Incentives Work in Mysterious Ways

By Scott Baum
June 10th, 2009

My mother is a “born again” Christian. She attends services weekly, either at Twelfth Baptist Church on Warren St. or at Morning Star Baptist Church on Blue Hill Ave. I am a “born again” capitalist and an avid golfer.  Each week I put serious thought in to the excuse I will use to get out of going to church with my mother on Sunday. I do believe in God but prefer the predictable 50 minute Catholic approach to worship over the Baptist service which can last anywhere from 2-4 hours.

During the past six months I’ve accompanied my Mother to church twice, once at Twelfth Baptist on the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day and once at Morning Star on Mother’s Day. Interestingly, on both occasions Mayor Menino was in the congregation. It is this visible commitment to their community that has made Mayor Menino extraordinarily popular among Boston’s Black electorate. It is also interesting to note that spending long hours among people whose children suffer the most from the inadequate public schools that our city offers was clearly not what inspired the Mayor to throw his support behind the best proven method of improving urban public education, i.e. charter schools.

Yesterday the Mayor publicly spoke in support of allowing competition for public education in Boston and he expressed his opposition to caps on charter schools. I do not claim to be a political insider or savvy analyst. In fact when it comes to my reading preferences, I enjoy books with pictures. However, its obvious to me that Menino only supports lifting charter school caps because he wants two things-

1.) Obama’s grant money, which the king has declared he will only bestow on subjects who support charter schools and

2.) Yet another term as Mayor.

Menino’s knows he can’t take a position that will do anything to restrict the flow of federal handouts into Boston during a severe recession, even if it means getting on the wrong side of a union.

What’s the point here? Its simply the truth that the “right thing” almost never gets done for “the right reasons”. I don’t go to church with my Mother so I can support her in her faith and spend quality time with her. I go only on occasions when I will feel guilty for not going. The Mayor doesn’t take positions that will alienate the Teacher’s Union in order to help poor, minority students get a decent education. He takes these positions because they are politically expedient and I don’t blame him at all. What I do have a problem with is rarity with which we find the right position and the politically expedient decision to be the same.

I’ll end with my favorite Pete Peters quote because he knows this is all about…”We’ve got to get the incentives right”.