"Boston schools look outside for money; Private donors targeted to offset budget cuts" by Meghan E. Irons and James Vaznis | Globe Staff June 15, 2014
The Boston public school system is appealing to business leaders and philanthropists to help underwrite a $25 million campaign to attract, retain, and improve its teachers and principals.
The effort began quietly a few months ago and has already secured $3 million in commitments from donors. School officials aim to raise the remaining amount over the next three years, and the School Department itself has kicked in $6 million.
Last week, Interim Superintendent John McDonough and his personnel chief, Ross Wilson, convened a downtown meeting with about 100 members of the philanthropic, nonprofit, and business communities to appeal for more money.
What would you call it?
We are all surviving on the grace of the king known as the 1%.
**************
Although Boston schools have turned to private donors in the past, the latest fund-raising campaign represents a more aggressive approach by McDonough, Mayor Martin J. Walsh, and others to secure outside money as the system grapples with state and public pressure to boost the quality of its schools while also contending with budget cuts.
How can they be contending with budget cuts when the recovery is better than the nation as a whole (or so I am told) and wealth is continuing to be concentrated in the 1%?
The wealthiest philanthropists did not give as much in 2013 as they gave before the Great Recession, even as a strong stock market and better business climate have continued to concentrate American wealth in the top 1 percent of earners.
Oh.
Boston is among a growing number of large urban systems nationwide turning to private corporations and charitable organizations to pay for an assortment of needs such as computers, programs, and staffing.
Even the educational $y$tem is bankrupt.
“I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy organization for large urban systems. “Big city school districts in particular have had to turn to these kinds of fund-raising efforts more and more over the last five or eight years or so because of the downturn in the economy and the irregular revenue streams they now have.”
How can they keep blaming the downturn in the economy -- if there ever was one, which there was not -- after YEARS!?
Boston, for instance, faces a $32 million loss in federal, state, and private grants for the coming school year. That includes $15.4 million from President Obama’s Race to the Top program, which helped pay for teacher-development initiatives.
The meeting Wednesday was held downtown in the auditorium of Bank of America’s regional headquarters. Walsh kicked off the event, emphasizing his commitment to reforming the system and his support of McDonough’s vision.
Robert Gallery, the Massachusetts president of Bank of America and cochairman of the search for a permanent superintendent, organized the event. Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, cohosted with Peter and Carolyn Lynch of the Lynch Foundation. The Lynch Foundation has pledged $1 million, McDonough said.
Related: Firms boost long-term education investing
It's all $elf-$erving $hit, but were I in the elite cla$$ of Bo$ton it would read well.
**************
To give principals the flexibility to hire the candidates they want, the school system is taking advantage of a provision in the teachers union contract that allows the system to classify a position as requiring a special skill or extra duty — enabling the hiring of outside candidates while internal applicants are still seeking positions.
For instance, the winning candidate might also have to do tutoring after school, but would receive an extra $1,250 stipend in return, Wilson said. The school system anticipates these extra stipends could collectively add up to $1.2 million, according to a school budget presentation this winter.
The average teacher salary in Boston is about $88,000.
Overpaid.
The hiring initiative has faced opposition from the Boston Teachers Union, and the issue is in arbitration. The union contends the open postings — allowing for the early hiring of external candidates — were intended to be used only in limited situations and not for all job openings.
Sigh!
“The teachers who are looking for work are not teachers endangered of being terminated for cause,” said Richard Stutman, president of the teachers union. “They are coming back from maternity leaves or departing schools going through progammatic changes. These are teachers trained and vetted by other seasoned principals. To ask them to wait any longer is disrespectful to them, and by no means are we going to find new teachers right out of college who are better.”
Stutman said Bank of America should use its money to prevent home foreclosures.
HA-HA!
Nice try!
If they had meant to do that, they would not have fraudulently foreclosed and seized so many properties.
The hiring initiative could come with one costly downside: Dozens of teachers already on the payroll could end up without a classroom assignment this fall because they were passed over by the principals.
As of now, school officials anticipate that 75 to 150 teachers — even those with good performance reviews — could have no classroom assignments this fall, potentially costing the school system $6.6 million to $13.2 million. Because they have permanent teacher status, they are guaranteed jobs under the union contract, meaning even if they don’t have positions they will continue to collect salaries.
(Blog editor shakes his head and raises his hand)
But school officials insist they will find those teachers positions, including filling in for instructors on maternity leave or creating additional classrooms at overcrowded grade levels.
