Long before Gabrieli was a candidate for governor, the Boston Globe’s Scott S. Greenberger wrote a fascinating article about Advantage Schools, Inc.  In the May  13, 2001 article, readers are told:

Advantage Schools Inc., a Boston-based company at the forefront of a national effort to run public schools privately, has failed to live up to its promises of academic and financial success in charter schools in at least seven states.

Across the country, Advantage has made bold commitments, vowing to make stellar students of children victimized by the worst of public education. The people behind the company – among them, the author of Massachusetts’ landmark charter school law and several other Weld-Cellucci aides – say for-profit companies can succeed where bureaucrats have failed.

But while promising to bring higher standards and sharper management of taxpayer dollars, Advantage has misled parents about teacher qualifications, failed to consistently boost scores on high-stakes state tests, and engaged in financial practices that have prompted censure by at least two states, the Globe has found.

The dots connect to the hard-right gang that controls the State Board of Education, dominated by advocates for and insiders within the charter school industry.

Advantage has used its conservative political connections to drum up business in Massachusetts and nationwide. Cofounder Steven Wilson, a former aide to Governor William F. Weld, tapped state Board of Education member Abigail Thernstrom to serve on Advantage’s academic advisory board. And businessman and leading MCAS advocate William Edgerly at one time chaired the company’s board of directors.

Long before 2001, Gabrieli was a heavy investor and major rainmaker for Advantage Schools, Inc.  Look at the Boston Business Journal article from July 17, 1998, in which Advantage gets $10 million in new venture capital.  Remember, where you see Bessemer Venture Partners, that’s Gabrieli.

The investment, from several venture capital firms, was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers of Menlo Park, Calif. Also investing were Bessemer Venture Partners of Wellesley, Fidelity Ventures of Boston and United States Trust Co. of New York.

Steven Wilson, Advantage’s president and chief executive officer, said the money will be used to open six new charter schools to go along with schools the company already launched in Phoenix, and Rocky Mount, N.C.

Two of the six new schools, slated for Worcester and Malden, will mark Advantage’s first venture in Massachusetts and will open in the fall, Wilson said.

Why did Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers get into Advantage Schools?  Simple.

Kleiner Perkins learned of Advantage, according to Wilson, through Christopher Gabrieli, on leave from Bessemer Venture Partners while running for the open 8th Massachusetts Congressional District seat.

Bessemer was involved in the first round of venture capital funding of Advantage Schools.

In 2001, Gabrieli and Advantage pop up in an article from the right wing Lexington Institute titled Investing in Charter Schools: Markets on the Edge of Change, a quote taken directly from Gabrieli.

While still a long way from achieving profitability, leading charter school companies have attracted investors who see the potential for lucrative, long-term returns, the social value of increased educational options for urban children, and usually both. Many are drawn by the dynamics of a sector Christopher Gabrieli of Bessemer Venture Partners describes as typifying “markets on the edge of change.”

Gabrieli has some curious supporters in a Democratic primary.  If you wonder why we lose the governor’s race, it’s because we have people like Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation pulling Democratic ballots and voting for people like Gabrieli.  Check out her September 12, 2002 column, where she writes:

Chris Gabrieli has added to the quality of debate in the commonwealth with his support for Mass Inc. and its quarterly magazine, and to some genuine improvement in education with his support for charter schools.

Which leads us back to the July 17 Globe article by Brian C Mooney:

But there is one educational innovation voters aren’t likely to hear the wealthy venture capitalist emphasize, because it was a failure.

In the late 1990s, Gabrieli and his firm, Bessemer Venture Partners, were major investors in Boston-based Advantage Schools, a for-profit charter school company that crashed because of mismanagement of schools in several states, including two in Massachusetts.

According to the article, “Gabrieli’s personal investment in Advantage Schools was in the $250,000 to $500,000 range, according to a 1998 financial disclosure statement he filed in connection with his failed run for Congress.” 

Bottom line.  If you like the education policies of Weld-Cellucci-Swift-Romney, you can stay the course with Gabrieli.

