“She’s a good girl. She helps me a lot. She has big, big dreams. I don’t have the money, but she has big dreams. I hope she’s going to get everything, but she works so hard. She works so hard in school.”
“Our family is needing to make some really big sacrifices because we believe this is important, and so, we’re basically going to do whatever it takes… Sometimes we look at each other and go ‘I don’t know if I can do it again another month…’”
“A lot of the families have to sacrifice and work multiple jobs… And just scraping together enough money to just make tuition, just the basics.”
“It is discriminatory, that parents who want to choose an alternative to public school for their children, would not in any way receive any compensation for that, whether it be tax credit, whether it be a voucher…”
In the 1840s, nativist movement leaders formed official political parties and local chapters of the national Native American Party (later the American Party), although they continued to be commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party. Politicians sought to insert provisions into state constitutions against Catholics who refused to renounce the pope. The Know-Nothing movement brought bigotry and hatred to a new level of violence and organization.
The party’s legacy endured in the post-Civil War era, with laws and constitutional amendments it supported, still today severely limiting parents’ educational choices. A federal constitutional amendment was proposed by Speaker of the House James Blaine prohibiting money raised by taxation in any State to be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations. These were then named the Blaine Amendments of 1875.
in recent decades, often in response to challenges to school choice programs, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated great interest in examining the issues of educational alternatives and attempts limit parental options. Massachusetts plays a key role in this debate. The Bay State was a key center of the Know-Nothing movement and has the oldest version of Anti-Aid Amendments in the nation, as well as a second such amendment approved in 1917. Two-fifths of Massachusetts residents are Catholic, and its Catholic schools outperform the state’s public schools, which are the best in the nation.
All We Got Was Paint and Carpet
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byPioneer HQ has just undergone a facelift, but it appears we set our sights too low.
Among the dirt thrown at departing Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain was that he spent $1.2 million sprucing up his office, including:
Thain has now offered to pay for the remodeling out of his own pocket.
If you thought of them as customers, existing ones would be important
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byThe Turnpike cranked out one of the more inexplicable pieces of public policy last week — adding a $.50/month charge for FastLane transponders.
For potential new users, this is a actually a passable deal — you can get a transponder for free (versus $25.95 one-time charge) with a payback of more than four years.
For existing users, this is ridiculous — you paid a flat fee upfront and the Turnpike is changing the terms of the deal. I wonder if EZ-Pass Arbitrage will increase?
This space is a huge booster of open road tolling, so its disappointing to see the Turnpike do this, unless its part of some brilliant political strategy whereby the Turnpike alienates as many political constituencies as possible, in order to bring about its demise.
The Great, The Good and The Bad of the Gov's speech to local officials
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, News /byToday’s speech by the Governor before the Massachusetts Municipal Association was largely a very good one based on some very good plans. Kudos to the Governor. Let’s start with the Great, and, yes, there is also Bad.
Great
• The idea of requiring “each community to move all of your retirees to Medicare coverage and give you the option of extending your pension schedules within fiscally responsible parameters” is great.
• The push to regionale “municipal services and other reforms around procurement and contract advertising” is great, but we have seen few details on the tools and incentives the state wants to provide. Pioneer’s own Steve Poftak was also at the MMA, presenting our recent study of obstacles and lessons learned from previous attempts at regionalization. This is a great conversation, but let’s get to details.
Good
• Not cutting education spending is good (though the rest of local services are kind of taking on the chin). That said he is limiting cuts to additional assistance and lottery funding below where Pioneer’s proposal got (he proposes cutting $128 million, we thought we had to get as high as $200 million). Let’s see the rest of that plan, Guv!
• His GIC proposal is a step in the right direction. We may want to go further faster. We believe the opportunity for more is there, but this is a good opening salvo (from the Guv’s speech):
He puts his point very nicely:
The Bad?
• The increases in local (telephone poles, telecom switching stations, and meals and hotels tax) and state (one-penny statewide increase in the meals and hotels tax) we should discuss. We have not been convinced on the telecom issue, and additional taxes during a recession usually act as disincentives to economic activity.
Here’s a thought on how to make one of the taxes (the local meals tax increase), uhm, palatable. Communities that adopt a streamlined permitting process and reduce the absurd regulations to a state standard will be allowed to apply a local meals tax for as long as they hold to that standard. That might make sense because it would lower costs to businesses that could possibly compensate for the cost of the tax. Just trying to be helpful…