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Election roundup: Pro-charter group backs Connolly, puts money where mouth is
By adamg on Tue, 08/20/2013 - 11:01am
The Globe reports a pro-charter group plans to spend up to $750,000 for ads and door knocking for John Connolly (Stand for Children's release on its endorsement is attached below).
Rob Consalvo is aghast at this "full-frontal assault” on the sanctity of Boston elections by a group not based here (Consalvo, you may recall, has been trying to get fellow candidates to sign a pledge not to accept out-of-city money).
The huge amount should make for an interesting discussion at the mayoral forum the Boston Teachers Union is holding on Sept. 11 (complete list of forums). Stand for Children has undergone a dramatic shift in its goals.
Frank Baker, the Dorchester district councilor with no opposition, is facing some heat for his decision to oppose a city designation of a dilapidated building as a landmark, the Dorchester Reporter reports. The building is across from his home. Also, his brother had earlier made an unsuccessful bid to buy the property.
CommonWealth wonders if Mike Ross can get as many votes as he has ideas. Chris Lovett interviews Connolly.
At-large candidate Annissa Essaibi George rides a bike.
David Bernstein thinks the Globe is doing a horrible job highlighting its mayoral coverage online.
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Comments
Not a fan of Connolly, but
Not a fan of Connolly, but how is his situation any different from the unions dumping in money to support Walsh?
well if the unions (or their
well if the unions (or their members) are based in Boston, its a lot different than a group from out of state pumping money into Boston's mayoral race. How does a national group like this have a say in who is our mayor? Which Union are you referring to that is dumping money into this race, that makes a difference.
Same difference
There are charter schools based in Boston. Seems fair to me.
Based in Boston
Are the various unions which are backing Walsh mostly made up of Boston residents? I'm pretty sure the BTU is mostly suburban residents and certainly there are lots of cops, firefighters, iron workers, etc... in Quincy, Milton, Braintree, etc...
But the BTU isnt supporting Connolly
But the BTU isn't supporting Connolly...Actually they hate him, so what's the point?
Connolly has outside money, Walsh has outside Money from National Unions, Ritchie has National NOW money.... They are all getting money from elsewhere.
SFC's only purpose is to destroy teacher's unions
They have absolutely no interest in education reform - their only goal is to systematically destroy the power of teacher's unions across the country, using our children as pawns in this battle.
They want to see a world where all schools are for-profit and truly "public" education is a thing of the past. This is very disturbing, very sinister and the absolute last thing we need in this city.
So a national group funded in
So a national group funded in part by Mitt Romney's old company Bain is supporting Connolly, that alone seems enough reason to not vote for Connolly. The two "local" members on their splash page live in Arlington and Lowell, though the person in Lowell, Jennifer Rush, says Boston member though her bio said she lives in Lowell.
I get that conservatives like the idea of taking tax money meant for public schools and using it for private and charter schools, but I dont get why Connolly wants to align himself with a group funded by Romney's Bain Boys.
Why do Liberals hate capital firms
without Capital Investment firms the US economy would not be as robust as it is/once was. They fund start ups and bail out failing businesses. Yes they profit, we live in a free market society. If they had no incentive (Profit) to bail out companies they would not exist. Bain is still around because they are a successful firm, being in a free market if they weren't competitive and highly successful companies seeking their type of service would go elsewhere. Just like someone going to their favorite coffee shop, they go because they have a choice in where to purchase a particular product/service. If they become dissatisfied they begin to look for alternatives.
Please explain
Tell the assembled hub how investment in moving jobs to China and Bangledesh helps the US economy.
Also explain how closing US factories to cash in the equity in the businesses helps the US economy.
Rachel Maddows
is that you?
You saying I'm married to Rachel Maddow?
Swirly doesn't even watch MSNBC. I'm the Maddow fanboy in the household.
o God
there are two of you!
Because if we don't, somebody else will
Japanese, Brits, Germans or even the Chinese themselves etc.
I spoke to the founder of a company I worked for and he related to me the agonizing decision to move production overseas in the late 70's early 80's. Today that company remains the leader in its field for innovation, quality and sales (athletic shoes). But there is no question, if the company had not moved production overseas, none of the hundreds of those still employed here in the US and in Mass would have a job. The company would have ceased to exist. Perhaps another company would be employing some of the same people, but in all likelihood the sales jobs (which pay about $150k-$200k a year) would have been consolidated under another manufacturer who would have one person selling twice as many shoes and the other administrative and marketing jobs very possibly would be in another country and guaranteed they would be in another state. It's a harsh reality, but it's still reality.
How many American made bikes do you own?
(Actually, I should just say bike frames because American made bike components can be tough to find.)
Anyways, probably none, even with the great selection we have even within the Greater Boston area.
Electronics? Almost definitely none.
Yet, you have no problem with that, apparently.
