In the drink in 20 years
"Summer House'' (watercolor on paper), by JAMIE WYETH, in his "Recent Paintings'' show at the Addison Galleries, Boston, through Aug. 10.
Floss daily and keep hoping
"Captain America Suit'' (found lottery tickets, dental floss. man's suit), by REBECCA SIERMERING, in the traveling Fiberart International show, which will be at the American Textile History Museum, in Lowell, Mass., through Oct. 26. The museum say she says that the work ''reflects our yearning for a quick path to 'the good life.'''
Making textiles and the clothes that are are made of them used to be a very big deal in New England, especially in such old mill towns as Lowell. Now little of that stuff is made in our six states, but we still appreciate the art associated with it. Lowell, with its beautiful mills, canals and other reminders of its glory as a textile town, much preserved in the Lowell National Historical Park, is well worth a visit. It's a way of understanding the ingenuity and dynamism that marked the American Industrial Revolution. (Then there were the horrors of child labor....)
'Blue States' blues?
An article in The American Spectator predictably touts Texas and other Red States and whomps the New England states for their economic slow growth and fiscal problems, and, by implication, all other "Blue States''.
It is an entertaining article, but it conveniently fails to note that the major indices of public well being and prosperity are higher in New England than the Sunbelt. After all the years of hype about the economic glories of the Sunbelt, the richest states in per-capita income continue to be those old lefty states in the Northeast. Also, health, education, public infrastructure (though that's decaying most everywhere). family stability and so on are better in commie New England.
Also, the writer is a bit behind the times on lefty California's economic woes vs. righty Texas. In fact California' s (land of Silicon Valley) economy and fiscal condition have been improving.
N.E. hurricane threat bigger than thought
Modeling for hurricanes in the Northeast is outmoded, says an oceanographer. He also warns that the threat to the region from these storms is much greater than previously thought.
In the Red Sea
"Waterscape Series #47'' (oil on linen), by BARBARA WAGNER, in the"Renascence '' show at Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery, in Shelburne, Vt., through Aug. 5.
P-Town: Where the buoys and boys are
"Buoys'' (oil on canvas), by PAUL RESIKA, at the Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, in his show Aug. 1-Aug. 17.
Paul Steven Stone: The Mass. speaker saga
CAMBRIDGESo here’s the question: Does the position of speaker of the Massachusetts House invite corruption or does it merely attract corrupt politicians?
Or put another way: would former speakers and convicted felons Charles Flaherty, Thomas Finneran and Salvatore DiMasi have put their careers and reputations on the line, risking prison and disbarment, had they not been inebriated on the hubris of Absolute Power that comes with the speaker’s job?
As Lord Acton's saying goes: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely''!
And now, over the last few weeks, we have witnessed our current speaker, Robert DeLeo, appearing as a shadow figure, or unindicted co-conspirator, in the corruption trial of the cabal formerly in charge of that criminal enterprise known as the Massachusetts Probation Department.
In addition to helping his godson become the youngest acting chief probation officer in the commonwealth’s history, Speaker DeLeo was cited by prosecutors for allegedly using the promise of lucrative patronage jobs to help win the speakership in a tight race with Norwood Rep. John Rogers.
Not surprisingly, many of DeLeo’s colleagues and leadership team immediately stepped up to defend the speaker and denounce federal prosecutors. Also no surprise, not a single legislator who voted for DeLeo as speaker after receiving access to Probation Department jobs, saw those jobs as a quid pro quo for their vote. Without any question, they would have voted for DeLeo as speaker in any case. That they’d been given Probation jobs for their friends, relatives and supporters played no role whatsoever.
I believe them. But then again I also believe in Santa Claus and an unbiased U.S. Supreme Court.
Of course, if there’s a legislator dumb enough to admit that he or she sold his vote, according to Massachusetts custom they’d be impeached on the grounds of criminal stupidity rather than for any ethical lapse.
That legislators are so quick and vocal in defending DeLeo merely provides further evidence of the power and privilege accrued to the House speaker. Whether you have legislative goals or a leadership position (and salary) to protect, none of that will be possible without the blessing, support, or good opinion, of the speaker. Those shouting loudest in DeLeo’s support can expect to receive their just rewards in the old familiar ways of Massachusetts politics. Perhaps no longer with jobs for unemployed relatives, but you can bet there’ll be something under the House Xmas tree with their name on the box.
Of course, those defending DeLeo the loudest are probably the same legislators who stood up in 2011 to give a rousing round of applause to visiting former Speakers Flaherty, Finneran and DiMasi.
Apparently, in Massachusetts politics, nothing deserves a standing ovation like heaping shame upon your office.
