Have Faith in Catholic Education

Catholic schools are closing their doors all across America, leaving future generations with nowhere to turn for the high-quality academics and values-based education so many families are seeking. The number of students attending Catholic schools in the US fell from about 5.2 million in 1965 to around two million in 2008.

Pioneer Institute believes these schools are worth preserving. For over a decade, we have raised our voice in support of these excellent academic options, and tools such as tax credit scholarships that would enable more families to attend.

Pioneer has held public forums, published research on the benefits of Catholic education, on successful models such as Cristo Rey, and on policy changes that would stop the Massachusetts education department from depriving religious school students of special needs services and school nurses. The Institute has also convened key stakeholders, appeared in local and national press, filed amicus briefs, produced a feature a documentary film, and much more.

Read Our Research

Debating biotech on NECN

March 3, 2008/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /by

Some improvements in the House version of the biotech bill resulted from the good work of Pioneer and other groups like the Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

For Pioneer’s testimony click here, for a Pioneer op-ed in the Globe click here.

That said, apart from the research components and some of the infrastructure funding, the bill still stinks, as I think came out in the back and forth on NECN’s NewsNight with Jim Braude.

In retrospect there is a better answer to Jim’s query “If the bill is so bad, why is it getting the support of the Governor, the Senate President and the Speaker?” I should have said something like the following:

It’s borrowed money (a kind of funny money), so it is easy to spend.
There was already $3.4 billion (that’s a B) in VC money invested in Massachusetts in 2007, so the $100 million a year in investment called for in the bill is bound to be associated with some successes. No doubt, all three will take significant credit for job growth in the sector, even though $100 million is about a 3 percent increase in the total pot of VC money.
They don’t have the courage to reduce the cost of business, so this is the only acceptable way they have to try and say that they are pro-business.

With grey hair comes wisdom, but the brain is a tad slower…

Slate on Guv Patrick and education

February 29, 2008/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by

Picking up on Fred Siegel’s piece on the politics of hope and the reality of Governor Patrick’s moves to undo education reform (= giving in to special interests), Mickey Kaus from Slate asks

Isn’t it incumbent on those prominent NEA-bashing neoliberal Obama supporters to explain just why his term as president won’t quickly descend into a Patrick-like interest-group quagmire? Jon Alter, this means you! And Charles Peters as well. … P.S.: Patrick could function as Obama’s wrang-wrang, Vonnegut’s term for a pioneer who by his bad example steers others away from a false course. Before neolibs go into a permanent campaign swoon, shouldn’t Obama send them at least a subtle signal that he understands this?

Kaus then needles “Hope= casino gambling?”

If Patrick becomes Barack Obama’s wrang-wrang, and the Governor’s undoing of education reform in the nation’s number one state gets national traction, well, … watch out.

Yes, We Can’t

February 29, 2008/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by

Tough article on Barack Obama and the politics of hope from Fred Siegel in the February City Journal. The reason for Fred’s less-than-hopeful take on Barack? The record thus far of Governor Deval Patrick.

Fred calls the politics of hope a bust in Massachusetts, and here is why:

Bay State journalist Rick Holmes describes Obama and Patrick, fellow Harvard Law School graduates, as “peas in a pod.” Patrick is the Obama campaign’s national cochair. Obama’s presidential campaign has modeled itself on Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign. Patrick’s 2006 campaign slogan was “Together we can,” while Obama’s is “Yes we can.” The brilliant Chicago political operative David Axelrod has managed both men’s campaigns. Both candidates have made persistent appeals to “the politics of hope.”

So Clinton’s criticism seems an opportune moment to ask how Patrick’s inspirational rhetoric has translated into governing a state where Democrats control both houses of the legislature—the likely scenario for Obama, too, should he take office. Patrick’s governorship is the closest thing we have to a preview of the “politics of hope”—and that governorship has been a failure to date. As Joan Vennochi observes in the Boston Globe, “Democrats who control the Legislature ignored virtually every major budget and policy initiative presented by a fellow Democrat.” Patrick’s record in office, Vennochi concludes, “shows that it can be hard to get beyond being the face of change, to actually changing politics.” His stock has sunk so markedly that Hillary Clinton carried the state handily against Obama in the Democratic primary despite, or perhaps because of, Patrick’s support for his political doppelgänger.

In one area, however, Patrick has achieved some of his goals. In thrall to the state’s teachers’ unions, he has partly rolled back the most successful educational reforms in the country. Most states gamed the federal testing requirements that were part of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. But Massachusetts, thanks to Republican governors William Weld and Mitt Romney, created the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability to ensure that the state’s testing methods conformed closely to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—federal tests that are the gold standard for measuring educational outcomes. In 2007, Massachusetts became the first state to achieve top marks in all four categories of student achievement. One of Patrick’s first efforts as governor was to eliminate the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability.

Patrick hasn’t delivered reform, much less the transformation that both he and Obama promise.

Yup. The Patrick administration’s moves to cave in to union interests and put at risk the enormous progress of Massachusetts’ schools and students seem to be gaining national notice. The gutting of accountability, the packing of the Board of Education and Tuesday’s clearly politicized move against a promising new charter school are not hope. But they will be this Governor’s legacy.

