Archive for April, 2008
In Massachusetts people are not dying for lack of clean water or sanitation. Across the globe 1 billion lack the former; 2.6 billion lack the latter. But what is common between Tanzania and the Bay State is that we don’t price it to its value–the cost of maintaining the resource and the infrastructure for ensuring potability and sanitation.
This was the central theme of Rob Stavins and Sheila Olmstead’s Pioneer report this summer (which has been piloted by the Patrick Administration… we’d like to see more) and was the topic of a full-page article in the Financial Times by their environment correspondent Fiona Harvey last Friday.
The, ahem, money quote on water pricing:
“Water is absolutely not fairly priced or realistically priced. Therefore people are using water as if it is a resource that will be free of charge forever. That is the reason we are running out of water,” says Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chief executive of Nestlé, the foods group. He warns of an impending crisis in which businesses will struggle to find the water they need and will be forced to pay much higher prices for it, if more is not done to conserve the resource and distribute it more rationally.
The only answer, argues Mr Brabeck-Letmathe, is to bring market forces to bear. Water must be fairly and realistically priced, in order to ensure it is not wasted. “That is how to move forward,” he says. His company is involved in the issue as part of efforts to present itself as a good citizen in the face of a 30-year-long boycott of its products by consumers who disapprove of Nestlé’s record of promoting powdered baby milk in the developing world. Mixing the infant formula with contaminated water led to numerous deaths that could have been avoided if mothers breast-fed instead, activists allege. The company says it now complies with an international code on marketing such products.
Some of you will inevitably see in his advocacy a Nestlé ploy to raise the price of its instant hot chocolate…
April 11th, 2008
Here at Pioneer World HQ, we’ve often joked about a letter to the Globe a few years back that referred to our “plush cloakroom.” The implication was that this is a fancy place full of movers and shakers, a kind of Vault 2.0.
Um, no. Pioneer fights above our weight. In a think-tank-o-sphere dominated by big institutions with heavyweight endowments, Pioneer is a bantam contender. In that way, we’re a good fit for our hometown. Boston is unlikely to attract the Olympics anytime soon (thank Zeus), but this remains an inordinately important little city. I’ll offer only one boosterish example: this is the eleventh-largest metropolitan economy in the world. Not impressed? Measured by population, metro Boston is in fifty-second place.
Which is to say: So long! I am saying goodbye to Pioneer, grateful for the opportunity to have learned from a small crew of brilliant people. Happily, I’m not leaving town; it may be unfashionable to say so, but I like it here.
April 10th, 2008
The Olympic Torch relay is rapidly becoming a farce. San Francisco is the latest stop and its sounds as if chaos reigned.
Unless of course, you limit your reading on the topic to the Communist Party press, which reports
Thousands of people gathered along the route of the relay under a sunny sky to show their support for the torch run in the U.S. city, which is the sixth leg of the torch’s global journey.
Supporters of China’s role as host of the Games were upholding Chinese national flags and displaying the Beijing Olympic mascot Fuwa on the city’s waterfront.
…While anxiously expecting the torch relay, many San Francisco citizens expressed dismay at attempts to link the Olympic Games with politics.
(Don’t miss the People’s Daily’s must-read coverage of Belorussian Fashion Week either.)
April 10th, 2008
The Massachusetts Permit Regulatory Office, led by April Anderson, is working to identify appropriate locations for significant new growth - commercial, industrial, and residential (mixed-use). The Administration pledges to work with local officials and property owners at these locations to make the districts “development ready” in terms of permitting, site preparation, infrastructure improvements, and marketing.
The goal is to make the districts as competitive - nationally and internationally - as Devens is right now. Last year, the Devens Enterprise Commission won Pioneer Institute’s annual Better Government Competition for its permitting system.
So far the Administration has selected districts in Worcester and Haverhill for the initiative.
Greg Bialecki, the state’s Undersecretary for Business Development, will likely talk about this Growth District Initiative at Pioneer Institute’s upcoming conference on revitalizing Middle Cities . The initiative could be good news for the Commonwealth’s older cities. Come join us in Worcester April 25th to learn more.
April 10th, 2008
Our spy behind NEA lines passes on good info from the courts. In a week he noted as unusual for four separate rulings that went the wrong way for the labor unions:
A U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of the U.S. Department of Labor that its interpretation of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act is valid and that all NEA and AFT state affiliates are subject to its requirements. Most affiliates have previously avoided these disclosures because they represent only public sector employees.
Under the new interpretation, all state affiliates are subject to the same detailed financial reporting requirements as their national parent organizations. Should the ruling stand, state affiliates will have to file an LM-2.
LM-2s would ensure that we can have this kind of information for state affiliates of the NEA–information that is now only available for the NEA itself. I couldn’t help but smile as I typed that last sentence. Can’t wait.
April 10th, 2008
The increasing cost of college is widely covered in the press. And politicians fall all over themselves to provide a solution.
So the NYTimes article on the emphasis on gourmet dining at colleges gives one pause. Even our own UMASS-Amherst warrants a mention, for sharing its guest chefs with other schools.
Hard to understand why costs keep going up. A precious quote from Virginia Tech’s Director of Housing and Dining:
We discovered a way in the marketplace concept — kitchens brought out from behind the wall, cooking platforms with pizza ovens, broilers, fryers — so students can see you throw the dough, top it to order and put it in the wood-fired oven. And they don’t just want that product in name only, but they want it to be authentic, because they’ve eaten at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant and they want to smell that hickory wood burning.