Paul Steven Stone, a Cambridge-based writer, runs the paulstonesthrow.com site.
—
Carolyn Morwick: Record gubernatorial vetoes in Maine
This is from one in a series of reports on New England states' legislative sessions as reported by the New England Board of Higher Education.
Maine lawmakers on April 16 finished the second session of the 126th Maine Legislature. The session was marked by a record number of vetoes by Gov. Paul LePage, who in many instances broke with his own party in rejecting legislation. Lawmakers returned on May 1 to take up 48 vetoes cast by the governor. They sustained 33 of the 48 vetoes, and overrode 15. Many of the bills vetoed by the governor were supported by both chambers of the Legislature, but failed to get a two/thirds required to override.
In the first session, lawmakers had repeatedly tried to pass a bill to extend Medicaid benefits to 70,000 low-income Maine residents. In the second session, three bills to extend coverage to Mainers were vetoed by the governor. A compromise included an attempt to reduce the waitlist for service in Medicaid and added two new fraud investigators in the attorney general’s office. It also would have allowed the state to contract with private companies to operate a managed-care program and to withdraw from the expansion after three years. In the first year, the federal government would reimburse states 100%, which would be reduced to 90% or more after three years.
That Medicaid expansion bill received a majority in both chambers, but failed to get the two-thirds required to override LePage’s veto.
Budget
Lawmakers passed several bills to address shortfalls in the state budget, including LD 1843, a supplemental appropriations bill to close a $40 million shortfall in the FY14. The measure became law without the governor’s signature.
In other budget action, lawmakers took issue with LePage’s veto of $32 million to address a gap in the FY15 budget. The Senate voted unanimously to override the governor’s veto, while the House took similar action to override by a 133-to-8 margin.
The budget:
addresses a shortfall in the MaineCare program ($17 million) increases reimbursement rates for nursing homes ($5 million) provides home care services for the developmentally disabled ($5 million) provides additional funding for Riverview Psychiatric Center and Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center invests in key education and workforce training programs including $650,000 for the Bridge Year program, $300,000 for Maine’s Graduates and $750,000 for Head Start programs. Revenue Funds Passed
Despite objections from LePage, lawmakers passed LD 1762, which prevents $40 million in cuts to revenue-sharing funds for municipalities. The bill became law without LePage’s signature. It provides that money will come, in part. from the state’s “rainy day fund.” Later, the governor submitted a bill to restore $21 million to the rainy day fund, which legislators approved.
Bond Package Passed
In an effort to jumpstart jobs, lawmakers passed a $50 million bond package, which will invest in Maine’s economy and infrastructure. Democrats and Republicans approved six initiatives by a two-thirds margin in each chamber. One of the bonds aims to fund $12 million for recapitalization of the Regional Economic Development Loan Program and the Commercial Loan Insurance Programs that help small businesses who are on the verge of creating jobs to have access to capital. An $8 million bond for the University of Maine Cooperative Extensive Program would assist farmers and foresters.
The remaining four bonds would be awarded on a competitive basis:
$10 million to expand research capabilities in developing cancer cures; $3 million for Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory to modernize tissue repair and regeneration; $7 million to create jobs in the marine economy and increase the sector’s capacity and sustainability; and $10 million for clean drinking water infrastructure projects. The bonds go to the governor for his signature and, if approved. would go on the ballot in November for voters to approve.
Higher Education Legislation Passed
Resolve, To Establish the Commission To Study College Affordability and College Completion
Establishes the Commission To Study College Affordability and College Completion. The commission is directed to examine and make recommendations on the development of strategies to keep the cost of public postsecondary education in the State affordable and to increase the graduation rate of students enrolled in state-supported public institutions of higher education. The commission is required to submit a report by Dec. 9, 2014 to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over education matters. The report submitted by the commission must include findings, recommendations and any necessary implementing legislation to keep the cost of public postsecondary education in the State affordable and to increase the graduation rate of students enrolled in state-supported public institutions of higher education. The joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over education and cultural affairs may submit a bill related to this report to the First Regular Session of the 127th Legislature.
An Act To Facilitate Informed Planning for Higher Education and Careers
Establishes the State Education and Employment Outcomes Commission to develop procedures to maintain and disseminate information and data on education results, program completion, graduation, credentials earned, loans and loan defaults and costs as well as employment and earnings for graduates of postsecondary educational institutions in the State. Also establishes the Education and Outcomes Technical and Data Working Group to make recommendations to the commission regarding the use of the Department of Labor’s educational outcome database, the duties of the commission regarding a website jointly hosted by the departments of Labor and Education and integration of the information on this website for the state’s secondary schools, funding methods for the database and additional data for inclusion in the database.
