Lieut. Gov. Tim Murray has forfeited the benefit of the doubt.
Murray, in a recent letter to political supporters, complained that he has been subjected to “false rumors and wild speculation” in connection with the crash of a state-owned car last Nov. 2 on Interstate 190 in Sterling.
Perhaps he would have had a legitimate complaint if he had been completely transparent from the start. But his account of the crash is contradicted in almost every detail by what was more recently revealed from the vehicle’s black box. If anybody is causing problems by saying things that are false, it is Murray.
The lieutenant governor claimed he had been obeying the 65 mph speed limit. He wasn’t. The black box data showed that he been traveling in excess of 75 mph, and shortly before the crash his speed increase to 108 mph.
He claimed that he had slid on black ice. Not according to the black box, which showed he had never applied the brakes. He claimed he had been wearing his seatbelt. False again.
To call all of these contradictions “mistakes” is laughable. They call into question the rest of his account. Murray said he had gone for a drive to check out storm damage – at around 5 a.m. in the pitch dark. Now he says that he went out for a drive because he couldn’t sleep. And, he now says the reason for the accident is that he fell asleep the wheel.
So for Murray to complain about the press demanding his cell phone records is both unseemly and suspicious. He contends that he was not talking or texting on his phone any time during the drive. But, he does not want to release the phone records.
If Murray wants to end rumors and speculation, he will stop stonewalling. That is only feeding them. If his phone records back up what he has been saying, he has nothing to worry about. But he can’t complain that people don’t trust him. In this case he doesn’t deserve it.
In my last post, I took a look at how surprisingly credulous state executives were of Evergreen Solar’s business. Rarely, if ever, were concerns raised about whether Evergreen Solar was a good investment for the state to make, nor whether the solar industry in general was fundamentally sound. That green jobs had a bright future was, documents indicate, an article of faith.
It’s easy now, as much of the predicted “Green Boom” has gone bust, to second guess the decisions made. A question that should be answered, however, is why those decisions were made. The Patrick administration hasn’t been eager to answer that question. When quizzed about the bankruptcy, the governor insisted the company’s CEO was “out of the loop” while insisting the state would be able to clawback incentives paid out.
But while I once despaired of ever getting Evergreen Solar’s secrets, MassDevelopment has released almost a thousand pages that do shed light on why warning signs were ignored, and it looks like, Massachusetts fell victim of old-fashioned peer pressure.
The scene is all too familiar for anyone whose bought a car. Evergreen is a bargain, but you have to buy now because other suitors are calling and soon it will be going, going, gone. Or to quote directly from a Special Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency:
Amid aggressive competition from Mexico and Oregon and other states, Evergreen has chosen to remain in Massachusetts and to build a new facility, which the Governor hopes will attract other renewable energy companies thereby forming a cluster in Massachusetts. One criterion Evergreen cited in its decision to remain in Massachusetts is the Commonwealth’s ability to “move quickly” with expedited permitting at Devens.
The specter of other states winning the bid is outlined again in a memo detailing MassDevelopment’s eventual grant to Evergreen Solar:
Because Massachusetts had already been in competition with the States of New York, Oregon, and New Mexico for the siting of this facility, the Massachusetts Office of Business Development (”MOBD”) quickly turned to Devens as a location that could meet Evergreen’s needs in the timeframe that they required.
Evergreen Solar executives had no qualms about playing off Massachusetts’s fear of losing out to help drive up the asking price. An e-mail from Massachusetts Office of Business Development:
[After discussing pooling funding and financing sources:] This would bring our total loan package up to $20 million and make us very competitive with other states on the financing front. New York, which is being considered along with Oregon and New Mexico, is making a serious run at it with a large loan package that is forgiveable (i.e. converts to a grant) if certain job creation benchmarks are achieved. New York also has identified an old IBM semiconductor facility in East Fishkill, NY that has a building and infrastructure in place and would significantly reduce Evergreen’s startup costs and timetable. Rich emphasized that the Massachusetts proposal is now very competitive and that the policy discussions with Ian Bowles’ team have been positively received by the Board. He also re-iterated that they are committed to a two-way dialog with Massachusetts and will let us know in advance whether our proposal will be adequate or inadequate to close the deal and give an opportunity for Massachusetts to address any potential areas of the proposal which need to be bolstered to close the deal.