Some teachers with areas identified for improvement in their evaluations could work in classrooms with high-quality teachers so they can gain additional training and guidance to improve their craft, Wilson said.
“There’s always a need for teachers in the system,” he said.
They teach lying in Bo$ton's $chool $y$tem, 'eh?
This has been a big hiring season for the school system. It has posted nearly 1,000 teaching positions for September and has made offers so far to 717 job applicants, including internal and external candidates.
Principals said changes in the hiring process have accelerated hiring.
***************
William Thomas, headmaster of Charlestown High School, said he has filled the jobs he had posted by March 1 and is seeking applicants for three other positions that opened up later.
He said 147 people applied for a history teaching position.
The sign of a healthy job market?
In the end, he hired six teachers already in the Boston school system, two recent graduates of the Boston Teacher Residency Program, and an outside candidate.
“The more choices you have, the better chance you’ll get better candidates,” Thomas said.
Why did news and newspapers just pop into my head?
Also see:
Out of grief, a new resolve for one valedictorian
Related: Monday Globe Not a Good Match
That's tomorrow, and how did you know?
Related: Monday Globe Not a Good Match
That's tomorrow, and how did you know?
All making the grade and beating the odds!
Or not!
"Republicans reject Warren bill that would have eased student loans" by Erica Werner | Associated Press June 12, 2014
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked legislation Wednesday aimed at letting people refinance their student loans at lower rates, a pre-ordained outcome that gave Democrats a fresh election-year talking point against the GOP....
Don't you wish they would bail you out instead, kids?
You know, like they did the banks!
Student loan debt has topped $1 trillion and emerged as a drag on the economy and on middle-class families across the country, making it a ripe target for politicians ahead of midterm elections where Democrats risk losing their Senate majority.
I'm tired of the $hit-$how fooley of politics, $orry!!!!!!!!
Wednesday’s vote followed two days where President Obama highlighted the issue from the White House, announcing executive action to let more borrowers to cap their monthly payments at 10 percent of their income and answering questions about the issue on the social networking site Tumblr.
‘‘There are too many politicians in Washington who don’t have the right priorities,’’ Obama told high school graduates in Worcester, as he chided Republicans for rejecting the student loan bill. ‘‘We need to straighten them out.’’
Uh-huh!
What a sphincter!
***************
Some 40 million Americans have outstanding student loan debt totaling $1.2 trillion, making it the second-largest form of consumer debt, second only to mortgages, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office. People 60 and older account for some $43 billion of outstanding student loan debt.
--more--"
Also see:
UMass panel backs freeze on tuition, fees
Suffolk University freezing salaries for year
Former Westfield State president seeking $1.6m in damages
Un-flipping-real!
Related:
Dobelle is Done
Apparently not!
Reinharz Received $5 Million From Brandeis
At least you know where all the money is going, kids.
"US can ‘learn from Worcester Tech,’ Obama says at ceremony" by David Scharfenberg | Globe staff June 11, 2014
WORCESTER — President Obama’s remarks underscored a growing national interest in career and technical education, once known as vocational education.
For all you serfs.
Policymakers from Washington to Beacon Hill are concerned that the country is not doing enough to train students for jobs in high-tech manufacturing and other technical fields. And soaring college costs are undermining faith in traditional higher education as a path to prosperity.
It's an election year, isn't it?
*****************
The commencement amounted to a civic celebration for a struggling city.
The president stepped off Air Force One and into the spitting rain at Worcester Regional Airport about 3:30 pm, greeted by Governor Deval Patrick, US Representative James P. McGovern, and Mayor Joseph Petty of Worcester.
Thanks for contributing to the greenhouse gas problem, and sure is chilly, 'eh?
Worcester Regional Transit Authority buses flashed messages welcoming the president, and residents lined the route to the DCU Center downtown.
Protesting the sphincter, I hope, and his global-warming caravan spew.
Hours before his arrival, the line to get into the ceremony stretched around the corner: thousands of people dressed in bowties and neckties, T-shirts, and dresses.
“It’s a great day for Worcester,” said Stephanie Chaparian, 34, a product designer whose father teaches science at Worcester Tech.
Her mother Karen, a lifelong resident of Worcester, said the struggling city is often seen as the stepchild of Massachusetts. It was good, she said, to have a little glamour in town.
The last sitting president to visit Worcester was President Clinton in 1999. But there were others before him.