Flashback to my August 19 post connecting the dots of Gabrieli’s investments in Advantage Schools, and the Lexington Institute quote:

While still a long way from achieving profitability, leading charter school companies have attracted investors who see the potential for lucrative, long-term returns, the social value of increased educational options for urban children, and usually both. Many are drawn by the dynamics of a sector Christopher Gabrieli of Bessemer Venture Partners describes as typifying “markets on the edge of change.”

The pattern is clear.

1.  Invest in a company that breaks new ground in public school privatization.

2.  Push for “reforms” or new programs that will pump money into these new ventures.

3.  Extract profits from children.

Children as new opportunities for profit in “markets on the edge of change.”  An investor who would get to set public policy as governor.  Sounds like bad new for public schools.

This is the bill letting big landowners/developers create their own governmental entities ("local improvement districts" or LIDs) within existing municipalities.  It grants the developers the power to issue tax-exempt bonds and levy property taxes ("assessments") to pay the cost of their desired "infrastructure," broadly defined to include parking garages, recreation and cultural facilities and other profitable improvements.

The boundaries, drawn by the developers, may include up to 20% acreage/parcels of property-owners who do not want to be in the District, yet would be forced to pay new property taxes to pay off the bonds. Tenants -- who could be the vast majority of LID residents and small-business leaseholders -- would be entirely excluded from the decision to create the District, but would end up paying the new taxes through rent increases. This bill is a throw-back to feudal times when property ownership was a prerequisite for civil rights. 

These new governments would be exempt from many public interest safeguards, including public records law, oversight by the Department of Revenue, laws governing public construction, civil service, conflict of interest and more.

In the years I worked for COFAR, I was never able to get the Globe or the media in general to understand that using a per-person cost figure at an institution like Fernald, without making an apples-to-apples comparison with costs elsewhere, is meaningless at best, and highly misleading at worst.  Only the Globe’s editorial page has come close to understanding this.

In “The folly of closing Fernald,” the Globe editorial page acknowledged that cost comparisons involving Fernald are difficult to make because of the much more care-intensive population living in institutions than in the community.

But the issue goes beyond even that.  As I’ve pointed out on COFAR’s website here and here, Fernald doesn’t exclusively serve the residents living there.  Therefore, taking the facility’s entire budget and dividing it by the number of residents to arrive at a figure of $250,000 per resident doesn’t make sense.

Fernald’s budget includes the cost of the dental clinic, for instance, which serves community-based clients. It includes the cost of operating the Shriver Center on the campus, which does research that benefits people with mental retardation throughout the commonwealth.  It includes the cost of the adaptive technology building, which benefits people in the community as well.  The list goes on and on.

The families seeking to keep Fernald open are not asking to maintain the status quo.  They are in favor of developing most of the 190-acre campus, while retaining a portion of the campus as a center for those who need its intensive residential and clinical services.  This can be done just as cost-efficiently in the central location that Fernald now provides as would dispersing the residents to privately run group homes around the state, many of which would have to be constructed for that purpose.

I focused on Chapter 3 of Kamarck's book, titled “Democratic Accountability,”  in which she lays out the basis of her argument that traditional bureaucracies have depended on adherence to rules and process to the detriment of performance and innovation in government.  It's a seductive argument because it beats up on a target that we all like to beat up on–the hapless, mindless, rules-following bureaucrat. 

In fact, Kamarck's argument follows a tradition in recent years of attacking government bureaucracy–a tradition that she herself traces back to Michael Barzelay's 1992 book, Breaking Through Bureaucracy.  Most, if not all, of the attacks that have been levied from Barzelay on have focused largely on  bureaucrats and the bureaucratic rules they follow as they bog government down and prevent it from getting necessary things done.

The problem is that these broad attacks on bureaucrats and rules often lead to contradictions in the arguments put forth by the “government reinventers.”  After all, aside from out-and-out anarchists, most sane people would agree that at least some rules are neccesary to allow our government and society to function with any degree of normalcy.   They also help preserve basic rights for citizens in their dealings with government, through such things as the Freedom of Information Law and the other laws and rules that allow people to sue government when rights are taken away.  “Process” actually doesn't sound so bad when the word “due” is put in front of it.

