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Nice job by Regional Planning Agencies

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Kudos to the state’s planning agencies for coming together to do a great service for communities and businesses statewide. The Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies has cobbled together the basic premises for effective local permitting in its A Best Practices Model for Streamlined Local Permitting. The document lays out ways to improve communication, standardize procedures and how to implement expedited permitting for select sites, per legislation (Ch. 43D) passed in 2006. Timely and helpful work.

Obama on charter schools and vouchers

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by Liam Day

I like Barack Obama. I like the rhetoric he uses and the hope he embodies and, unlike some people, I believe rhetoric is as important as policy. More important even, for rhetoric defines the parameters in which policy operates. In a sense, rhetoric sets strategy, whereas policy only defines the tactics to achieve the strategy outlined by rhetoric. To refer to a prior post of mine a leader must possess clearly stated strategic goals that are based on deeply held principles and from which he or she refuses to waver. A candidate’s rhetoric helps define the strategic goals he or she seeks to achieve and from which he or she refuses to waver. That being said, rhetoric without policy is […]

Two connections are missing

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In a number of articles in the Boston press on the Governor’s plan to pump $40+ million into biotech firm Shire (The Globe’s Todd Wallack and AP) and on the forward movement of the $1 billion biotech plan (The Globe’s Matt Viser and the Herald’s Christine McConville), two connections are missing. Sure, the “picking winners and losers” trope is being heard, though not with the seriousness it requires. It should be noted that during a recent Joint Committee on Long-Term Debt hearing on the biotech bill, the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Dan O’Connell noted that the state might even consider investing in certain companies if the state could hold a stake in the company… Guys, if you want […]

ED Hirsch on education in Massachusetts

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I’ve always been a little perplexed by the claims that teaching to the test is “narrowing” the curriculum and thereby not giving kids access to a liberal arts education.  The fact is if a student cannot read, do math or perform at a minimal level in science, it is hard to believe that he or she will be able to access a liberal arts education. And, in fact, Massachusetts is known nationwide for having the curriculum frameworks — the basic material from which the MCAS is drawn — that have the strongest academic content.   Don’t ask me.  See an op-ed in the WaPo entitled The Knowledge Connection from education guru E.D. Hirsch. Language comprehension is a slow-growing plant. Even […]

The Dome does not get it

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But Steve Bailey does. Not because he mentions Pioneer’s work in yesterday’s column on business costs and unemployment insurance (UI), but because he is the one reporter who understands that the freeze on UI does absolutely nothing to reduce the cost of UI. As Bailey summarizes: Freezing the rate is a little like skipping a credit card payment – eventually the bill comes due. As with your credit card, the way to cut your bill is to cut your spending. Bailey noted earlier in his piece that the Legislature, cowed by labor, has shown no appetite about doing anything about the underlying costs. Right you are, again, Mr. Bailey. The UI rate freeze was passed without a roll-call vote to […]