No, it's not a perfect world, and some companies have to offload work elsewhere to stay competitive or go out of business. It's a tough decision.
Luckily, the trend is actually reversing in some select areas. Some companies that had outsourced production overseas are bringing it back for various reasons - loss of control, loss of quality, time to market, Chinese labor becoming expensive(!).
Two
Two.
I do shop for that.
Regardless, anon was saying that Bain strengthened the US economy, and I pointed out that they actually made their money by closing US companies and eliminating US jobs. Not because the companies were not competitive, but because looting them in the short term was more profitable to Bain.
Ms. Maddows
What happen if a company is not competitive? It goes out of business! What happens when a company goes out of business? It lays off more works, pays ZERO taxes, reduces it purchasing to ZERO (which hurts the companies it purchased/rented and had strategic agreements with)places a burden on the state (Unemployment, EBT). The employees who were laid off now pay no income tax, will contract their spending and hurt other businesses.
I was not defending Bain Capital in particular, i was defending their industry. Businesses make tough decisions, some that are not favorable for all. But being inactive as a business will lead to being pushed out of a market, and that means everyone losses, shareholder and employees (ALL employees).
three to five
Older Cannondale, Bike Friday... Not sure about a couple of the other frames. Once the kids still changing size, they will be likely greeting US-built bikes.
Because they destroy lives for the sake of profit.
Sorry if a lot of people on here aren't really cool with that. If you want to go worship big business interests, you might want to head over the Herald. They have a lot of delusional middle class people too.
Not sure about you but I
Not sure about you but I support a family by working for a business. Not sure how you do it, but I'm grateful the company I work for stays in business and in turn I stay employed.
Ya, I like what you did there to referencing the Herald. Not sure what that means but I assume you think those with differing opinions should go away. what a novel idea.
This "charter"money is from right-wing extremists in Colorado
hell bent on destroying public education in this country.
Connolly's alliance with this group is really disturbing. It's not so much that it's "outside money" - but that he has absolutely no clue what he's doing with education.
"destroying public education"
To late they self imploded long ago on their own. Left-wing extremest are hell bent on giving Unions more power, thus shifting the focus on teachers rather than pupils. Schools are designed to educate students not as s piggy bank for the people it employs.
Unions have ruined our public education system not republicans.
How have unions ruined schools?
Please tell us how wonderful the schools are in all those lovely areas of Mississippi and Alabama and Arkansas and Tennessee where the teachers have weak unions. Start with their wonderful test scores and move up to the part where the military has to basically reteach MA graduates high school level studies ...
Oh, wait. Schools in the strong union states kick ass on schools in the "right to work" environments. It is those wonderful weak or no-union educator schools that seem to produce grads who can't make the cut.
Sorry to bring in some reality.
Careful
You are making assumptions that may not be based on facts.
There are not a whole lot of good comparison between states, but this is the best/most up to date I could find and I see no correlation between right to work states and not.
http://www.eplc.org/2013/01/states-show-spotty-pro...
Not sure, parochial schools
Not sure, parochial schools do quite a job without a union. Funny, first year of college was the first time my kid was in a public school. She couldn't believe her classmates graduated high school, let alone get admitted to college.
As a comparison, my daughter and her cousin - weeks apart, same grade; my daughters work was grades ahead.
So, no a teachers union does not equal a good education. Not in the least.
Some are better than others
Let's just say, I know a few teachers who left when their class loads and work loads became ridiculous considering they were paid far less than their public counterparts. Teachers who were told that, in the face of discipline issues, they should just give up on academic demands and babysit so the precious principal wouldn't have to be bothered.
Sometimes it may be good to not see the sausage made.
Perhaps your kid should have
Perhaps your kid should have gone to a more challenging college if admission standards were that low. There's still time to transfer I assume? Also, if your kid's college classmates and cousin didn't study in high school that's their own fault. A teacher cannot force someone to be a responsible student outside of the classroom. You have to be responsible for your own education to a large extent. I went to an underfunded public school and graduated from university with honors. My older sibling went to a reputable parochial school, nearly failed out of the same university and it took him 5 years to graduate. Same parents. Same university. Different student. One educated with public K-12 the other parochial.
Agree
My friend is in his late 20's, teaches History in a BPS High School. He tell me that he can't even teach History because he's to occupied trying to teach basic grammar. HIGH SCHOOL KIDS who cant write a F'n paragraph, Ya BTU is do a bang up job Swirly!
Shit how many BPS graduate do you think know how to write in script! NONE?
How many MIT graduates can write in "script"?
By "script" I assume you mean "cursive".
The answer is about the same, because cursive is useless in the era of keyboards and often illegible.
It has to do
With the quality on ones education, not if what is being taught is applicable. Shit all those finger painting and turkeys I made in school haven't helped me one bit. I'm in my 20's and can write in cursive, FYI the nuns called it script.
But hey I know I write because if a BPS kid can't write a coherent paragraph in print he sure as shit can't do it in cursive.