An Act to Allow All Veterans to be Eligible for In-state Tuition Rates
A current member or veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces who has been honorably discharged and is enrolled in a program of education at any campus of the University of Maine System, the Maine Community College System or the Maine Maritime Academy, is eligible for in-state tuition rates, regardless of the member's or veteran's state of residence.
An Act To Improve Degree and Career Attainment for Former Foster Children
Allows former foster children to receive guidance and financial help with higher education expenses averaging $5,000 a year until their 27th birthdays. At present, Maine provides no support or guidance beyond age 20. The bill leverages one private foundation dollar for every two public dollars and would support up to 40 young Mainers at a given time.
Pre-K-to-12 Legislation
Resolve, To Create the Task Force To End Student Hunger in Maine
Creates a task force to study issues associated with the creation of a public-private partnership to provide expertise to school administrative units throughout the state in adopting best practices and maximizing available federal funds for addressing student hunger by using:
1. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, National School Lunch Program;
2. U.S. Department of Agriculture Child and Adult Care Food Program, At-Risk Afterschool Meals;
3. U.S. Department of Agriculture Summer Food Service Program; and
4. The four privately funded hunger coordinators positioned in the Healthy Maine Partnerships districts to encourage the use of school food programs.
The task force shall draft a three- to five-year plan outlining a ramp-up of school-food programs throughout the state, and the Legislative Council shall provide necessary staffing services to the task force to submit a report that includes its suggested legislation and actions that can be taken immediately by the first regular session of the 127th Legislature.
An Act to Establish a Process for the Implementation of Universal Voluntary Pre-K Education
Provides a framework for the implementation of universal voluntary pre-kindergarten education to all school districts in Maine by the 2017-18 school year. It would utilize the network of public schools and local community providers. Also changes the compulsory age of school attendance from the age 7 to age 5. Became law without the governor’s signature
Resolve, Regarding Legislative Review of Chapter 180: Performance Evaluation and Professional Growth Systems, a Major Substantive Rule of the Department of Education
This resolution provides for legislative review of Chapter 180: Performance Evaluation and Professional Growth Systems, a major substantive rule of the Department of Education. It removes the provision that at least 20% of teachers’ evaluation be based on test scores. It leaves the task of coming up with a percentage to school district stakeholders groups. It was supported by the Maine School Superintendents Association, the Maine School Board Association, the Maine Principals Association and the Maine Education Association. Legislature overturned governor’s veto
An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Report Defining Cost Responsibility for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students Receiving Services from the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf
Submitted by the Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs, the bill provides that, beginning with the 2015-16 school year:
1. The school administrative unit in which a deaf or hard-of-hearing student resides is responsible for providing a free, appropriate public education to a student placed in a center school program or in one of the satellite school programs operated by the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf;
2. The individualized education program team for the school administrative unit in which a deaf or hard-of-hearing student resides is responsible for the placement decision of the student and, when the center school or one of the satellite school programs is being considered as a placement for the student, must invite a representative of the center school or the satellite school to attend the individualized education program team meeting at which this placement is being considered;
3. The school administrative unit in which the student resides must pay the sums necessary to ensure that services required to meet the individualized education program are provided, including tuition, transportation services and other related services as defined by the Maine Revised Statutes or in one of the designated satellite school programs; and
4. The School Board of the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf must pay the room and board costs for each student placed in a residential program in the center school or in one of the satellite school programs through funds appropriated by the state.
Other Laws Passed
An Act To Support Community Health Centers through Tax Credits for Dentists and Primary Care Professionals Practicing in Underserved Areas
Extends the existing dental care access tax credit by requiring the Maine Department of Health and Human Services oral health program to certify up to five eligible dentists who have unpaid student loans and practice full-time in underserved areas for at least five years. Legislature overturned governor’s veto.
An Act To Protect Maine Food Consumers' Right To Know about Genetically Engineered Food and Seed Stock
Maine becomes the second state to approve legislation to require disclosure of genetic engineering at the point of retail sale of food and seed stock. It provides that food or seed stock for which the disclosure is not made is considered to be misbranded and subject to the sanctions for misbranding. The bill further provides that food or seed stock may not be labeled as natural if it has been genetically engineered. The bill exempts products produced without knowledge that the products, or items used in their production, were genetically engineered; animal products derived from an animal that was not genetically engineered but was fed genetically engineered food; and products with only a minimum content produced by genetic engineering. The bill also provides that the disclosure requirements do not apply to restaurants, alcoholic beverages or medical food. The disclosure provisions are administered by the state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.
