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A great debate on unions and improving our schools

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For those of you who need a smart debate about the role of unions in advancing better student outcomes in our schools, there is a pretty smart debate occurring at the Flypaper blog. Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute started off this string, and it has attracted thoughtful contributions and some sharp elbows. It all started with a post of mine that argued that Diane Ravitch is wrong to say that Massachusetts’s situation proves teachers unions to be a non-factor in education reform. After Ravitch responded with a rebuttal post, Jay Greene added a follow-up that challenged her to “point to a rigorous piece of social science research that supports her argument.” Sol Stern then joined the discussion to add […]

Massachusetts, yet again

/0 Comments/in , , /by Liam Day

There’s an entertaining feature on the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference in the most recent edition of the Weekly Standard. Amid the satirical pokes the author takes at participants’ jargon and over-reliance on Power Point, there is a serious point being made about how “the mix of lightweight courses, make-work assignments, and tired progressive ideology” at our nation’s ed schools often deter those who might otherwise pursue careers as teachers. (I speak here from personal experience. I might still be a 6th grade teacher if it weren’t for the fact that my provisional certification required I obtain an MEd.) However, it is a concluding quote in the piece that most caught my eye. It comes from James Fraser, education […]

13 Questions for the Special Commission on Pension Reform

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1) How many members of the commission really think pensions and other employment benefits need to be reformed? 2) Does the Governor’s office have specific ideas as to what they would like to see in the commission report and a game plan for achieving it? 3) When PERAC presents information but states that the data is not really comparable, why doesn’t anyone ask them to come back with comparable data? 4) For that matter, for a liability as large as the state’s public employee pension system and other benefits, why don’t the Administration and legislative leaders insist on better data collection? 5) Did the Commission really have a discussion of disability without even touching on the “Heart Law”, section 94 […]

The Laws of Economics Still Apply

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Senator Bruce Tarr of Gloucester has filed an amendment to the budget that would allow the state to grant ‘racino licenses’ that would let racetracks operate slot parlors. We had this same discussion in 2006 and we’ll restate our position: giving licenses away to a fixed group of bidders at a fixed price is not the way to maximize the value to the state. It will result in a subsidy to racetrack owners (and perhaps their employees, perhaps). If we must allow gambling of this type, let’s maximize the value to the state by allowing an open auction of the licenses, not a fixed process. I’d note that the pending legislation practically concedes my point (see Section 7, subsection i, […]

NYPD not so blue

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Police Chief Ed Davis has calmed the spikes in crime seen before his arrival. It would be good to see some numbers on crime rates in the past few years in case anyone wants to pass those on. That said, New York’s police commissioner Raymond Kelly brings some good news in a recent New York Post short that he penned. Noting that NYC is still the number 1 target in the country for terrorists, he points to a slimmer police force (5,000 fewer officers) AND lower crime rates. Today, despite having 5,000 fewer officers, crime is down by nearly 40 percent from eight years ago. At the year’s start, many predicted that crime rates would spike as a result of […]