April 9th, 2008
The NEA spent $9.2 Million lobbying in 2007, and of course it was all for the children. The NEA spends oodles more on “politics” than that but it is hard to quantify all that it spends on federal, state and local PACs, candidates, issues, ballot initiatives and “legislative crises.” From Mike Antonucci and the Associated Press remind us, we get the latest disclosure figures on the NEA’s federal lobbying of Congress and federal agencies—$9.2 million.
And that doesn’t even include this gem—a “grassroots” union ad running in North Carolina. Yes, my friends, you’ve seen very similar baloney in Massachusetts.
- “You can find her on the carpet during circle time. And in the computer lab. And sitting at a teacher’s desk.”
- “In every classroom across North Carolina, you can find Bev Perdue’s imprint.”
- As a State Senator and now our Lieutenant Governor, Bev Perdue has fought for pre-kindergarten programs like Smart Start - so children come to school ready to learn. (Dunn Daily Record, 10/26/07)
- “She’s raised teacher salaries - so our schools can attract the best teachers for our kids.” (Business Leader, December 2007 and Times-News, 10/17/07)
- “And Bev Perdue is paving the way with a plan called North Carolina’s College Promise — so more kids can afford to go to college.” (Greenville Daily Reflector, 11/21/07 and Associated Press, 11/6/07)
- “For Bev Perdue’s commitment to our children and their schools - she’s earned the appreciation from teachers all across North Carolina.” (Associated Press, 10/1/07)
- “Now on the state Board of Education, she’s making sure our high school graduates have the skills to compete in the 21st century. (http://www.ncpublicschools.org/state_board/)
- “Call Bev Perdue at 919-733-7350. Tell her to keep fighting to make North Carolina’s schools great and our children’s futures bright.”
Funny how all of that came at a time when Bev Perdue is running for governor of North Carolina. Oh, yeah, and she was endorsed by the North Carolina NEA affiliate. Clearly, they endorsed her for the children. NEA spokesman Dan Kaufman is certainly being honest in noting that the ad is “not a political or campaign ad,” but a “grassroots lobbying ad” paid for with dues money.
April 9th, 2008
Sen. Antonioni’s push to weaken teacher testing has found no friends… anywhere. Check out Margery Eagan’s brutal take here, or closer to home for the Senator the T&G’s call for a certain burial of the current wave of acts meant to water down education reform.
Oh, but there is more to come. It’s just oozing from the quote in Michael Levenson’s piece in the Globe attributed to S. Paul Reville, soon to be education secretary for the Commonwealth. See for yourself:
S. Paul Reville… said yesterday that the administration is trying to figure out what other criteria it might use to judge candidates who cannot pass the test. The state, like many, has been struggling with a shortage of teachers and does not want to discourage qualified applicants.
“The test is one methodology - and we think it’s a valid and reliable methodology for looking at people’s level of skills and knowledge - but it isn’t necessarily the best venue for everybody to demonstrate their competency,” said Reville.
The problem is that this is all misleading.
- We have no critical shortage nationally or in Massachusetts of elementary and early childhood teachers. In many instances we have an oversupply of these teachers. See my previous blog on this issue.
- Licensure tests for early childhood and elementary teachers are, at most, at the high school level of difficulty. Anyone who can’t pass either the skills or the knowledge test for these two licenses shouldn’t become a teacher in K-12. See, again, Eagan’s piece.
- We have a shortage of secondary math, science, and foreign language teachers.
- If people have not passed the tests and have been teaching in district public schools, they have not been doing so legally.
The legislation has been roundly derided by the press and mocked by fellow senators. While it was not good etiquette to call people who failed the tests “idiots”, as Mr. Levenson reports former Speaker of the House Tom Finneran as saying, it would be accurate to call this legislation “idiotic” in the Greek sense of the word: it is all about Sen. Antonioni and certainly not for the kids.
I’d love to see the DoE cough up the data on how many teachers have been teaching without licenses, how many have taken the test three times and been close to passing, etc. What a non-issue.
While these folks fiddle around with tiny issues to placate special interests, thousands of kids are losing the opportunity to develop that burning desire to learn, which has helped so many of us make it. Seems Mr. Reville is further padding the view of him as a tinkerer, which was why the Board of Education was revamped, and he was removed, in 1996. Do we never learn?
April 8th, 2008
I can’t shake an uneasy feeling that there is more to this budget crunch than meets the eye.
First, the state went $800m over its $1b borrowing cap. More bluntly, a month after the Treasury and A&F stated they would only need $1.4 billion, they suddenly needed another $400m on short notice. And no one seemed to have any idea why. (I’m working on converting the quarterly cash flows into something more user-friendly which would answer this. I’ll post as soon as I have them.)
My suspicion is that something went wrong with federal reimbursements in January, but I can’t be sure. If its a simple question of timing, not a huge deal. If the money is not coming in, that’s a big problem. Someone has to (or should) know this with certainty. But if they do, they aren’t talking. And isn’t any answer better than none right now?
Now, A&F is putting spending controls in place and collecting $150 million in potential 9C cuts. All this in year where we are $820 million over last year and $320 million over current year estimates. Odd, isn’t it?
And for those with long memories, Candidate Patrick felt that being $320 million over estimates in FY07 was reason enough to reverse then-Governor Romney’s 9C cuts, saying “these broad-based cuts, especially coming mid-year, have a serious negative impact on thousands of Massachusetts residents who have planned for the relief and relied upon the services these programs provide.”
Stay tuned.
April 7th, 2008
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