This is all the normal bartering of business, the natural give and take of negotiating. But why were the right questions not asked about Evergreen Solar’s viability? Why was the focus so squarely on catering to Evergreen’s specific needs and demands, and not on more general incentives? Documents indicate peer pressure played a part, with executives caught up in the chase of landing a big (doomed) catch.
But that competitive pressure was ignited by what e-mails indicate was an equally powerful draw: The promise of a new economic dynamo, all powered by socially responsible green energy. As I’ll explore in my next post, it was a combination too powerful for state decision makers to pass up.
Because Massachusetts had already been in competition with the States of New York, Oregon, and New Mexico for the siting of this facility, the Massachusetts Office of Business Development (”MOBD”) quickly turned to Devens as a location that could meet Evergreen’s
In reviewing hundreds of pages of documents related to Massachusetts’ incentives for Evergreen Solar, decision makers made clear the risks of not investing: Passing on the proposal would lead to, officials stated, a loss of potential manufacturing jobs to other states or other countries while giving up a competitive position in an emerging manufacturing market that could set the Commonwealth back for years to come.
What is much less clear, however, is what concerns about Evergreen Solar’s viability were considered. For example, there is almost no mention made of rival Chinese solar manufacturers despite the fact that less than four years later the downward pressure these manufacturers placed on solar pricing would ultimately help push Evergreen Solar towards bankruptcy.
Reading through Evergreen Solar documents released by MassDevelopment in response to a public records request, the priority seemed to be focused instead on how well the publicly-traded company fit in with a loftier mission. From a special Massachusetts Development Finance Agency Board of Directors Meeting on August 22, 2007:
[The Secretary of EOHED] explained that the Governor has directed his Administration to enhance the renewable energy industry in the Commonwealth, for economic development purposes, as well as to further the expansion of clean energy use globally. Historically, Massachusetts has not had much presence in the clean, renewable energy industry and, as a result, has been unable to compete with other states. [...] He reminded everyone that clean, renewable energy is a top priority of the Administration and that, if the vote is successful today, a groundbreaking will be scheduled for September 12.
When questions were raised about the particulars of Evergreen Solar’s financial strength, they were brushed aside. From the same meeting:
The Vice Chair wanted to know if the Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development was comfortable with Evergreen’s financials, and whether this seemed to be a logical expansion for the company, and [the Secretary of EOHED] answered affirmatively. His office has researched the technology and is not worried.
In fact, nowhere in the 923 pages released by MassDevelopment could I find much concern about the actual health of the company at all nor the solar industry in general. A keyword search for China, for example, revealed just 3 mentions: Once as part of part of boilerplate legalese, once in a caption and finally in a section that illustrates China’s growing need for electrical power – highlighting it as a market opportunity for solar.
But it would be just four years later that Chinese competition would take a bulk of the blame for Evergreen Solar’s demise. Was this threat unforeseeable in 2007? Not quite: Even then, China’s solar energy boom was widely reported, with glowing features in the New York Times and Reuters. But even then, the cracks were starting to show: A Barron’s piece slammed the industry, even then, as a “red-hot bubble”.
It’s easy to say hindsight is 20/20, but why was the foresight willfully blind? Why was, after researching the technology and hopefully the industry, the Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development “not worried”? It’s impossible to say for certain, but another response to a public records request might provide some insight.
When we queried the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center for “documents, including resumes, for employees employed at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative at any point during 2007, that demonstrate previous direct or indirect work experience related to the solar energy industry,” the response was short and sweet:
MassCEC does not possess the records you have requested.
Going through the rest of the records I did receive, however, officials did have at least overriding concern regarding Evergreen Solar: Losing the bid to another state, a specter which urged the decision makers to move “quickly” on the deal even as they felt pressured to ensure public funding was used to ensure a competitive proposal. More on that in a follow up post.
Last week, in reporting the national test results on how our public schools are doing, I noted that while
It is wonderful that Massachusetts has maintained its lead nationally, … [o]ur students are no longer improving at the rate they were and in fact their performance has largely flatlined.