An Act To Prohibit Motorized Recreational Gold Prospecting in Certain Atlantic Salmon and Brook Trout Spawning Habitats
Protects waterways that contain brook trout and Atlantic salmon spawning habitats by banning motorized gold prospecting. Legislature overturned governor’s veto
An Act To Increase the Period of Time for the Calculation of a Prior Conviction for Operating under the Influence
Prior to this legislation, offenses older than 10 years were not taken into account. This legislation would include the driver’s entire record for felony offenses. Legislature overturned governor’s veto
An Act to Provide Property Tax Relief to Maine Residents
Creates the Property Tax Fairness Fund to provide a mechanism for increasing the cap on the tax credit available to low-income and senior citizens under the property tax fairness credit. Currently, the cap on the credit is $300 for eligible residents under 70 years of age and $400 for eligible residents 70 years of age and older.
An Act To Restore Funding in the Maine Budget Stabilization Fund through Alternative Sources
Restores approximately $20 million to the state’s rainy day fund. This will provide revenue sharing to Maine cities and towns.
Legislation That Failed
An Act Regarding the Issuance of a Permit To Carry a Concealed Handgun
Limits municipalities' ability to issue permits to carry concealed handguns to only those with full-time police chiefs. It would also ensure that state police manage all background and mental health checks and create a confidential centralized database of permit holders.
An Act to Improve Maine’s Tax Laws
Requires corporations that file unitary income tax returns in Maine to include income from certain jurisdictions outside the U.S> in net income when apportioning income among tax jurisdictions. Purports to increase revenue by $5 million. Amends the law to reduce the use of so-called off-shore tax havens, thus reducing the loss of revenue to the state and establishes a task force to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the biennial report of tax expenditures prepared by the Department of Administrative and Financial Services pursuant to Maine Revised Statutes. The task force shall identify any tax expenditures that may be reduced or eliminated with the goal of achieving a targeted savings of $30 million in FY 2014-15.
An Act To Provide Fiscal Predictability to the MaineCare Program and Health Security to Maine People
Establishes managed care in the MaineCare program and includes requirements for managed care plans and for contracting by the state Department of Health and Human Services for managed care services. The bill specifies how MaineCare members enroll in managed-care plans. The bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to apply for approval of a Medicaid state plan amendment to allow use of MaineCare funds to purchase available employer-sponsored health coverage and delays implementation of that provision until approval has been granted.
Carolyn Morwick handles government and community relations at NEBHE and is former director of the Caucus of New England State Legislatures.
More insulin, please
"Ms. Pie'' (gouache/med medium on aluminum), by FLEX GILBERT, at the "New England Collective V'' show at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, Aug. 1- Aug 30.
Don Pesci: Your credentials, please
VERNON, Conn. “Dr.” Michael Sharpe, the CEO of the Family Urban School of Excellence (FUSE), padded his credentials; it turned out he was not a “Dr.” at all. Moreover, a cautiously concealed stint in prison -- for embezzlement -- further marred Mr. Sharpe’s record, which was, before journalists began snooping into his past, fairly substantial.
It is said that the FBI is now examining FUSE with jeweler’s loops screwed into its many eyes. FUSE, according to its mission statement http://fuse180.org/, is “an education management organization formed in 2012 to continue, guide and expand the work of Jumoke Academy, a high-performing urban charter school in Hartford’s north end.”
Mr. Sharpe’s credentials were not in order. He permitted himself to be called “Dr. Sharpe,” and the honorific was used by him on several occasions. Like Malcolm X, there was a prison blotch on his escutcheon, which Mr. Sharpe apparently took some care to conceal. Thrown from the balcony, he has now come under FBI scrutiny. If there are accounting irregularities during his FUSE years, he likely will find himself cooling his heels in prison.
How low are the mighty fallen!
In the age of educational credentialism -- when success is not determined by measurable objective criteria (Is Jamoke Academy, one of the schools managed by FUSE, an improvement on the usual inner city public school?) but rather by the number of educational degrees its administrators have amassed -- there is no greater offense against propriety than the pretense that one is festooned by academic credits. Credentials, after all, are the lock on the indispensable educational “closed shop.” And the closed shop, of course, has both a fiduciary and moral responsibility to see to it that frauds do not slip past its barriers. Mr. Sharpe’s fate, like Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ s A Street Car Named Desire, will, going forward, depend upon the kindness of strangers, in his case strangers from the FBI.
Some strangers are kinder than others.
In 1981, when Thirman Milner was running in a primary for mayor of Hartford, the Journal Inquirer, of Manchester, discovered that Mr. Milner, who later won the mayoralty contest and became the city’s first African-American mayor, had claimed he had received from Rochdale College in Toronto, a degree that seemed exceedingly dubious.
