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What’s all this then about… the Worcester T&G
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela DawsonThe June 5 T&G makes one more point worth mentioning. As Monty Python used to say, What’s all this then about… free community colleges? As the editorial notes, the idea “disappointingly fails to address more immediate concerns.” As the piece notes, Community colleges play a vital role as a portal into post-secondary education — including four-year colleges and technical programs — for nontraditional students, limited-English speakers and others. While state funding may have made community colleges beyond the means of some, doesn’t everyone agree that we have a lot of work to do to ensure that CCs are effective delivery systems for skills needed in the market place? I mean, a financial services firm, to remain unnamed, has a wonderful relationship […]
Whatever you do say nothing
/2 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Economic Opportunity, Related Education Blogs /by…when you talk about you know what. The above line is from an old Irish song (full lyrics below), mocking some unspeakable truth that can’t be related in polite company. I thought of it today reading about the travails of John Hynes who had the audacity to say the following, as an explanation for his plan to open a private school as part of a major development in the Seaport: Unfortunately, 200 to 300 young families leave the city annually because they don’t want to send their kids to private school, can’t get into the public school of choice, or don’t want their 7-year-old spending two hours traveling to a private school, so they move to the suburbs (Quoted in […]
Anybody have an education bandaid?
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela DawsonThe education announcement was long on desire, but its lack of detail and, um, how to get it done (sometimes known as an implementation plan) is buying the Governor more static. Check out the June 5 editorial in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which makes three points: Conspicuously absent from his presentation, however, were a price tag for the sweeping expansion he envisions and an action plan for overcoming resistance by unions, school administrators and taxpayers to various aspects of his education plan. A decade and a half after enactment of the landmark education reform law, the No. 1 standing of Massachusetts students nationwide has vindicated the “grand bargain” that underlies the effort’s success: a major infusion of funding accompanied by measurable standards and accountability for results. […]
Biotech vs. Precision Plastics
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela DawsonGood play on the radio and in the print media subsequent to our piece in the Herald giving Pioneer’s take on the billion-dollar biotech bonanza, excerpted below: We all want to attract and grow biotech companies. [But] why not focus on financial services, which employs 180,000, or precision plastics, a large employer in Worcester and Springfield? [Why] not focus on the small business sector as a whole, which creates many times more jobs than biotech. Those jobs start people up the economic ladder – and stay in Massachusetts. The only way to grow and retain jobs and broad prosperity is to improve the business climate by addressing areas of competitive disadvantage like unemployment insurance, permitting, health care and energy costs. Massachusetts has the […]
Teach to the test? By all means, says Tom Birmingham
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /byAs thousands of students languish on charter school and METCO’s waiting lists, the state education apparatus (including a former Commissioner of Education, former Board of Ed chairman, and former co-chair of the Committee on Education) is attacking what they think is wrong with our schools: MCAS testing. Fortunately, former Senate President (and eternal champion of better schools and common sense) Tom Birmingham will have none of that. To cite the State House News article above: …[Birmingham] called the phrase “teaching to the test” an unfair pejorative because the skills assessed by the test are universally necessary. “If you aren’t literate and numerate, I think the other subjects are going to be lost on you anyway,” he said. “It’s not like […]