On the scaled scores for the Commonwealth, the loss of momentum is very clear with no change on the 4th and 8th grade math scores, and a slight increase on the 4th and 8th grade reading scores (which amount to scores that are statistically unchanged).
While many students with disabilities are included in state exams in reading, math, and other subjects, in 2005, a Government Accountability Office report found that they are more likely to be excluded from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the Nation’s Report Card.
Even before the GAO report, there were studies and questions about whether students with disabilities participated in the NAEP.
We are all accustomed to the MCAS, and therefore know how students are tested. But many readers are absolutely right to ask those of us who use performance statistics from the NAEP, the Trends in Math and Science Study (TIMSS), and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA): How are students selected and is there any bias against underperforming or challenged students?
Sirvi goes on
A more recent study, done at least in part in response to the GAO report, takes another look at how many students with disabilities are included in NAEP and why others are not. The report, from the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the NAEP, notes that a “student with disabilities is assumed to be able to participate in NAEP if he or she participated in the state assessment in the selected subject and can participate with accommodations allowed by NAEP.”
But reality hasn’t matched that ideal. For example, the study notes that in the 2009 4th grade math version of NAEP, 85.4 percent of students with disabilities took the test. On the 8th grade math test, 78.5 percent of students with disabilities were tested…
The NCES found that several factors affected students’ inclusion on the NAEP, including the type of disability they have, the severity of their disability, and whether an accommodation used in a state test was allowed on the NAEP. And while the percentage of students with disabilities included on the NAEP varies from state to state, a larger inclusion rate in one state doesn’t mean that state is more inclusive than another, the report says, because students aren’t spread uniformly through the country…
It also researched how those in the states administering the NAEP decide whether students should participate, put in place a specific process to determine if a student could take NAEP tests without the accommodations they use on state tests, and improved the training for NAEP administrators and staff to clarify the criteria for including students.
No reason for alarmism, but there are some indications in the “exclusion” data that suggest that the Commonwealth has been pretty generous in excluding or granting accommodations to students with disabilities and/or English language learners. For example, in 2009 we often excluded or allowed accommodations for a higher percentage of students with disabilities and ELL students than the nation as a whole.
There’s data on 4th- and 8th-grade students and the percentage of students excluded/accommodated on the reading NAEP here and on the math NAEP here. Just as an example, the 4th-grade math test data shows the percentages for Massachusetts and the nation as follows:
• US: Excluded 2, Assessed with accommodations 11
• MA: Excluded 4, Assessed with accommodations 13
What is the justification for the higher level of exclusions and accommodations?
Drill down to cities and the picture is interesting and one that would benefit from clarity from state and district officials as to why our numbers are what they are. Here is data for 8th-grade math, representing exclusions and accommodations in Larger US Cities as a whole, in Houston and in Boston in 2009:
• US Cities: Excluded 1, Assessed with accommodations 4
• Houston: Excluded 2, Assessed with accommodations 3
• Boston: Excluded 4, Assessed with accommodations 5
So, Boston is excluding a percentage of students four times higher than a representative basket of larger US cities. And if you look at the data from 2003-2009, Boston has consistently excluded higher percentages of students. This is a conversation worth looking into. What’s the view of state leaders?
It’s always struck me as odd that with all the talk about federal money coming from the federal Race to the Top effort to support state implementation of national standards (the so-called Common Core), no one has done a solid cost estimate for what it will cost. Let me say that again: We have at the state and federal level changed policies that are far-reaching for our states, districts and schools, and yet we have had no idea what it will cost to do so.
States and districts are unsure what the true cost of implementing Common Core will be and worry that the money needed will not be available in state or federal budgets. The recession and widespread budget cuts can adversely affect efforts to implement. States adopting these standards must be prepared to implement strategies and support as these will soon become the basis on which students are judged.
As the McGraw-Hill brief notes, each state will be working within the next three years to implement the standards, so that by 2014, the major changes will have taken place. But “ as states create implementation schedules, budget arises as the most mitigating factor.”