Most kids
including BPS students, don't learn penmanship. Learning how to use a computer and type on a keyboard are far more important. I'm sure lots of other suburban, wealthy school systems don't teach penmanship either.
Prove it
"Unions have ruined our public education system not republicans."
Our public education system has been left to ruin by neglect. The neglect has happened on multiple levels. Parents do not take as much interest in their children's education platform as they did when I went to primary school only a few decades ago. We have not outfitted our schools for success in modern technology through thoughtful expenditures (which require taxes). We have relied on outdated evaluation methods for deciding if a school is "teaching well" or not. We have diverted public funds to many other areas and expected education to somehow keep up with the times anyways.
As far as teacher pay and union demands, we ask more hours from our teachers than any other country but pay them middling amounts compared to those same countries even though we're one of the richest nations in the world. That doesn't even include a discussion on benefits which disappear faster than the promises of compensation for having lost those benefits.
So, whose policies have been stripping funds from education, removing public employee benefits, requiring greater hours for less compensation? Whose policies have been to increase pensions (while keeping pay levels stagnant) then borrowing against the pension payments to pay for services now so taxes don't have to increase in order to cover the increased pension promises? Whose policies were not taking realistic increases in healthcare costs into account when making budgets for pensioners and basically lying to the American public about how much these decisions were costing them by pretending that the outlook was far rosier than it really is?
These aren't even entirely Republicans' fault. In many cases it's just political pandering by either party to make government employees vote for them while keeping the public happy with all of these decisions by increasing projected costs while pretending they don't exist in the predictions. But these are politicians lying to you, not the unions. Do you really think Back Bay is full of teachers lounging about being fed grapes? Do you think public union members are somehow leading the pack in quality of life? Really? So, then how are the unions the problems? Even the heads of the unions are chumps like Marty Walsh...not Mitt Romney. He got paid for being the union head at the exact same amount as Menino last year officially got paid for being mayor. That was 0.5% of what Mitt got in 2010...that either reported as income anyways.
You (and others making the same piss poor unfounded arguments as you) claim the unions have so much power...but you think if they had all that power they might do a little more with it given the neighborhood you seem to think they occupy.
Not entirely the GOP's fault?
The GOP has zero to do with the fact that our public sector pensions in Boston are only 60% funded. Of course, no candidate is going to discuss that issue until after the election and probably not even then.
http://www.pewstates.org/uploadedFiles/PCS_Assets/...
I don't know that unions are too powerful, but we need to review future fixed benefit pensions for union (and non-union) city employees otherwise the city will have some serious issues long term. I am not optimistic that the unions care about my tax burden though as again, most of the union members don't live in Boston. Currently, every house hold is on the hook for $18k of unfunded benefits to retirees or future retirees.
One could argue...
It would be easy to argue that the policies that led to the housing bubble and economic collapse were largely GOP-driven (even those parts of it that Clinton signed as a means to achieving other goals with a GOP legislature).
Prior to that economic collapse, the funding level was in the 80% range and scheduled to be fully paid off by 2030.
http://www.massbudget.org/report_window.php?loc=Pe...
I WILL agree
That whoever taught you 5th-grade English probably doesn't deserve his/her job.
I didn't say replublicans
I said right wing extremists - those are the people behind the push for "for profit schools." They take tax-payer money which lines the pockets of board members while underpaying teachers who churn out students who can barely do anything other than take standardized tests - all this at the expense of actual reform to existing public schools. You ever wonder why no white families send their kids to these places? They're a joke.
How are Republican to blame
What Republican have been in charge on Boston or BPS in the last decade? O wait that right, G. W. Bush ruined BPS.
not republicans
right wing extremists. there's a difference (or at least I hope there is).
you have any idea just how scary SFC is? they're not interested in ed reform - their only agenda is to get rid of teacher's unions - not because they think unions hurt education, but because they're a union. no other reason.
Also - charters are often a big scam. The president rakes in money (taxpayer money), while "teachers" get paid minimum wage to do kaplan-style MCAS training on these poor kids who learn no other skills. since our only measure of performance are these standardized tests, it really ends up being about who is better at gaming the system for "better results" - which equals more money. Since charters don't have to deal with teachers who actually have degrees in education and understand education theory (who comprise the unions) - they can get away with teaching kids less the bare minimum.
Connolly should know better - but I guess he doesn't ("former teacher" my ass). someone's lining his pockets to push this garbage.
Consalvo
is just upset nobody is handing him donations. Rob hasn't done much in 10 years in Dist 5, why would anyone support his campaign?
That's just
plain false. Where you have been for 10 years....not in District 5, I am assuming?
Right in Dist 5
Rob has been and always will be Tommy's little Joe Biden.
Pols and public-sector...
...unions - an unholy alliance.
Read up, kids
http://www.psrf.org/index.jsp