The Journal Inquirer disclosed that Rochdale College was in fact “a student owned dormitory on the edge of the University of Toronto’s campus that was opened in 1968 as an educational experiment. There were no entrance requirements for any of the unaccredited school’s 850 students, no curriculum, no examinations -- and no degrees.'' A little more than two years earlier, other wide-awake media outlets had disclosed that the town manager of Agawam, Mass., had claimed a Rochdale diploma as proof of his college education when, in fact, he had never graduated from college. Five months after the disclosures, the town manager, finding himself under considerable media pressure, quite rightly resigned from office.
The university affairs officer of the Provincial Ministry of Colleges and Universities, J. P. Gardner, was quoted at the time to this effect: “… asking for a list of the degrees purchased [from the dormitory scheme] is like asking how many people bought socks at Sears yesterday.”
The fraudulent degrees were sold at $25 a pop. Said Mr. Gardner, “during this period [from the 1970s forward] Rochdale issued ‘degrees’ as a money-making venture. These had no academic basis or credibility and were considered a joke locally.”
The Journal Inquirer contacted Mr. Milner for a response. Mr. Miller said he had received his degree from Rochdale in the late 1960s, before the “college” began awarding purchased “degrees” through the mail.
“I didn’t get it through the mail,” Mr. Milner said of his “degree.” The Rochdale “degree,” according to the Inquirer report, accounted for Mr. Milner’s only college education. He claimed to have attended the experimental college “while stationed with the Air Force in Geneva, N.Y., about 200 miles from Toronto.” A 200-mile commute is rather long, but of course gasoline at the time was much cheaper than it is today.
Though encouraged to do so, The Hartford Courant, then and now Connecticut’s only state-wide newspaper, did not pick up a story that easily might have destroyed Mr. Milner’s mayoral prospects. Having won the mayoralty contest, Mr. Milner went on to serve with some distinction for six years. Fate – or kind strangers, many of them writing for newspapers – were not overly harsh with Mr. Milner.
Mr. Milner, retired for many years now and a much respected elder statesman, recently emerged from self-imposed obscurity to endorse the candidacy for the state Senate of City Council President Shawn Wooden of Hartford. He needn’t worry that Mr. Wooden’s credentials are in order.
Don Pesci (donpesci@att.net) is a political writer who lives in Vernon, Conn.
Long days, short years
Gypsum objects by ROBERT TRUMBOUR, in his "Now. Then. Again'' show at the Cape Ann Museum's White-Ellery House, in Gloucester, Mass., at 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. on Aug. 2
His show is an "exploration of time and memory'' -- perhaps particularly evocative in a building as old as the White-Ellery House, built in 1710.
The museum's blurb says Mr. Trumbour explores ideas ''provoked by 19th Century philosopher Henri Bergson who, in response to his dissatisfaction with science's framing of time, argued for a theory he called 'Duration': the notion that time is not quantitative and linear but rather qualitative and temporal and continually informed by the dynamic process of memory. Trumbour’s interest in this site is not concerned with specific memories or histories per se, but rather with the space that exists between memory and the present moment. ''
Marcel Proust's work was deeply influenced by Bergson's inquiries. Proust sought to recapture the experiences of the past through his great seven-part novel, A la Recherche du temps perdu, the writing of which he saw as his justification for having lived. The novel is hundreds of pages too long, in part because time ran out for Proust, who only lived to 52 and so could not adequately edit it. But it is also one of the greatest literary investigations of the human condition.
And another summer flies by....
Carolyn Morwick : Vermont's Food Fight Fund, etc.
The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org), on whose editorial advisory board I used to serve, does a very useful review of legislative action in the New England states. Here's the first of the six we will run, with many thanks to NEBHE -- Robert Whitcomb
Vermont lawmakers in their session this year passed a $5.5 billion budget along with $5.5 million in new taxes.
Property taxes were raised 5%. Spending overall increased by 4.1% over the prior year. The budget included a 1.6% increase in reimbursement rates for health care providers who accept Medicaid payments, which will cost $2.6 million. Lawmakers also increased the cigarette tax by 13 cents.
The budget includes:
$3.5 million from supplemental property tax relief fund to pay for educational data initiatives. $4.5 million to the Enterprise Incentive Fund to retain jobs in Vermont. $500,000 for Vermont Economic Development Authority for entrepreneurial lending program. $2.2 million for raises for newly unionized home health care providers. $1.5 million for working land investments. $19 million total for Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC)—a 1% increase. 1% increase for Vermont State Colleges. The backbone of Vermont’s heritage and economic viability is the “working landscape” consisting of agriculture, food system, forestry, and forest product-based businesses. About 20% of Vermont’s land is used for agricultural purposes and 75% as forestry. In 2012, the Legislature passed the Working Lands Enterprise initiative for the management and investment of $1 million into agricultural and forestry-based business.