The question Fred poses is whether they are a harbinger of things to come on the national stage. Read and form your own opinion.

Read Our Commentary

Debating biotech on NECN

March 3, 2008/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /by

Some improvements in the House version of the biotech bill resulted from the good work of Pioneer and other groups like the Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

For Pioneer’s testimony click here, for a Pioneer op-ed in the Globe click here.

That said, apart from the research components and some of the infrastructure funding, the bill still stinks, as I think came out in the back and forth on NECN’s NewsNight with Jim Braude.

It’s borrowed money (a kind of funny money), so it is easy to spend.
There was already $3.4 billion (that’s a B) in VC money invested in Massachusetts in 2007, so the $100 million a year in investment called for in the bill is bound to be associated with some successes. No doubt, all three will take significant credit for job growth in the sector, even though $100 million is about a 3 percent increase in the total pot of VC money.
They don’t have the courage to reduce the cost of business, so this is the only acceptable way they have to try and say that they are pro-business.

With grey hair comes wisdom, but the brain is a tad slower…

Slate on Guv Patrick and education

February 29, 2008/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by

Picking up on Fred Siegel’s piece on the politics of hope and the reality of Governor Patrick’s moves to undo education reform (= giving in to special interests), Mickey Kaus from Slate asks

Isn’t it incumbent on those prominent NEA-bashing neoliberal Obama supporters to explain just why his term as president won’t quickly descend into a Patrick-like interest-group quagmire? Jon Alter, this means you! And Charles Peters as well. … P.S.: Patrick could function as Obama’s wrang-wrang, Vonnegut’s term for a pioneer who by his bad example steers others away from a false course. Before neolibs go into a permanent campaign swoon, shouldn’t Obama send them at least a subtle signal that he understands this?

Kaus then needles “Hope= casino gambling?”

If Patrick becomes Barack Obama’s wrang-wrang, and the Governor’s undoing of education reform in the nation’s number one state gets national traction, well, … watch out.

Yes, We Can’t

February 29, 2008/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by

Fred calls the politics of hope a bust in Massachusetts, and here is why:

Bay State journalist Rick Holmes describes Obama and Patrick, fellow Harvard Law School graduates, as “peas in a pod.” Patrick is the Obama campaign’s national cochair. Obama’s presidential campaign has modeled itself on Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign. Patrick’s 2006 campaign slogan was “Together we can,” while Obama’s is “Yes we can.” The brilliant Chicago political operative David Axelrod has managed both men’s campaigns. Both candidates have made persistent appeals to “the politics of hope.”

So Clinton’s criticism seems an opportune moment to ask how Patrick’s inspirational rhetoric has translated into governing a state where Democrats control both houses of the legislature—the likely scenario for Obama, too, should he take office. Patrick’s governorship is the closest thing we have to a preview of the “politics of hope”—and that governorship has been a failure to date. As Joan Vennochi observes in the Boston Globe, “Democrats who control the Legislature ignored virtually every major budget and policy initiative presented by a fellow Democrat.” Patrick’s record in office, Vennochi concludes, “shows that it can be hard to get beyond being the face of change, to actually changing politics.” His stock has sunk so markedly that Hillary Clinton carried the state handily against Obama in the Democratic primary despite, or perhaps because of, Patrick’s support for his political doppelgänger.

In one area, however, Patrick has achieved some of his goals. In thrall to the state’s teachers’ unions, he has partly rolled back the most successful educational reforms in the country. Most states gamed the federal testing requirements that were part of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. But Massachusetts, thanks to Republican governors William Weld and Mitt Romney, created the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability to ensure that the state’s testing methods conformed closely to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—federal tests that are the gold standard for measuring educational outcomes. In 2007, Massachusetts became the first state to achieve top marks in all four categories of student achievement. One of Patrick’s first efforts as governor was to eliminate the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability.

Patrick hasn’t delivered reform, much less the transformation that both he and Obama promise.

The question Fred poses is whether they are a harbinger of things to come on the national stage. Read and form your own opinion.

Watch: Catholic education forum highlights

Help preserve Catholic education!

Big Sacrifices, Big Dreams:
Ending America’s Bigoted Education Laws

In Massachusetts, the Know-Nothing amendments prevent more than 100,000 urban families with children in chronically underperforming school districts from receiving scholarship vouchers that would allow them access to additional educational alternatives. These legal barriers, also known as Blaine amendments, restrict government funding from flowing to religiously affiliated organizations in nearly 40 states and are a violation of the first and fourteenth amendments.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case this year, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, that could end these amendments. In 2018, Pioneer produced a 30-minute documentary on the impact of the Blaine amendments on families in Massachusetts, Georgia, and Michigan.

“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.”

Arlete do CarmoFramingham, MA

“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…’”

Nate and Tennille CostonMidland, MI

“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.”

Sarah MorinFall River, MA

“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…”

Father Jay MelloPastor, St. Michael and St. Joseph Parishes

Watch the Film

History of Blaine Amendments

Nativist sentiments were, like slavery, a part of the original fabric of the United States.