*********************
Obama told the graduates that he did not remember his own graduation speaker. “I’m sure I was thinking about the party after graduation,” he joked. “I don’t remember the party, either. I’m just telling the truth here.”
That would be a first!
Related: Obama's War on Medical Marijuana Comes to Massachusetts
But it was OKAY for HIM to TOKE, giggle, giggle!
Is that something he should be joking about?
He told the graduates that they had only made it this far with the help of others and that they must be willing to give back.
That I believe, and give the give-back lecture to your rich masters, sphincter.
He added that he sometimes worries that a generation raised in war and recession is growing up in a cynical time and with a tall task, competing with the whole world for good jobs.
I'll bet that makes him hard, and we know who to thank for it.
“But when I meet young people like you, I am absolutely certain we are not just going to outcompete the rest of the world, we are going to win,” he said.
Obama congratulated all of the graduates with handshakes, hugs, and back slaps, before making his way to a Weston fund-raiser benefitting the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Oddly, that is where my printed paper ends.
In Weston, Obama told about 30 supporters that they are crucial to helping Democrats regain the majority in the midterm election.
They won't be! They are not winning the House, and are going to lose the Senate -- because of you and your failed six years in office, sir!
The president spoke after dinner at the posh home of Joanne and Paul Egerman, huge Democratic fund-raisers. Tickets to the event cost $32,400 each.
So a pair would.... pretty much pay for your four-year education, kiddo.
Thank God Obummer is your friend!
Obama also said he does not see the defeat of House Republican leader Eric Cantor on Tuesday as scuttling immigration legislation.
I thought they would try to get it through after what I read, but that is an agenda-pushing delusion.
‘‘It’s interesting to listen to the pundits and the analysts, and some of the conventional wisdom talks about how the politics of immigration reform seem impossible,’’ Obama told the donors. ‘‘I fundamentally reject that, and I will tell the speaker of the House he needs to reject it.
I guess Boehner doesn't want to be speaker anymore then.
“At a certain point, issues are important enough to fight for. My argument about [Tuesday’s] election is not that there was too little politics, but that there was too little conviction about what is right. We need to get immigration reform done.”
So the elite cla$$ he serves can have more compliant and cheap foreign labor to choose from.
Thanks for the warning, sphincter!
--more--"
All you kids got, and I quote, was “lip $ervice.”
Pretty good le$$on anyway, no?
Related: MORE SPEW
I'm sorry, but we no longer have anything in common.
"Harvard endowment chief Jane Mendillo to leave post" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff June 10, 2014
She faced one of the most devastating market collapses in history.
By September 2008, global markets were plunging. Because the endowment had been aggressively invested, Mendillo had to sell assets and pare back risky holdings to head off a cash crunch at the university.
Who did that?
****************
Harvard has not yet released its performance for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. But it estimates the endowment earned an average annual return of 11 percent to 12 percent for the past five years on Mendillo’s watch....
Related:
Mendillo Made Money For Harvard
Hey, any high school dropout could do it.
Harvard Cutting Health Benefits
I guess she didn't do a good enough job.
For the five-year period from 2008 through 2013, Harvard’s average annual return was 3.3 percent, underperforming the 3.8 percent average among large universities, according to the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments.
Directors said it is hard to pin the endowment’s worst performance on Mendillo because her predecessors — Jack Meyer and Mohamed El-Erian, as well as the interim directors who followed them — laid the groundwork for a large part of the portfolio. While both men enjoyed strong returns during their tenures, Mendillo inherited some investments that have fared poorly since the downturn.
What downturn? Stock market has been at record highs and we have allegedly been in recovery for five!
Or could it be that the downturn never went up?
The portfolio had no cash available when she arrived. It had even borrowed money to make larger investment bets.
Is that a good example to set for the kids?
In the heat of the financial crisis, Mendillo scrambled to deal with illiquid hedge funds and private equity funds, as well as money-losing real estate holdings.
She also had to raise money to get out of large, money-losing “swaps,” or interest rate investments, authorized when Lawrence Summers was president of the university.
I $hould have known! Larry looted Harvard!
*****************
Mendillo said she is proudest of hiring talented managers to oversee more of Harvard’s money internally, rather than farming so much out to hedge funds. Harvard now directly handles 42 percent of its money, up from 30 percent when she took over. Mendillo also pressed for more direct real estate investing, over real estate funds.
