| Fact checking Gov. Patrick's DNC speech: The Boston Globe's Michael Levenson cites us in his coverage of the Governor's speech, and we noted that Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick's speech to the DNC conveniently glossed over the fact that MA student performance on the Nation's Report Card has FLATLINED under his administration. And National Review's The Corner cited blogs by our Josh Archambault in calling out Gov. Patrick for repeatedly claiming to have “solved” Massachusetts’s structural deficit. "but this relies on, as Joshua Archambault of the Pioneer Institute has pointed out, unrealistic expectations about Medicaid and shameful cheating on pension accounting." Watching the conventions, Jim Stergios searches for clarity on which political party is for high academic standards, testing and charter schools (used to be Republicans), and which is for centralized policymaking in DC (used to be Democrats). Read his Boston.com "Rock the Schoolhouse" post: Schools and Conventional Wisdom Josh Archambault was cited in this New York Times story about Medicaid on the Campaign Trail: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/us/politics/campaigns-have-sharply-different-visions-for-medicaid.html?_r=1&ref=abbygoodnough Political commentator Michael Barone is the keynote speaker at our Better Government Competition Awards Dinner on Sept. 24th. Buy your tickets here. Hollow at the Core: Massachusetts education leaders abandoned their state's own high-quality curriculum standards and adopted weaker Common Core national education standards with few public hearings, no review of their cost, or even legality -- but Pioneer is bringing the debate - join us on Weds., Sept. 19th for a free public forum that will feature a lively panel discussion about the national standards' quality, focusing on literature. Speakers include Dr. Sandra Stotsky, former MA Board of Education member and expert on Massachusetts' curriculum frameworks, Dr. Jeff Howard, current Board of Ed. member who voted for adoption of the Common Core national education standards, Dr. Mark Bauerlein, Emory professor and author of The Dumbest Generation, Robert Pondiscio of Core Knowledge, moderator David Steiner, Dean of the School of Education at Hunter College. Keynotes: Harvard professor Jocelyn Chadwick, Mark Twain scholar, and Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize winning Mark Twain biographer and co-author of New York Times best-seller, Flags of Our Fathers. RSVP by emailing bpatterson at pioneerinstitute.org This Labor Day weekend, the Boston Herald published this op-ed by Charles Chieppo & Jamie Gass about how Labor leader Albert Shanker would likely be appalled by the mockery supporters of Common Core national education standards have made of the democratic processes he held so dear. Common Core was developed almost entirely inside the Beltway by a small group of D.C.-based education trade organizations. |
