Some friendly advice for the governor-elect
Scot Lehigh
Boston Globe
November 21, 2006
GOVERNOR-ELECT, do you have a second?
Some of us are getting a little nervous here.
It's nothing big, mind you, but there are some troubling signs.
You're on your honeymoon, so I'll start on a positive note.
I was impressed with the way you finessed the question about possible cash incentives for math and science teachers last week. Yes, it was lawyerly, but the distinction you carved out -- that this wasn't a matter of individual merit pay, which you oppose, but rather differential pay for certain specialties, which you are open to -- was also important and smart.
But now for some worries.
When it comes to education, as I look at your transition team, I see more defenders of the status quo or, at best, incrementalists, than I do impatient reformers.
One bright spot is Gloria Larson, the co-chair. As someone involved with the Great Schools Campaign, she's keenly aware of the important issues at play.
But there's just not much urgency apparent in the educators you've selected. There's Wayne Burton, president of North Shore Community College, who recently balked at MassINC's notion that those two-year institutions need to boost their students' program graduation rates above the abysmal 17 percent (over three years, no less) we are currently seeing.
And there's James Caradonio, superintendent of schools from Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray's Worcester. He's OK on the MCAS, but like Murray, he's a foe of charter schools. Why, the Romney administration had barely finished reworking the charter-school funding formula back in 2004 -- reworking it very much along the lines Caradonio himself had advocated -- when he and other superintendents were back seeking still more changes. Caradonio has also been a regular critic of the Department of Education's accountability efforts.
And there's Kathy Kelley, former president of the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers. The eminently likable Kelley is popular on Beacon Hill, but the fact remains that she hails from a constituency that is both anti-MCAS and anti-charter school.
Where are the likes of, say, the Boston Foundation's Paul Grogan or the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy's Paul Reville -- that is, people who have been regular, insistent prods for change, accountability, and competition?
Here's a second concern: How will your administration operate?
There aren't a lot of recent models for what a new Democratic governor should do, but there's one you'd do well to avoid and another you might want to emulate.
Let's call them . . . Duke I and Duke II.
As a young governor, Michael Dukakis seemed hopelessly naive about politics. He announced that his cabinet meetings would be open, which rendered those meetings all but meaningless. He declared that he would neither "threaten nor cajole" the Legislature. Instead, he hoped reason would bring lawmakers to his point of view. (Oh my my.)
And he disdained patronage, ruling it out in much the same way you did last week.
Indeed, so gimlet-eyed was he toward those with political connections that being his friend often seemed an actual disadvantage.
Any governor needs top-flight talent in important positions, of course, but the point is, there's a balance to be struck, if only because there are skids that need to be greased.
Now for a related matter. You need someone in a key position who knows how both the State House and the press operate. Granted, it's still very early, but so far, I don't see that person.
To put it in Duke II terms -- that is, the highly competent and effective administration Dukakis ran after bouncing back from his 1978 defeat to win again in 1982 -- who will your John Sasso be?
What you need to succeed in Beacon Hill politics is something that isn't taught and can't be learned in the academy.
It's not a matter of policy expertise, but political savvy.
Here's an example. Eric Kriss, Mitt Romney's first secretary of administration and finance, was sharp as a tack, but his coolly analytical style did not work well with the Legislature.
His replacement, Tom Trimarco, is an experienced political hand who can wheel and deal, coax and stroke, flatter and bluster, with the best of them -- and you can feel the difference.
If you don't have someone with those skills, all the policy experts in the world won't get you anywhere.
Don't believe me? Give the old Duke a call.
Duke II, that is.