Yup. So who has done work on the costs of implementation the national standards and assessments? Not Washington, DC, and not Massachusetts. California has started that process. Taking from California’s draft implementation plan, again, the McGraw-Hill brief notes:
The California Department of Education (CDE) internally estimates that the average cost of developing and publishing a curriculum framework is approximately $1.2 million. The average cost of a major instructional materials adoption in mathematics or reading/language arts–English language development is approximately $2.1 million.
That’s $3.3 million per district. California had very strong state academic standards before it adopted the national standards, so it may be a good comparison on the materials and curricular planning side of the equation. There are of course other considerations, such as the IT and other needs associated with the development and implementation of new assessments, in our case, to replace the MCAS.
If the California numbers hold for Massachusetts (which is not known), the curricular and materials work associated with the adoption of the national standards will cost about $1 billion (over 300 districts multiplied by $3.3. million).
Massachusetts got $250 million over four years (works out to about $62.5 million a year over the period) to start the process, and few people actually believe there is any more federal money to support the implementation process. So in great part this is a matter that will be left for states and districts to pay for.
A new estimate from California’s Department of Education suggests that the costs will be far lower. On Monday, in a piece entitled “CDE estimates common core costs close to $800 million ,” Tom Chorneau reports that
New analysis from the California Department of Education sets the cost of providing instructional materials aligned to the common core at $487 million.
There is an additional $237 million related to professional development – getting teachers and administrators prepared – and at least $35 million more tied to the cost of the state’s participation in the national common core assessment consortium, which calls for implementation by the 2014-15 school year.
The new numbers come as the California State Board of Education is set this week to once again consider the next steps in implementing the common core standards in math and English language arts. The board and state school chief Tom Torlakson are required to provide a plan and a schedule to the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown for how to bring the new standards into the classroom – something that has been under development more than a year.
Although steps have been taken, the big issue clearly is money, as a memo from Torlakson to the board points out.
…
The big hurdle, however, will be finding the truly big dollars needed to bring the entire program into focus.
In recent months, many states hoped that the offer from US Secretary of Educaton Arne Duncan to waive provisions of the No Child Left Behind law to states that make reforms that he wants would save states money. That is not the case in California:
But one big parallel program – the Obama administration’s No Child Left Behind waiver offer – would appear to add costs rather than reduce them.
The CDE says overall the waiver will cost the state as much as $3.1 billion. Many of those costs would be incurred anyway, as a result of implementing common core – such as the updated instructional materials, added professional development and new testing.
But the CDE has also identified numerous other costs tied to the waiver such as the development of new support systems for low performing schools and the creation of an evaluation system for teachers and principals.
So what is Massachusetts’ estimate of the cost of implementation? We ought to know.
Now that Evergreen Solar is filing for bankruptcy, the question of why Massachusetts ever thought the failing solar upstart was a good investment – and why the state should be in risky green energy investing at all – seems a pretty pertinent one. Unfortunately, some state agencies seem determined to make sure whatever lessons could be learned from the disaster won’t see the light of day. In particular, the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development has dragged its feet an inexcusably long time for getting even basic information on the background of the $58 million in investments, incentives and aid.
On March 10, 2011, I filed a series of three public records requests with that agency requesting:
Documents that analyze potential investments in Evergreen Solar from the Executive Office.
Documents that analyze the solar energy industry from the office more generally.
Documents that demonstrate any solar industry work experience from within the Executive Office.
Before even that, on January 15, I had submitted an even simpler request: A copy of a contract between the Executive Office of Economic Development and MassBusiness (also known as the BDC Capital), the private development company backed by state guarantees.
While my requests have been confirmed as received (after a month of follow up calls), no responses came within the 10-day statutory deadline, nor in the hundreds of days since. The only response I have received was a short e-mail:
Hi Michael,
I received your voice mail. We are processing your three requests and we respond as soon as possible.
Maureen Flynn
General Counsel
EOHED
Ph. 617-788-3672
Hi Michael,
I received your voice mail. We are processing your three requests and we respond as soon as possible.
