax credits, etc.) and paid […]

Flatline

/0 Comments/in , , /by Steve Poftak

In 2001, the US economy went through a recession. From 2002 – 2007, the US economy created hundreds of thousands of jobs. Unfortunately, Massachusetts did not share in this growth, losing close to 440,000 jobs during that period. Coming out of this recession, shouldn’t we try to figure out how to increase the number of jobs in this state? To do that, Pioneer is looking backwards at the last eighteen years to try and figure out how jobs were created and lost, and to extract lessons for the future. Our first paper, Failure to Thrive, examines the drivers of job creation and job loss over the 18 year period from 1990 to 2007. I invite you to give the paper […]

A Responsible Board of Higher Ed Would Ask

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Pioneer has weighed in on the UMASS-Dartmouth law school issue — here and here. And we’ve gotten swept up in the collective reponse, which seems to consist most of ad hominem attacks. Has anyone asked about the management team that will lead the law school to accreditation? The cornerstone of any private sector business plan is the quality of the management team. As put forward by the University, their proposal is remarkably thin on the management team. They note faculty members at UMass that have law degrees but are silent on the specific skills of managers. Has anyone asked why the proposal never provides any information on the current achievement levels of the SNESL student body or an assessment of […]