By Jim Stergios
February 9th, 2010
I have always been more interested in U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan – what he is about and how he thinks about stuff – than any other of the president’s entourage because he seems real and he seem to really care without wearing it on his sleeve. He’s not the best speaker, and he’s not “colorful” or a “celebrity.” Nor does he cultivate that.
On the other hand reading in The Hill about the flak that Rahm Emanuel is getting for the “collapse of healthcare reform” seems only poetic justice. Though The Hill’s Alexander Bolton notes:
The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
Bolton is probably right, but I’d like to think it is comeuppance for the mix of ego and the cultivation of some fake kind of celebrity. I mean, watching Emanuel play the wild “West Wing” persona always reminds me of times I was walking down Federal Hill in Providence as a teenager, where all the two-bit mafiosi wanna-bes pretended to be Sonny Corleone, or worse Carlo Rizzi from The Godfather. The puff piece by Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker sealed the deal for me.
According to Lizza, noting some criticism from Fidel Castro, Emanuel said
Well, you know, ever since I stopped sending him my holiday card he’s been ticked off. I don’t know what to think about it. Do you know what I’m thinking about? I’m going to finally get to see my kids after a month. So that’s all I give a fuck about.
Turn the TV off, Rahm, and spend some time with your kids.
By Steve Poftak
February 8th, 2010
Adrian Walker picks up where his colleague Yvonne Abraham left off last month.
While Abraham’s column was primarily a 640 word exercise in ad hominem attack, Walker actually talks to the current SNESL (and future UMASS law school, apparently) dean.
It’s a shame that neither columnist could divert from their talking points to ask a few basic questions, like 1) Why isn’t the current performance of the students at SNESL mentioned in UMASS’ proposal to take over the law school, 2) How do you reconcile the almost $10m discrepancy in library assets between UMASS’ proposal and SNESL’s tax return, and 3) Why would current SNESL leadership (which has failed to achieve accreditation for ten years) be retained?
But don’t worry, all those questions have already been answered, right? Right?
Per Education Secretary Reville:
[T]his has been probably the most heavily vetted proposal that’s come before the UMass board and the Board of Higher Education because of all the opposition attention that’s been focused on it — we see these numbers as adding up well.
We’ve raised the above issues and others (here and here). Did not seem to grab the UMASS Trustees, Board of Higher Ed, or Department of Ed’s attention.
Now, the law school will be subsumed in the murky budget waters of the UMASS system, eliminating any hope of tracking their performance. But, as a public service, here’s the UMASS-SNESL Final Application and Related Appendices. Wouldn’t it be great to look at these in two years and see how they are performing against plan?
By Steve Poftak
February 8th, 2010
On Jan.1, MassDOT took over the Tobin Bridge from MassPort. Sadly, my Boston MPO monthly TransReport informs me that:
Drivers who pay tolls in cash or by using Fast Lane or E-ZPass transponders will not experience any changes when they travel over the Tobin Bridge.
That’s too bad, because I’ve always been perplexed by the Tobin’s insistence on using gates in conjunction with their Fast Lane electronic tolling system, slowing down throughput.
None of the many Turnpike Fast Lane stations use gates.
Are Tobin users less trustworthy than Turnpike users?
Let’s take them down and get traffic moving.
By Steve Poftak
February 8th, 2010
I blogged a few days ago about the crowded field for the Auditor’s race and the relatively lonely Treasurer’s race.
And now our crack Pioneer field research team has discovered one candidate with a crucial edge in the Auditor’s competition. Behold:
Sorry, Suzanne, Mary, Mike, Earl, and Kamal. You can’t hope to match this.
By Jim Stergios
February 8th, 2010
While the Democratic party “commentariat” has had afield day with the AG’s campaign for US Senate, a funny thing happened. Ten days after the election, her office released an intriguing Investigation that showed nuance well beyond the campaign talking points on why health care is so expensive.
A. Prices paid by health insurance companies to hospitals and physician groups vary significantly within the same geographic area and amongst providers offering similar levels of service.
B. Price variations are not correlated to (1) quality of care, (2) the sickness or complexity of the population being served, (3) the extent to which a provider is responsible for caring for a large portion of patients on Medicare or Medicaid, or (4) whether a provider is an academic teaching or research facility. Moreover, (5) price variations are not adequately explained by differences in hospital costs of delivering similar services at similar facilities.
C. Price variations are correlated to market leverage…
E. Price increases, not increases in utilization, caused most of the increases in health care costs during the past few years in Massachusetts.
F. The commercial health care marketplace has been distorted by contracting practices that reinforce and perpetuate disparities in pricing.
Oh, yeah. Almost forgot “D,” which I found most intriguing. The AG also found limits on the benefit of reforms like “global payments,” all the rage these days in policy circles.
D. Variation in total medical expenses on a per member per month basis is not correlated to the methodology used to pay for health care, with total medical expenses sometimes higher for globally paid providers than for providers paid on a fee-for-service basis.
Coakley’s office is to issue the final report on March 16th, the day of hearings on health care cost containment. Looking forward to that if this is any indication of the seriousness of her direction on the issue.
By Jim Stergios
February 3rd, 2010
At the January 26 Board of Education meeting that dealt primarily with the Gloucester charter school mess, Secretary Reville does his best imitation of Gibson in Conspiracy Theory. He notes “a number of attempts to distract us from the focus that we ought to have,” people who “[cloak] themselves in talk about de-politicizing the process,” “the well-worn tools of political assassination, innuendos, and threats of various kinds.” There are those who seek to “diminish the courage” and perseverance he has to do what’s in the best interests of children and to maintain the “integrity of the board.”