“The investments we’ve made over the last several years are doing really, really well,’’ Mendillo said. “Some of the investments we inherited are not doing as well,’’ but are becoming smaller portions of the portfolio as time goes on.
Mendillo earned $4.8 million in 2012, down from $5.3 million in 2011, while some of her top investment staff earned more for performance that dramatically beat their benchmarks.
High pay is one of many issues at the endowment that draws criticism from some alumni and professors. Some also question whether Harvard uses its investment muscle carefully enough for a nonprofit institution.
Mendillo said she put a greater focus on sustainable investing and was gratified that in April Harvard became the first US university endowment to sign on to the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment....
--more--"
She is getting out just before the big crash!
Or not!
"Republicans reject Warren bill that would have eased student loans" by Erica Werner | Associated Press June 12, 2014
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked legislation Wednesday aimed at letting people refinance their student loans at lower rates, a pre-ordained outcome that gave Democrats a fresh election-year talking point against the GOP....
Don't you wish they would bail you out instead, kids?
You know, like they did the banks!
Student loan debt has topped $1 trillion and emerged as a drag on the economy and on middle-class families across the country, making it a ripe target for politicians ahead of midterm elections where Democrats risk losing their Senate majority.
I'm tired of the $hit-$how fooley of politics, $orry!!!!!!!!
Wednesday’s vote followed two days where President Obama highlighted the issue from the White House, announcing executive action to let more borrowers to cap their monthly payments at 10 percent of their income and answering questions about the issue on the social networking site Tumblr.
‘‘There are too many politicians in Washington who don’t have the right priorities,’’ Obama told high school graduates in Worcester, as he chided Republicans for rejecting the student loan bill. ‘‘We need to straighten them out.’’
Uh-huh!
What a sphincter!
***************
Some 40 million Americans have outstanding student loan debt totaling $1.2 trillion, making it the second-largest form of consumer debt, second only to mortgages, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office. People 60 and older account for some $43 billion of outstanding student loan debt.
--more--"
Also see:
UMass panel backs freeze on tuition, fees
Suffolk University freezing salaries for year
Former Westfield State president seeking $1.6m in damages
Un-flipping-real!
Related:
Dobelle is Done
Apparently not!
Reinharz Received $5 Million From Brandeis
At least you know where all the money is going, kids.
"US can ‘learn from Worcester Tech,’ Obama says at ceremony" by David Scharfenberg | Globe staff June 11, 2014
WORCESTER — President Obama’s remarks underscored a growing national interest in career and technical education, once known as vocational education.
For all you serfs.
Policymakers from Washington to Beacon Hill are concerned that the country is not doing enough to train students for jobs in high-tech manufacturing and other technical fields. And soaring college costs are undermining faith in traditional higher education as a path to prosperity.
It's an election year, isn't it?
*****************
The commencement amounted to a civic celebration for a struggling city.
The president stepped off Air Force One and into the spitting rain at Worcester Regional Airport about 3:30 pm, greeted by Governor Deval Patrick, US Representative James P. McGovern, and Mayor Joseph Petty of Worcester.
Thanks for contributing to the greenhouse gas problem, and sure is chilly, 'eh?
Worcester Regional Transit Authority buses flashed messages welcoming the president, and residents lined the route to the DCU Center downtown.
Protesting the sphincter, I hope, and his global-warming caravan spew.
Hours before his arrival, the line to get into the ceremony stretched around the corner: thousands of people dressed in bowties and neckties, T-shirts, and dresses.
“It’s a great day for Worcester,” said Stephanie Chaparian, 34, a product designer whose father teaches science at Worcester Tech.
Her mother Karen, a lifelong resident of Worcester, said the struggling city is often seen as the stepchild of Massachusetts. It was good, she said, to have a little glamour in town.
The last sitting president to visit Worcester was President Clinton in 1999. But there were others before him.
*********************
Obama told the graduates that he did not remember his own graduation speaker. “I’m sure I was thinking about the party after graduation,” he joked. “I don’t remember the party, either. I’m just telling the truth here.”
That would be a first!
Related: Obama's War on Medical Marijuana Comes to Massachusetts
But it was OKAY for HIM to TOKE, giggle, giggle!
Is that something he should be joking about?
He told the graduates that they had only made it this far with the help of others and that they must be willing to give back.
That I believe, and give the give-back lecture to your rich masters, sphincter.
He added that he sometimes worries that a generation raised in war and recession is growing up in a cynical time and with a tall task, competing with the whole world for good jobs.