Maureen Flynn
General Counsel
EOHED
Ph. 617-788-3672
While the delays may be due more to incompetence or administrative error rather than an effort to conceal damning information or an atmosphere of impunity when it comes to toothless state public record laws, we might get a hint of the depth of experience based on the response from another agency to a similar query: A request for documents detailing solar experience sent to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and then on to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center came back stating, as straight faced as an e-mail can be, that the Clean Energy Center has no documents demonstrating any employees employed during 2007 had any direct or even indirect work experience relating to the solar industry.
As long as I’m awarding darts, there are some laurels that must be mentioned: The Clean Energy Center, the same agency which helpfully volunteered that it had no documents demonstrating solar industry experience, provided 447 pages of materials regarding grants made to Evergreen Solar, commendably waiving fees. MassDevelopment also about 1,000 pages of grant analysis materials, waiving fees.
Now it’s time for the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development to step up to the plate and do their part to ensure that the mistakes of Evergreen Solar aren’t repeated in the future.
Education does not only take place in our schools, though we often get caught up debating the merit of governance schemes for our bricks-and-mortar institutions. That is important. While I think digital learning is going to transform our concepts of school and learning, I also think the role of the teacher (the “master” in a way), the adult who hands off a tradition, will always be preserved. The relationship between a kid (and of course even an adult) and a teacher is a special one, which is why we spend so much time, ink and treasure trying to make sure we have effective ones.
It’s also why we often have debates (and residual distrust) about things like distance learning, blended learning models, and all the rest.
On this beautiful weekend, I thought I’d avoid weighing into all that and, instead, share the most effective tool I have seen to explain Keynes and Hayek to my nine-year-old daughter. OK, not that everyone has such goals in mind, but this entertaining video is a very provocative and, in fact, thoughtful representation of a debate that matters to all of us. And, yes, Keynes and Hayek rap about their versions of economic policy, government intervention in the marketplace, and the very nature of markets.
John Papola, a filmmaker and executive at SpikeTV and previously at MTV with a passion for economic theory, and Russ Roberts, Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Distinguished Scholar at the Mercatus Center, have done an incredible job with a topic that can often get longwinded and quickly diverted by misinformation.
There are many great exchanges, but my favorite back and forth is:
KEYNES it’s just like an engine that’s stalled and gone dark
To bring it to life, we need a quick spark
Spending’s the life blood that gets the flow going
Where it goes doesn’t matter, just get spending flowing
HAYEK The economy’s not a car, there’s no engine to stall
no expert can fix it, there’s no “it” at all.
The economy’s us, we don’t need a mechanic
Put away the wrenches, the economy’s organic
Keynes and Hayek are not “on the one hand… on the other hand” fence-sitters. Clearly, there is nuance; for example, however, much conservatives want to call Hayek one of their own, I am sure he would beg to differ (see his Why I am not a Conservative). His worldview had too much of the great jurist Learned Hand’s “The Spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right” to be conservative.
Papola-Roberts are not new at this. This latest video is a great improvement over their already high-quality offering on booms and busts (below).
Does this sort of thing belong in schools? Does teaching economics to a nine-year-old require a rap video? I don’t know about all that. What I do know is that Papola and Roberts have, by providing a primer that is useful and provocative to many audiences, demonstrated that they are very effective teachers.
“Fairness” is one of the most abused words in politics.
And it is taking a beating again by the City of Boston, in its quest to find yet another way – any way – to avoid controlling its spending.
Nonprofits aren’t a new target – they have been a target for decades. Legally, they are exempt from property taxes. But municipal officials throughout the state have for years been “asking” them to “contribute” a PILOT – payment in lieu of taxes – to cover the cost of whatever government services might be provided to them. You know, as a matter of fairness.
These “requests” are a bit like Don Corleone making someone an offer he can’t refuse. If a standard guilt trip doesn’t work, the university, the medical center, the museum, the charity are told in not-so-veiled terms that if they don’t pay up, good luck the next time they come before a city board seeking a permit.
It is extortion, all prettied up as fairness and good citizenship.
And now, as the Boston Globe reports, Boston is taking it to the next level, “asking” its major nonprofits to make PILOTs of up to 25 percent of the assessed value of their properties.
This, according to Mayor Tom Menino, is for, what else? – “fairness for Boston taxpayers and the nonprofits.”
Apparently this is just fine with the heads of some institutions like Boston University President Robert A. Brown and Eric Buehrens, interim president and chief executive officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who both say they will comply.
