“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.
Worse Than I Thought
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byTurns out I was wrong about the overall indebtedness of the Commonwealth, including quasi-public authorities. I thought it was $36 billion. Its actually $50 billion, per ANF. Including contingent liabilities, that’s over $14,500 per person in the Commonwealth.
Blue Cross Blue Shield – The Public Trough?
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Healthcare, News /by Liam DayI hate to go on a rant here, but $70,000 to be on the board of directors? (Read the Boston Herald story here.) That’s a pretty good gig. How does one get a gig like that?
Well, if you’re Bob Haynes, I suppose, you flex your political muscle as head of the state’s AFL-CIO. Though, you would think it’d bring up conflict of interest issues, as BCBS is hard-wired into a good number of the local public employee union contracts. Actually, if you think about it, at $70,000, Bob might be underpaid. Ensuring that BCBS doesn’t have to compete on cost for municipal business has to be worth a lot more than that.
Looking around the BCBS director table, we also spy there Ralph Martin, former Suffolk County DA and rumored Boston mayoral candidate. I hope one of his advisers has the sense to whisper in Ralph’s ear that, as health care costs might be a big campaign issue come 2009, he might want to decline the $54,000 he is reported to be receiving for attending 7 meetings a year.
Michelle Rhee takes out the knife
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Jim Stergios, News, Related Education Blogs /byFrom the Washingtonian.com piece on Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of DC schools, there is a quote that stood out from the rest of the piece as the primary dilemma that Rhee and Mayor Fenty are trying to stare down:
It seems that Ms. Levy need not worry.
Fenty and Rhee first sought authority from the D.C. Council to reclassify over half of the 700 non-union positions in the Central District Office, making them “at-will”–i.e., now she could fire them. And that is just what happened. She just cut 98 employees.
Look, cutting down on staff is not great work. But when the need for change is great (and it is great in the DC schools), and when the people around you don’t want change, you have to change the people.
If you think that need for change is only in DC, consider the findings of a recent Massachusetts DOE report that only 51 percent of education funding goes to instruction. Much of the remaining 49 percent goes to central administration and non-instructional programming. Perhaps some of our urban superintendents might take a harder look at what Rhee is doing as she advances innovation and the establishment of a “culture of accountability”.
There are more changes to come in DC, including Rhee noted the possibility of more firings. Rhee is serious. Are we?