It’s bizarre, then, to watch a Republican Senator (Bruce Tarr), a Democratic Representative (Anne-Marie Ferrante), and the Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, who comes without party affiliation, all highlighting egregious errors and politicization of the process by the Secretary and by the Commissioner.
Tarr noted “deep flaws in the process,” a situation that “day by day becomes worse and worse and worse,” with “voluminous information that continues to come forward”. He bemoans the lack of integrity and the black mark this approval puts on what was “the best [charter approval process] in the nation.”
Ferrante notes (here and here) similarly “each time I appear before you… it gets worse and worse and worse,” that being blunt “the findings in the IG’s report are appalling,” “departure from procedure,” a commissioner who “mislead the oversight committee in Gloucester,” “shredding of documents.”
The IG notes (here and here) that the Board voted in support of the Gloucester application because they thought that the state’s Charter School Office (CSO) had recommended it, that the Board voted without knowledge that the CSO had found that the applicant group did not meet the criteria, and that the applicant had failed to meet two of the required criteria categories. He says the Commissioner should not only have disclosed the CSO’s view, but also that he has no authority to recommend a charter not meeting those criteria:
“The Commissioner will not recommend that the board awards charters to applicant groups whose applications do not meet the stated criteria for a charter in the application, as corroborated in the final interview of the applicant group by the charter school office.”
The Secretary did a great job in advancing the ed reform bill – probably the most important reform in education since 1997, when there was a lift in the charter cap and the creation of unionized Horace Mann charter schools. But on this one, they have made a real mess. And it is not partisan politics, as can be seen in the line-up of those providing testimony — an R, a D, and an IG.
If the Secretary is alluding to Pioneer, I’d simply say that we have been worried about the politicization of the Board of Education since day one. We are on record about this. We testified against the Art. 87 changes to create a Secretary position, just as he had in 2003 when then-Gov. Romney proposed something similar.
The messes he is dealing with in Gloucester and, now, in Brockton are his messes. We read about the midnight email the same day everyone else did in the Gloucester Times. The martyrdom thing is wearing thin.
By Jim Stergios
February 2nd, 2010
Well, the Board of Higher Ed approved the acquisition of the Southern New England Schools of Law.
Budget crisis + new way to expend $50 M over five years + uncertain outcome + cuts in other core services + lots of other bad stuff = good policy idea
Man, that’s new math.
Video here.
By Jim Stergios
February 2nd, 2010
Dear Patrick Administration PR Dream Team:
The tried-and-true Friday night information dump (alias PAFNDAS) has been tried and tried, and is now tired. Please note: it really pisses reporters off.
Sunday, January 31, Exhibit A. Somehow that jobs-related press release did not work out so well.
Saturday, February 2, Exhibit B.
Suggestion to the Guv’s talented staff, when people are really hurting, you need to use real numbers and show seriousness of purpose. Here are just a few problems with the stim numbers you’re using:
- The 14,000 number far overstates the impact by including lots of p-t work, and also by using the federal money to pay small portions of state salaries, and calling those jobs “retained.” That’s not, uh, serious.
- Public sector jobs ARE important, BUT focusing 70% of the stim money on government jobs does not have the ripple effects in the economy that private sector jobs do.
- Public sector jobs are important, but the state is setting us up for a financial cliff once the federal money dries up. That is especially so on the education side. Using so much federal stim money to fill a huge hole you drilled in state education funding in FY09 is setting up perhaps an unscalable cliff. This is not in the spirit of a 1993 SJC ruling, state law, and some would argue violates a constitutional duty.
The opportunity to do something big and enduring — whether as regards infrastructure or inner city clean-ups — has been lost. That is truly a pity.
By Steve Poftak
February 1st, 2010
The Phoenix’s David Bernstein trolls through the most recent OCPF filings to figure out who is sitting on a warchest. In the $1m+ plus club are a bunch of the usual suspects — various Congressmen, the LG, etc. — but one name jumps out: State Senator Mark Montigny is sitting on ~$1.2 million. The next closest state legislator is Thomas Petrolati, with less than half that. Curious.
And one other oddity — the LG has close to $1.1m on hand, while Governor Patrick has only $634k. My hunch is that the Gov has other money squirreled away in party-affiliated accounts, so it may be a bit deceiving. Still, gives you an idea of who is working at raising money.
One other caveat: As Bernstein has noted in the past, OCPF filings are tricky things — they get amended or filed late, and candidates can use CDs to shuffle money in and out of accounts.
By Steve Poftak
February 1st, 2010
Our state will have two downballot constitutional races this year, for Treasurer and Auditor.
The Auditor’s race is attracting candidates — Guy Glodis (just today!), Suzanne Bump, and perhaps one or two more for the Democrats, Mary Connaughton for the Republicans, and Kemal Jain for the Independents.
Meanwhile, Steve Grossman is hanging out there all alone on the Treasurer’s ballot. Are the promise of deep pockets and the whispers of inevitability really stopping others from running? Ask Governor Reilly and Senator Coakley how that worked out. Its not as if Grossman’s 2002 Gubernatorial candidacy was a juggernaut. (Nothing personal against Grossman, I just want a competitive race.)
One challenger has already dropped out and another (Boston City Councillor Steven Murphy) is pondering the race. Surprising that others are not getting into the race sooner.
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