I'll bet that makes him hard, and we know who to thank for it.
“But when I meet young people like you, I am absolutely certain we are not just going to outcompete the rest of the world, we are going to win,” he said.
Obama congratulated all of the graduates with handshakes, hugs, and back slaps, before making his way to a Weston fund-raiser benefitting the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Oddly, that is where my printed paper ends.
In Weston, Obama told about 30 supporters that they are crucial to helping Democrats regain the majority in the midterm election.
They won't be! They are not winning the House, and are going to lose the Senate -- because of you and your failed six years in office, sir!
The president spoke after dinner at the posh home of Joanne and Paul Egerman, huge Democratic fund-raisers. Tickets to the event cost $32,400 each.
So a pair would.... pretty much pay for your four-year education, kiddo.
Thank God Obummer is your friend!
Obama also said he does not see the defeat of House Republican leader Eric Cantor on Tuesday as scuttling immigration legislation.
I thought they would try to get it through after what I read, but that is an agenda-pushing delusion.
‘‘It’s interesting to listen to the pundits and the analysts, and some of the conventional wisdom talks about how the politics of immigration reform seem impossible,’’ Obama told the donors. ‘‘I fundamentally reject that, and I will tell the speaker of the House he needs to reject it.
I guess Boehner doesn't want to be speaker anymore then.
“At a certain point, issues are important enough to fight for. My argument about [Tuesday’s] election is not that there was too little politics, but that there was too little conviction about what is right. We need to get immigration reform done.”
So the elite cla$$ he serves can have more compliant and cheap foreign labor to choose from.
Thanks for the warning, sphincter!
--more--"
All you kids got, and I quote, was “lip $ervice.”
Pretty good le$$on anyway, no?
Related: MORE SPEW
I'm sorry, but we no longer have anything in common.
"Harvard endowment chief Jane Mendillo to leave post" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff June 10, 2014
She faced one of the most devastating market collapses in history.
By September 2008, global markets were plunging. Because the endowment had been aggressively invested, Mendillo had to sell assets and pare back risky holdings to head off a cash crunch at the university.
Who did that?
****************
Harvard has not yet released its performance for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. But it estimates the endowment earned an average annual return of 11 percent to 12 percent for the past five years on Mendillo’s watch....
Related:
Mendillo Made Money For Harvard
Hey, any high school dropout could do it.
Harvard Cutting Health Benefits
I guess she didn't do a good enough job.
For the five-year period from 2008 through 2013, Harvard’s average annual return was 3.3 percent, underperforming the 3.8 percent average among large universities, according to the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments.
Directors said it is hard to pin the endowment’s worst performance on Mendillo because her predecessors — Jack Meyer and Mohamed El-Erian, as well as the interim directors who followed them — laid the groundwork for a large part of the portfolio. While both men enjoyed strong returns during their tenures, Mendillo inherited some investments that have fared poorly since the downturn.
What downturn? Stock market has been at record highs and we have allegedly been in recovery for five!
Or could it be that the downturn never went up?
The portfolio had no cash available when she arrived. It had even borrowed money to make larger investment bets.
Is that a good example to set for the kids?
In the heat of the financial crisis, Mendillo scrambled to deal with illiquid hedge funds and private equity funds, as well as money-losing real estate holdings.
She also had to raise money to get out of large, money-losing “swaps,” or interest rate investments, authorized when Lawrence Summers was president of the university.
I $hould have known! Larry looted Harvard!
*****************
Mendillo said she is proudest of hiring talented managers to oversee more of Harvard’s money internally, rather than farming so much out to hedge funds. Harvard now directly handles 42 percent of its money, up from 30 percent when she took over. Mendillo also pressed for more direct real estate investing, over real estate funds.
“The investments we’ve made over the last several years are doing really, really well,’’ Mendillo said. “Some of the investments we inherited are not doing as well,’’ but are becoming smaller portions of the portfolio as time goes on.
Mendillo earned $4.8 million in 2012, down from $5.3 million in 2011, while some of her top investment staff earned more for performance that dramatically beat their benchmarks.
High pay is one of many issues at the endowment that draws criticism from some alumni and professors. Some also question whether Harvard uses its investment muscle carefully enough for a nonprofit institution.
Mendillo said she put a greater focus on sustainable investing and was gratified that in April Harvard became the first US university endowment to sign on to the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment....
--more--"
She is getting out just before the big crash!
