“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.
The Free Market Reponse to Partners-Blue Cross
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /bySeveral folks, including a recent commenter, have posed a similar question — if the handshake agreement between Partners and Blue Cross has raised healthcare costs so much, why hasn’t someone come up with a non-Partners insurance product?
I can’t say that I have an absolute answer. But, I would point you in the direction of the closest analogue I can think of — Unicare’s Commonwealth Choice PPO plan, which is available to state employees. It limits you to a variety of community hospitals, BIDMC, and Children’s Hospital (the only contact with the Partners network, as far as I can tell.
Jump on our GIC health insurance comparison website — www.gicestimator.com — and pretend to be an employee of one of the featured towns. Then select Unicare – Commonwealth Choice from the PPO options. I’m guessing it will be lower priced.
I don’t know how popular it is, and I’m guessing not very — the power of the brand names is quite strong.
More Bailout Fun
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byFirst, the nonsense — signaling the illogical end of this process, the…ahem…adult entertainment industry has put in for its share of funds.
Next, the impossible overreach — a Massachusetts firm has put in for $1.84 billion loan to construct production facilities. Now, don’t get me wrong — I hope the company succeeds in its efforts to make next generation batteries that might catalyze the use of more electric vehicles. But, for a company with around $40 million in yearly revenues and only $205 million in assets, this is a massive bet with our money on a specific company and a specific technology. Its good business on the company’s part — they’ve found an investor willing to take equity-type risk that only demands debt-level returns (and no control). But its terrible business and economic policy, on the government’s part.
I hope I am or at least the Governor is misinformed
/1 Comment/in Blog, News /byI have heard from folks who listen to the Eagan-Braude show on WTKK that Governor Patrick today was saying that he is not anti-charter. OK. Then, according to these listeners, he went on to say that his lack of urgency around raising the charter cap was a “red herring” or similar. Not OK.
The calls from the Boston Globe, Lowell Sun, and many other places to raise the cap on charters comes on the heels of a great report done by Harvard, MIT and Duke for the Boston Foundation.
Is this really the Governor’s line? He is right to say that there is a cap of 120 charter schools statewide and that we have currently 61. He is right again in saying that we have a 4 percent cap on students in public school statewide, and only 2.6 percent of students are in charters.
But he is wrong and “wronger” on the two caps that matter most:
In any given year, you have to approve 3 charter schools in poor districts before you can approve one in any other district. If you don’t have three school proposals for poor districts that can make it through the process in any given year, then no other charter can be approved. What’s the problem with that?
Well, well, you have asked a good question. There is a cap on the total district spending that can go to charter schools (9 percent). There are 152 Massachusetts communities that are at the 9 percent cap. Communities at the cap include Boston, Chelsea, Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence… You get the picture.
So, where are the communities where we can grow a charter? Maybe leafy Milton and Richmond aren’t up against the cap. Yes, I think that Sweet Pea Farm is more than a stone’s throw from the closest charter.
I hope I have been misinformed about what the Governor said. If not, I hope the Governor has been misinformed by his staff. If neither, let me inform the Governor that this better not be his line of defense on charters, because it is a view as flimsy as wet cardboard before a tsunami of facts.