“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.
Progressive idea? Regressive in practice
/0 Comments/in Blog, Healthcare /byThat health care benefits are provided through employers for the most part as a pre-tax benefit is the most regressive kind of tax policy around. Let me get this straight: I work and therefore can pay taxes, and I get my health care benefits, which are really a form of compensation, free of tax. But then there are people who are without a job temporarily (or worse) or work for a company that does not sponsor their health care, and that person has to pay taxes on the coverage they purchase?
So the folks who are better off get health care pre-tax and the employer can deduct the cost, but folks who purchase their own coverage have to buy it with after-tax dollars. Hmmm.
Former Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services Mark McClellan notes in a Heritage Foundation transcript that
The number juxtaposed against the home mortgage deduction is eye-opening.
A lack of imagination
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, News /by Liam DayAs Dennis Miller used to say, I don’t want to go on a rant here, but it beggars the imagination how glib some public officials can be when it comes to talk of budgets. This from Holland Selectman James E. Wettlaufer, in an article in the Springfield Republican about the town’s rejection of two Prop 2 1/2 overrides in yesterday’s election:
Crafting municipal budgets within the levy limit is what the law intended. Under the law, it is what town selectmen are supposed to do. It’s not supposed to be a last resort.
Then, of course, Mr. Wettlaufer immediately jumps to the supposition that services will have to be reduced. Can he honestly claim there are no savings to be had anywhere in the town’s government simply by operating it more efficiently? I find that hard to believe.
For the 10 readers I have out there, I should disclose I am a Democrat. And I do believe, as Oliver Wendell Holmes did, that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But why does it seem that the only solutions public officials are ever able to offer in the face of a tight budget are increasing revenues or cutting services? Is there really that little imagination in the public realm these days?
Change or Die
/0 Comments/in Blog, Related Education Blogs /byVermont Technical College President Ty J. Handy, in the Winter 2008 New England Journal of Higher Education, writes an interesting article (Differentiate or Die”) about the future of New England higher education. His argument is that, given the significant decrease in the number of students coming out of the K-12 “pipeline” in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the smaller decline in Rhode Island, and the static population in Massachusetts, New England colleges and universities will have to differentiate their brands to appeal to people farther and wider.
The numbers are pretty depressing for ME, NH and VT. They are not great for the other New England states (see below).
But what leapt off the page was what the demographic trends will mean for the sustainability of the cost structure of our K-12 system. With compensation, including pensions, health care, retiree health care and salary (“step” increase add-ons and increases) going through the roof, how will we pay for the district schools we have–especially in western part of the state where enrollment is declining?
See the numbers below (from the Handy article), which represent the 2006 cohort of students, showing the percentage increase/decrease in the number of students enrolled in 2006 in the 12th grade and 1st grade, followed by the raw numbers.