Education Reform Act of 2009 (Senate Bill 2205)

I've skimmed through the text of the current Education Reform Act (also known as Senate Bill 2205). This is bad legislation unless you are interested in the privatization of the state education system. If you love the idea of the eventual transfer of our education system to privateers, then this legislation is a nice stepping stone. I don't want privateers running the education of my children, and I don't want to see local control of eduation stripped away. We know what's best for our children. The State of Massachusetts does not, as much as they want to believe they do. After reading the text I sent an email to Representative Binienda and Senator Moore expresing urging them to prevenet the passage of this legislation. The long term consequences concern me greatly.

Senator Moore and Representative Binienda,

I am writing in regards to the Education Reform Act of 2009, also known as Senate Bill 2205. I will be frank and open in stating up front that I do not support this legislation as written. Since the initial education reform of the 1990s I believe that the state has been engaged in a step by step dismantling of local control of education. A hallmark of Massachusetts has been a progressive and locally controlled education system. SB2205, in my opinion, continues a progression of removing that local control and centralizing it in the state education boards which are not elected, but appointed.

The language in the act which allows for the privatization of a school if it is deemed under performing concerns me greatly. The language is disguised as an "external receiver." The commissioner is granted the authority to appoint an external receiver if the commissioner determines the superintendent may not implement the improvement plan. The language does not stipulated failure, but a subjective assessment. The "external agent" is defined as being a non-profit entity or "individual with a record of success."

I'm also concerned with later language concerning the transfer of building facilities. The language stipulates that if a school facility is being sold or leased that a charter school should be given priority. The schools are locally owned, but this is putting a state restriction on that local ownership with no compensation to the municipality for that restriction. Without a doubt I am against such an action.

The definition of under performing used in this act is the bottom 20% in MCAS scores. There will always be a bottom 20%. Even if all the schools in Massachusetts score as proficient there will still be a bottom 20%. In any ranking system there is a bottom 20%.

I believe this act sets the stage for future privatization of the public schools in Massachusetts. By stating that the bottom 20% of performers can be privatized, then forcing municipalities to sell school buildings to charters you will be setting the stage for privatizing the schools and forcing the municipalities to lease or sell their schools to the new privatized school entity. This is wrong.

I urge you not to pass this legislation as written. This legislation is broken and needs to be prevented from becoming law. The long term consequences for education in Massachusetts, and especially the tradition of local control of education is in jeopardy. Again, I urge you, don't pass this legislation.

Sincerely,
James Gonyea
Leicester School Committee, Member

Tracy Novick over at Whos of Who-cester has also written to Senator Moore and the other legislators representing Worcester.

The text of SB2205 can be found here. Amendments can be found here.

Fund a Writing Project

In October I posted that a friend of mine is using a Kickstarter account to fund the writing of a new novel. The pledge period ends on November 17th. He met his minimum goal, but there are three more days to pledge. So I would encourage anyone who is interested in funding an artistic project, yes, writing is artistic, do go to Kickstart and fund his project. The link is here. Please consider donating.

Wormtown Taxi on Privatization

Jeff over at Wormtown Taxi has a great post on privatization. I've posted on my views and my feeling that the correct term is privateering. Read Jeff's post.

Is the Sarbannes-Oxley Act About To Be Gutted?

The New York Times is had an article this week about efforts in the Congress to gut the Sarbannes-Oxley Act. Sarbannes-Oxley was put into place in 2002 after the WorldComm scandal to ensure that the financial statement of corporations are fundamentally sound. It costs money for companies to comply since it means auditing and checks and balances. The argument from day one was that it would be expensive to smaller corporations. So what is the Congress interested in doing? Gutting the act in regards to corporations under $250 million in size. The Sarbannes-Oxley Act, by enforcing compliance, was intended to ensure that investors would know that the financials of companies were not being manipulated. Remember Enron? Well, in an effort to appear "pro business" it looks like the Democratic led Congress is getting ready to gut the act. We just had the implosion of the financial industry. There have been calls to add regulations to Wall Street, but here we are with a Democratic Congress looking at dismantling legislation that protects investors.

The act also made the accounting standards bureau independent by providing it an independent funding source. So what's happening now? The banks are plugging away at Congress to allow the Federal Reserve to over rule the accounting standards bureau in regards to accounting standards that apply to them. The argument here is that the accounting standards were changed requiring banks to report losses that they previously didn't have to report. The Federal Reserve is an appointed board and very favorable to the banks. Matter of fact there's a revolving door between the Fed, the Treasury, the banks, and Goldman Sachs.

Sarbannes-Oxley was meant to improve the faith of the investors and the people in our financial reporting at corporations to ensure that people knew they were investing in healthy companies when the company reported it was healthy. The gutting of this regulation would be a boon to the banking industry. This is just another example in a long line of examples showing that Washington doesn't care about the American people, but is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America.

Unfunded Mandate

If there's any term that needs to be put to rest it's unfunded mandate. The term is over used and it was coined as a sound byte. I hate sound bytes. An unfunded mandate would be a requirement by a higher government that forces a lower government to fund an initiative. If the state of Massachusetts required Leicester to do something, but provided no money to do it that would be an unfunded mandate. If the state of Massachusetts required Leicester to do a bunch of stuff and provided funding that didn't cover it all, those things not covered would be unfunded mandates. If the state of Massachusetts required Leicester to do something doesn't provide additional funding, but otherwise provides funding in excess of all their requirements that is not an unfunded mandate. The last example is putting strings on funding. It's different.

The state of Massachusetts supplies approximately fifty percent of the revenue for Leicester. If the total number of state requirements excedes that dollar amount then the excess is unfunded mandates. The rest of it is funded. So let's be honest and stop using the unfunded mandate line. It's misleading.

If you want to speak about requirements added without additional funding, that's fine. I'm okay with that. If the state makes requirements of Leicester and doesn't supply additional funding to support it, then that's adding strings to existing funding and entirely different from an unfunded mandate. I have an issue with the state doing this since that money was previously used for other things. When you take money that had no strings and then attach specific spending requirements you are denying the town the opportunity to spend the money on something else. At that time the town needs to pony up the replacement funding or cut the service. If the town doesn't pony up the funding then the service disappears. This is obviously what people mean when they speak of an unfunded mandate, but it's misleading. It's a nice sound byte, but misleading.

Let's just be honest and direct in our usage of language.

Congratulations Tracy O'Connell Novick

According to the Telegram website Tracy Novick has won her race for School Committee.

Worcester City Election

Since moving to Leicester I haven't paid a great deal of attention to city politics in Worcester. Mainly I'm interested in the portions that impact Leicester. I did grow up in Worcester on Grafton Hill and Vernon Hill, then spent about eight years living on Stafford Street. So I do have some opinions and this time around I do have opinions to express.

I've known Tracy O'Connell Novick for a few years. We were neighbors living on Stafford Street for years. I've also spent time reading her blogs here on the internets. From what I've read and the person that I know I feel strongly that Worcester would get a great School Committee member with Tracy. She has a strong understanding of the issues impacting education and she's been engaged for many years. This isn't her first run for the office, so she's a desire for the office. So this would be my first endorsement for Worcester politics.

The other endorsement I want to extend is to Grace Ross. Since Grace ran for governor she's shown a strong understanding of the issues effecting the working class and poor as well as the middle class. I think Grace Ross would the conscience of the Worcester City Council, and I think the Worcester City Council needs that conscience. The district that Grace would represent includes Main South and the area around Crompton Park. I spent years living in that area when I was in high school and college and I can't think of anyone better to represent that district than Grace Ross.