Session Highlights
With the support of Gov. Peter Shumlin, lawmakers raised Vermont’s minimum wage from $8.73 an hour, which is nearly a dollar above the federal minimum, to $9.60 in 2016, $10 in 2017 and $10.50 in 2018. Beginning in 2019, the minimum wage will be indexed to inflation.
Lawmakers also passed a comprehensive economic development bill, providing support for start up, expansion and retention of high tech companies that offer good wages in Vermont. It creates the Vermont Strong Scholars and Internship Program to assist families with access to a college education and adds $500 million to the Vermont Entrepreneurial Lending Program, which already has $1 million in federal funding.
In the area of genetically modified organisms (GMO), legislators passed a law requiring that food produced totally or partially produced from genetic engineering be labeled as such. The Vermont General Assembly established The Vermont Food Fight Fund to be used for implementing the requirements of the law. Private donations will be accepted for the fund, which will help Vermont establish its labeling law and address anticipated legal challenges. The attorney general shall report to the General Assembly in January 2015 regarding whether milk products will be subject to a labeling requirement of the law.
Lawmakers also passed a comprehensive package of bills aimed at curbing addictive drugs. The bills include implementing standards for doctors to consult the Vermont Prescription Monitoring System to ensure patients are not “doctor-shopping”—obtaining controlled substances from multiple health care practitioners without the prescribers’ knowledge of the other prescriptions.
The legislation also creates a pilot program for wider distribution of a drug that reverses opioid overdoses. The law also:
Implements participation in a national database to track the sales of non-prescription, over-the-counter chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamines (this real-time monitoring can prevent the excessive sales of those chemicals to a purchaser). Establishes an unused drug disposal protocol so unused prescription medications don’t fall into the wrong hands.
Creates an outreach program through the Department of Public Safety to educate pawnshop owners and precious metal dealers about laws dealing with the purchase and sale of precious metals that might have been stolen in drug-related robberies. Vermont banned the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, beginning Oct 1, 2014. Under the final bill, first violation for driving while using a hand-held device carries a fine up to $200, with steeper fines and points assessed against a driver’s license for subsequent offenses.ands-free use is permitted under the law. The penalty for texting while driving carries a fine and two points against a driver’s license. Accumulation of 10 or more points in a two-year period results in automatic license suspension.
Efforts to consolidate school districts failed despite efforts by members of the House and Senate Education committees. House bill 883 would have reduced the number of school districts from 270 to 50 over a six-year period. (Vermont has the smallest number of students per school district in the U.S. The average school district has 313 students, according to a report made to the legislature in 2009.) The Senate Education and Finance committees’ proposal for consolidation included a package of incentives for school districts to voluntarily merge. Lawmakers chose in the end to pass House Bill 876, which includes a process to develop a statewide hearing on the issue of school district consolidation.
Higher Education Legislation Enacted
Vermont Strong Scholars and Internship Program
The Vermont Strong Scholars and Internship Program is part of a larger economic development bill. It establishes a scholarship program, which provides for high school graduates to attend up to two years of college for free. The law forgives a portion of student loans for eligible students issued by VSAC. The loan- forgiveness program is open to Vermont residents enrolled in a qualifying postsecondary institution on or after July 1, 2015. It also provides for a loan forgiveness program to those graduates who stay in the state and work in key sectors of the economy.
State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement
Vermont state budget amendments allow the state to enter into interstate reciprocity agreements for purposes of authorizing online postsecondary programs. The secretary of the Agency of Education or another appropriate Vermont agency will address any complaints relative to Vermont institutions participating in a recognized interstate reciprocity agreement.
K- 12 Legislation Enacted
An Act Relating to Providing Access to Publicly Funded Pre-K Education
Provides that pre-K education will be extended to all school districts in Vermont. Over 80% of school districts in the state already offer some pre-K programs. The new law will require school districts to offer at least 10 hours of instruction for 35 weeks to any preschool-aged child. The state will reimburse districts of qualified pre-K programs offered by private or public providers.
Carolyn Morwick handles government and community relations at the New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org) and is former director of the Caucus of New England State Legislatures.
"Puzzling' newspaper purchase deconstructed
Nice little analytical piece in Commonwealth Magazine about the "puzzling'' purchase of The Providence Journal.
Llewellyn King: Beware the armchair terrorists
Terrorism isn’t what it used to be. Disruptive technology is at work, and terrorism is much more threatening than it was.
The long-running, terrorist wars of the last century – such as those of the Palestinians, the Basques in Spain, or the Kurds in Turkey – were relatively contained, both in the fields of operation and the political motivations.
