“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.
Told You So
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byMy colleague, Jim Stergios, mused a few weeks ago about Bernie Madoff and the lack of trust out there right now. And Jim is exactly right.
In a previous life, I was part of group that attempted to raise an investment fund (obviously it didn’t work out, did it?). My colleagues were forever pitching the idea to a variety of placement agents, fund-of-fund operators, and miscellaneous middlemen. These gentlemen were always impeccably dressed, impossibly self-assured, and gave off a well-monied whiff that, by virtue of pedigree, education and/or previous employer, each had some link to sources of capital.
That fund never got raised (obviously) but I was reminded of those particular types as I read Harry Markopolos’ devastating critique of Madoff’s operations. Markopolos was an investment analyst of some renown in Boston and he called Madoff’s bluff back in May of 1999. But no one was listening.
I urge you to read the whole document. In summary, he proves that Madoff could not have earned the returns he claimed with the lack of volatility he claimed using his professed strategy. Markopolos also demonstrates that the structure of Madoff’s operation was preposterous on its face — Madoff left absurd amounts of money on the table for his intermediaries.
And here’s where the trust issue comes up. All these intermediaries advised/convinced clients to place money with Madoff and they made good money on the transactions. None of them performed the due diligence that they should have. From reading Markopolos’ takedown of Madoff, its clear that they should have known something was amiss. Instead, they went along with the charade.
Thickheadedness
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byA rather odd article by Jamie Vaznis of the Globe on charters and pilots. The Boston Foundation-commissioned study does exactly what Vaznis notes in the first sentence: “A new study indicates that Boston charter schools significantly outperform the city’s traditional schools, but raises new questions about the city’s experimental pilot schools.” But then he goes on to use most of the rest of the article to question pilots. A little more of the clearly good news about charters would have been helpful–and less story fishing.
The story is very good–just so heartening as to our ability to address the achievement gap. By comparing students who got into charter schools by lottery against those who were not chosen by lottery, the study gets past a great deal of the motivated student, or so-called creaming, argument.
Charters do significantly better across the board than traditional district and pilot schools. And the size of the effect of charters in middle school math is especially encouraging. The study also clarifies the racial composition of charter student cohorts, special education numbers, and all the rest.
One would think that it would convince the Education Secretary S. Paul Reville, who has long called himself an agnostic on charters, to reconsider his views based on the data. Unfortunately, the most he could bring himself to say was that the results for pilot schools were “disappointing.” After which, according to Vaznis, Mr. Reville “reaffirmed the governor’s commitment to developing the so-called readiness schools, which would in part draw on the pilot school model.”
We believe pilot schools can be very helpful in advancing reform. We also believe that charters have long proved themselves but that our current leadership, starting with the Secretary, want to bury their heads in the sand. Pretty sad. This does not strike me as ideology, because the Democratic party nationwide is increasingly embracing charters.
We are way past the point of agnosticism; rather this is likely a case of “thickheadedness.” Mr. Reville never liked charters even when they were included in the 1993 Education Reform Act. He would like to be right. Problem is, he is wrong, and the longer he takes trying to prove himself right, the longer inner city kids will have to wait to gain access to the keys to the American Dream.
Overstimulated
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byEd Glaeser has an interesting and thoughtful piece in today’s Globe on the various stimulus ideas floating around.
I am a bit concerned about the rush to spend billions of dollars willy-nilly. The stimulus package has turned into a Christmas Tree of sorts, with every group hanging their desired ornament on it.
But I fear most people are not paying attention to the details. The State has cranked out its list. There are some worthy projects here, but there is also a lot that has not been fully vetted. $200 million for rebates for biomass pellet furnaces? $200 million buys you about 60,000 of those furnaces outright (against a housing stock base of around 2.5 million) and it increases as you lower the rebate (e.g. at 50% rebate, you are supporting the purchase of 120,000 units). Now, I’ve no idea if these furnaces are a good idea or not, but I’m not comfortable with the notion that the state should be subsidizing them on such a broad scale. Put differently, if you had $200 million, what would you do with it?
Another issue is spending on operating items that exacerbate the structural deficit. The City of Boston initially put in for a one-time grant for 10 police officers*. Great, but who pays their salaries and benefits next year?
*The request for the cops is gone now, so maybe that’s a sign of progress.