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.

Make Your Voice Heard Now!

Help families like the Costons in Michigan to end the bigoted Blaine amendments in their state that are blocking tuition scholarships and other types of financial support that would make it possible for families to send their children to high-quality schools that are best suited for their children.

Sign the Petition!

[ytp_video source=”uN8dMHYzofA”]

Learn more about how you can help end bigoted education laws in your state!

First and last name

Email address

Δ

support our work to end bigoted barriers to school choice

DONATE

Yes! I want to help restore Catholic education

SHARE THIS STORY ON SOCIAL MEDIA!

Debating biotech on NECN

March 3, 2008/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /by

Some improvements in the House version of the biotech bill resulted from the good work of Pioneer and other groups like the Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

For Pioneer’s testimony click here, for a Pioneer op-ed in the Globe click here.

That said, apart from the research components and some of the infrastructure funding, the bill still stinks, as I think came out in the back and forth on NECN’s NewsNight with Jim Braude.

It’s borrowed money (a kind of funny money), so it is easy to spend.
There was already $3.4 billion (that’s a B) in VC money invested in Massachusetts in 2007, so the $100 million a year in investment called for in the bill is bound to be associated with some successes. No doubt, all three will take significant credit for job growth in the sector, even though $100 million is about a 3 percent increase in the total pot of VC money.
They don’t have the courage to reduce the cost of business, so this is the only acceptable way they have to try and say that they are pro-business.

With grey hair comes wisdom, but the brain is a tad slower…

Slate on Guv Patrick and education

February 29, 2008/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by

Picking up on Fred Siegel’s piece on the politics of hope and the reality of Governor Patrick’s moves to undo education reform (= giving in to special interests), Mickey Kaus from Slate asks

Isn’t it incumbent on those prominent NEA-bashing neoliberal Obama supporters to explain just why his term as president won’t quickly descend into a Patrick-like interest-group quagmire? Jon Alter, this means you! And Charles Peters as well. … P.S.: Patrick could function as Obama’s wrang-wrang, Vonnegut’s term for a pioneer who by his bad example steers others away from a false course. Before neolibs go into a permanent campaign swoon, shouldn’t Obama send them at least a subtle signal that he understands this?

Kaus then needles “Hope= casino gambling?”

If Patrick becomes Barack Obama’s wrang-wrang, and the Governor’s undoing of education reform in the nation’s number one state gets national traction, well, … watch out.

Yes, We Can’t

February 29, 2008/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /by

Fred calls the politics of hope a bust in Massachusetts, and here is why:

Bay State journalist Rick Holmes describes Obama and Patrick, fellow Harvard Law School graduates, as “peas in a pod.” Patrick is the Obama campaign’s national cochair. Obama’s presidential campaign has modeled itself on Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign. Patrick’s 2006 campaign slogan was “Together we can,” while Obama’s is “Yes we can.” The brilliant Chicago political operative David Axelrod has managed both men’s campaigns. Both candidates have made persistent appeals to “the politics of hope.”

So Clinton’s criticism seems an opportune moment to ask how Patrick’s inspirational rhetoric has translated into governing a state where Democrats control both houses of the legislature—the likely scenario for Obama, too, should he take office. Patrick’s governorship is the closest thing we have to a preview of the “politics of hope”—and that governorship has been a failure to date. As Joan Vennochi observes in the Boston Globe, “Democrats who control the Legislature ignored virtually every major budget and policy initiative presented by a fellow Democrat.” Patrick’s record in office, Vennochi concludes, “shows that it can be hard to get beyond being the face of change, to actually changing politics.” His stock has sunk so markedly that Hillary Clinton carried the state handily against Obama in the Democratic primary despite, or perhaps because of, Patrick’s support for his political doppelgänger.

In one area, however, Patrick has achieved some of his goals. In thrall to the state’s teachers’ unions, he has partly rolled back the most successful educational reforms in the country. Most states gamed the federal testing requirements that were part of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. But Massachusetts, thanks to Republican governors William Weld and Mitt Romney, created the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability to ensure that the state’s testing methods conformed closely to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—federal tests that are the gold standard for measuring educational outcomes. In 2007, Massachusetts became the first state to achieve top marks in all four categories of student achievement. One of Patrick’s first efforts as governor was to eliminate the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability.

Patrick hasn’t delivered reform, much less the transformation that both he and Obama promise.

The question Fred poses is whether they are a harbinger of things to come on the national stage. Read and form your own opinion.

Have Faith in Catholic Education

Read Our Research

Read Our Commentary

Watch: Catholic education forum highlights

Help preserve Catholic education!

Big Sacrifices, Big Dreams:Ending America’s Bigoted Education Laws

History of Blaine Amendments

Nativist sentiments were, like slavery, a part of the original fabric of the United States.

Make Your Voice Heard Now!

Learn more about how you can help end bigoted education laws in your state!

support our work to end bigoted barriers to school choice

Yes! I want to help restore Catholic education

Big Sacrifices, Big Dreams:
Ending America’s Bigoted Education Laws