The new face of terrorism is more awful, more random, and has little of the political purpose of terrorism of the past, however terrible its consequences were.
A new generation of robots is coming, which will make remotely controlled terrorism a real threat throughout the world. Add to that threat the profound difference in terrorism motivation.
Yesterday’s terrorism, though heinous, could claim high purpose: It was wholesale terrorism with political goals to be attained by murder and destruction of civilian targets. Today’s terrorism, by contrast, is increasingly retail, motivated by hatred and revenge. Often, the motivation is more religious than nationalistic. The 9/11 attacks were the harbinger of this new terrorism.
Now take blind, irrational hatred, as in the Middle East, mix it with killer robots technology, and you have a huge global threat.
In May, the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons convened a first-ever meeting of experts in Geneva to discuss Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, which could be the start of a wave of anonymous killing across continents and oceans.
These new robotic weapons can do everything that a human with a bomb or improvised explosive can do. The old brake on terrorism -- that the terrorist would be caught or, more likely, be killed in the attack -- could be over. The age of the armchair terrorist is at hand.
We have all seen the carnage from a simple bomb made from fuel oil and fertilizer. Now add to that the possibility that bombs and other weapons could be made and stored for future detonation using mobile phone technology; or that remotely operated vehicles could drive down a street with machine guns blazing.
Then there are drones. The United States has pioneered the highly sophisticated Predator -- remotely-piloted vehicles that can destroy a target across continents and oceans with precision. But non-lethal drones are doing all sorts of work, from examining pipelines to determining the views from potential skyscrapers in New York.
Not only will tomorrow’s terrorists have farther reach, but they will also have the Internet to create chaos. Imagine a Web whisper about a drone armed with biological or chemical agents flying over a big city, its effects magnified by public panic. Likewise, a drone armed with a dirty nuclear weapon – its impact is likely to be quite limited, but the public panic over radiation could cause severe incident.
Israel may have been more panicked over the appearance of a drone from Gaza than the rockets that the Iron Dome missile system took out. A slow-moving drone at rooftop level might one day be a greater threat than a fusillade of high-flying rockets.
The late James Schlesinger, a former Defense secretary and CIA director, liked to discuss with me the British Empire and how it had held together. Because I had grown up in a British colony, then Southern Rhodesia and now called Zimbabwe, he thought I could tell him.
The answer is a combination of economics, psychology and formation before the worldwide proliferation of small arms and explosives. It was fundamental after the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 that weapons be kept strictly in the hands of the British. African regiments and police, for example, were seldom armed, and then only for special purposes.
Schlesinger emphasized that all arms developments demanded further developments, because your enemy would soon catch up with you. This has happened throughout history: The British invented the tank in World War I, the Germans perfected it in World War II and overran Europe with its Panzer divisions.
Those who hate the West may use its own technologies to attack it at random with remote-controlled weapons, mobile phones, Google maps, and vehicles invented in America. Disruptive technologies are coming to terrorism -- and that’s a horror.
Llewellyn King (king@kingpublishing.com) is executive producer and host of "White House Chronicle'' on PBS.
Charles Chieppo/Jamie Gass: Legislators do the wrong thing for students
BOSTON After losing the 1958 governor's race, George Wallace, then considered a moderate on segregation by mid-20th century Alabama standards, said he would never get "out-segged" again. Four years later, after his election by the state's virtually all white voters, it was easy for him to declare in his inaugural address, "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
Five months later, it was easy for him to "stand in the schoolhouse door" and attempt to block two qualified African-American students from enrolling at the University of Alabama.
Fast forward more than half a century, and it was easy for Massachusetts state senators to appease the monied interests of the education establishment and reject legislation that would have raised the cap on charter school seats in the lowest-performing 10 percent of Massachusetts school districts from 18 percent to 23 percent of overall enrollment.
It was easy for supposed charter school "supporters" to file poison-pill amendments to the bill, then wait until it was clear that the legislation was going down before casting their votes in favor.
But in politics, what is easy is often wrong.
Despite historic educational improvements over the last two decades, nearly 100,000 largely poor and minority Massachusetts students remain trapped in chronically underperforming district schools.
In Boston, over 15,000 students vied for just 1,700 charter school seats last year. Statewide, there were over 40,000 students on charter school wait lists. For these children and their families, there are no school choices and no way out.
Charters came within two points of closing the 20-point wealth-based achievement gap on 2013 MCAS tests. The year before, 20 charter schools, including many urban charters, finished first in Massachusetts on various tests. Many inner-city charters outperform even affluent suburban schools.
A 2013 Stanford University study found that Boston charter-school students are closing the achievement gap faster than any other public schools in the country. Students learn as much from one year in a Boston charter school as they do in two years in the Boston Public Schools.