But then, some are less enthused:
Other nonprofit leaders, however, expressed reservations — or declined comment — not only because of the increased cash contributions suggested by the city, but also because of concern that participating in a plan that calls for making payments based on a percentage of property values might set a precedent that could eventually compromise the tax-exempt status of their institutions.
Gee, you think?
City officials, who hope to ramp up their take from these institutions from $15 million a year to $40 million, make a big deal of the fact that this is all still well below what they’d have to pay if they weren’t tax exempt.
But that’s a diversion. The point is that they are tax exempt, for very sound reasons. According to the law, they should not be paying the $15 million, never mind $40 million.
If municipal officials think those institutions should no longer be tax exempt, be up front about it. If it’s not fair that the law exempts them from paying taxes, then move to change the law. File home-rule petitions. State legislators will be sympathetic – they don’t want to control spending any more than you do.
“Tax-exempt” is already a fiction. It’s time to be honest about it.
Governor Deval Patrick’s new autobiography, “A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life”, is an inspiring story, detailing his rise from Chicago impoverishment to his current job as governor of the Commonwealth. While frank about his personal heroes and inspirations, the book skims over his political battles and the decisions he faced in his first term. Even health care reform, of which Massachusetts has in many ways been an early adopter and champion, received negligible mention.
Unfortunately, while his personal story is remarkable, his policies haven’t been a very open book. On vital issues of both local and national importance, I’ve seen pushback, opacity and silence. Starting in January of this year, working with the Pioneer Institute, I’ve filed 21 Freedom of Information requests on a range of issues, including Massachusetts’ health care reform, solar energy initiatives and state employment. Some simply requested specific, discrete documents. But despite payment of hundreds of dollars in copying fees, I have not yet received a single page responsive to these requests.
Instead, we have been chasing data down Alice’s rabbit hole, referenced from one agency to another and back, only to be told, for example, that the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, charged with making “clean energy a centerpiece of the Commonwealth’s economic future”, “does not possess” any documents that demonstrate “previous direct or indirect work experience related to the solar energy industry.” In other words, an agency charged with handing out millions in clean energy grants states, in writing, it has no evidence that any of its employees have experience in solar energy. If true, it would go a long way towards truly explaining the Evergreen Solar fiasco. The situation would be funny, if it wasn’t your state and if Evergreen hadn’t accepted one of the largest private investments the State of Massachusetts ever made, only to cut and run three years later.
Having filed or helped file over 400 Freedom of Information requests, I’m sad to report that the tight-lipped Central Intelligence Agency is more transparent than Massachusetts when it comes to this basic information.
The citizens of Massachusetts deserve better from their employees: They deserve accountability, transparency and to know what they’re getting with their tax dollars. So far, I’ve waited 84 days for them to submit the first draft of that chapter.
It reads like Libyan government propaganda, extolling the importance of Moammar Khadafy, his theories on democracy, and his “core ideas on individual freedom.’’
The Mother Jones piece by David Corn and Siddhartha Mahanta is even more blistering.
In February 2007 Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr., who developed the concept of “soft power,” visited Libya and sipped tea for three hours with Muammar Qaddafi. Months later, he penned an elegant description of the chat for The New Republic, reporting that Qaddafi had been interested in discussing “direct democracy.” Nye noted that “there is no doubt that” the Libyan autocrat “acts differently on the world stage today than he did in decades past. And the fact that he took so much time to discuss ideas—including soft power—with a visiting professor suggests that he is actively seeking a new strategy.” The article struck a hopeful tone: that there was a new Qaddafi. It also noted that Nye had gone to Libya “at the invitation of the Monitor Group, a consulting company that is helping Libya open itself to the global economy.”
Nye did not disclose all. He had actually traveled to Tripoli as a paid consultant of the Monitor Group (a relationship he disclosed in an email to Mother Jones), and the firm was working under a $3 million-per-year contract with Libya.
The usual glib way to summarize this in a blog is “Ouch.” This is much more in the Mother Jones piece that makes you wince. It’s not ouchy; it is more like climbing out of the bowels of the Deer Island plant and then looking back in.