The study also found that Massachusetts has the nation's best charter schools. Statewide, charter students gain an additional month and a half of learning in English and two and a half months in math each year compared with the commonwealth's traditional public schools.
These facts build upon the findings of a 2009 Boston Foundation report that the academic impact of a year spent in a Boston charter was comparable to that of a year in one of the city's elite exam schools. In middle school math, it was equivalent to one-half of the achievement gap between black and white students.
Charter schools are also affordable. When students choose to leave a district school to attend a charter, public funding follows the student. A recent Pioneer Institute report showed that raising charter enrollment to accommodate wait-listed students up to the current spending cap of 18 percent in the commonwealth's 17 lowest-performing urban districts would only increase the funds flowing from districts to charters to 5 percent of the districts' $2.5 billion in net school spending.
Districts would get more than a quarter of that back over a decade thanks to generous state reimbursements for students the districts no longer educate.
Massachusetts' s barriers to educational opportunity were not left here by glaciers, they are man-made. Entrenched special interests with nearly limitless bank accounts lobby Beacon Hill to maintain obstacles like enrollment caps, huge wait lists, and needless red tape that deny educational opportunity to underprivileged children, but ensure the continuing comfort of adults in the system.
In the 50th anniversary edition of Simple Justice, Richard Kluger's definitive history of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling that struck down the doctrine of "separate but equal," he concluded that "America is a colossus of contradictions… justice of any type cannot materialize… without the binding up of its constituent elements."
In rejecting legislation that would have lifted the charter-school cap, the Massachusetts Senate blocked justice from being done and approved the 21st century version of segregation by preventing more poor and minority children from accessing high-quality educational opportunity.
It was an easy vote; it was also wrong.
Charles Chieppo is a senior fellow of and Jamie Gass directs the Center for School Reform at Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based think tank.
Freshwater heaven
"Early Morning on Rattlesnake Mountain'' (in Rumney, N.H.) (oil), by CELIA JUDGE, at the Surroundings Art Gallery, in Center Sandwich, N.H.
Mideast paradox
It's interesting that Arabs have more rights and security in Israel than they do in any Arab-run country, except maybe Tunisia.
Red skies
"Red Sky'' (oil on canvas), by PAUL RESIKA, at Berta Walker Gallery, Provincetown, in his Aug. 1- Aug. 17 show.
My father and others in our coastal town liked to say the old line:
"Red sky in morning, sailors take warning/ Red sky at night, sailor's delight.''
But I never found much connection between the time of day that the sky, or at least the horizon, was red, and coming storminess or good weather.
It was just another bit of comforting folk malarkey.
-- Robert Whitcomb
What really is meant by 'patient engagement'?
Cambridge Management Group (cmg625.com) senior adviser <a href="http://www.cfah.org/blog/2014/what-physicians-told-us-about-patient-engagement">Marc Pierson, M.D., had some pithy things </a>to say when he and other experts were recently interviewed by the Center for Advancing Health.
Here are some of the remarks of Dr. Pierson, who is also retired vice president for clinical information and quality for PeaceHealth's St. Joseph Medical Center, Bellingham, Wash.:
<strong> CFAH: ''Here is the CFAH definition of patient engagement: 'Actions people take to support their health and benefit from their health care.' What's missing from this definition? What would you add, subtract or word differently?''</strong> <strong> Dr. Pierson:</strong> ''....Defining {patient} engagement is very much the product of who is doing the defining. If from within health care, then the key question becomes for what or for whom is 'patient' engagement primarily intended to benefit?...I would prefer thinking of 'people' engaged in their health and health care. However, I do like that this definition recognizes that both health and health care require people's active participation...Medical care is not the same as health. Health is much more than the lack of illness...We need to incorporate more perspectives from real people and ask them what they need to become more engaged with their medical conditions, their health, and their well-being.'' <strong>CFAH: ''If a person is engaged in their health and health care, what difference does that make? To whom?''</strong>
<strong>Dr. PIERSON: </strong>"Typically, engagement is defined by health care insiders as paying attention to what you are told to do and being compliant with 'orders.' The current non-system of health care plays into this by being disconnected and difficult for people to understand or navigate....
''Health care offers technology and knowledge but is set up for the people that work inside it, not for its clients' ease, safety, or affordability. Payment for health care is based on professionals managing clients' ill health, not on engaging with people to prevent illness, create well-being, or for self-care of illnesses and chronic conditions.
''People are scared of what they are not allowed to know or understand. They don't want to be more dependent. They don't want to end up going to an emergency room. Their primary relationships are with family, friends, neighborhood, and community — not professional service providers.''