Yet, in her enthusiasm for the reinvention ideology, Kamarck makes a number of broad and sometimes unsubstantiated attacks on rules and traditional bureaucracy.  In Chapter 3, she charges, for instance, that inspectors general in the federal govenment support a “rule-based culture” that has “added to (government) waste instead of subtracting from it.”  By way of disclosure, I used to work for the Massachusetts Inspector General's Office, so it comes as a bit of a painful surprise to learn that I've been part of a culture that has added to government waste.

Yet, still continuing her attack, Kamarck goes on a few pages later to praise a federal IG.  She describes a situation in which Clark Ervin Kent, the first IG of the Department of Homeland Security, was removed from his job by the White House after he exposed weaknesses in the nation's airport security system.  Kent's investigators had been able to sneak weapons and explosives past screeners at 15 U.S. airports in 2003.  The White House was not happy about Kent's expose of DHS ineptitude. 

Kamarck argues that Kent was forced out because he had “sought to focus on (governmental) outcomes [which are good things to focus on]  and not process [which is a bad thing to focus on].”  But, in fact, Kent's investigation of the airport security system really focused on both outcomes and process.  He was forced out because he exposed weaknesses in both. 

 Sure, Kent had uncovered major lapses in governmental outcomes or performance in airport security.  But these lapses were no doubt due, at least in part, to failures in processes and rules involving such things as proper training and deployment of security personnel. 

The problem with these types of attacks on rules and bureaucracy is that the logical implication is that if we would only let managers do their thing freely—such as allow airport security managers to ignore written rules and procedures in order to devise their own security innovations—we'd all be safer.   Somehow, I can't believe Kamarck really believes that.

Kamarck's reinvention ideology also leads her to praise a move by the Bush administration to exempt the Department of Homeland Security from civil service rules.  She writes:

…when the Bush administration set out to create the Department of Homeland Security it tried to incorporate many of the management flexibilities that are core concepts in reinvented public-sector organizations, including some modest authority to reprogram funds without prior congressional approval and substantial flexibilities in procurement and civil service laws.

What Kamarck doesn't say here, though, is that while the Bush administration was successful in creating a new personnel system at DHS, it doesn't appear to have helped the agency's performance.  Ironically, one of the many failures in that performance has been the continuing inability at DHS to identify counterfeit drivers' licenses and other forged documents in screening people trying to enter the U.S.  The Governmental Accountability Office, carrying on in Clark Ervin Kent's tradition, has repeatedly been able to sneak agents with fictitious documents through DHS border security.

Kamarck actually seemed more critical of the supplanting of traditional government bureaucracy by privatization, if not reinvention,  during a discussion on her book at the Kennedy School earlier this week.  Nevertheless, it was disappointing to me that in her chapter on democratic accountability, in particular, Kamarck has largely framed the accountability issue in terms of governmental performance.   She contends that accountability is lessened when government is privatized because no one is adequately measuring performance.   

That's certainly true; but accountability in privatized government is also lessened because, among other things, bugetary and other information is less accessible in privatized functions than in public functions.  As Gilmour and Jensen have pointed out, laws such as the Administrative Procedure Act, which opened the federal bureaucracy to public scrutiny, and the Freedom of Information Act, don't apply as consistently in privatized situations as they do in purely public transactions.  And those types of things just happen to be process issues.

[Cross-posted from the Accountable Strategies blog]

The book details how Halliburton has used $20 billion in public reconstruction funds to build “city-states” for the thousands of contractors that have overrun Iraq, yet little or no money has gone to the country's factories.  The money has been turned over almost exclusively to American and other foreign contractors and accountants, most of them handed no-bid contracts, while Iraqis themselves have largely been excluded from all the fun.

Meanwhile, the administration never set up a workable system of public oversight of these contractors, who seem to be immune as well from both Iraqi and American laws in their dealings.  The result has been widespread fraud and mismangement.  As Klein puts it:

…the occupation of Iraq was, from the start, a radical experiment in hollow governance.

Klein contends that this situation, coupled with American decisions early on to stifle democratic elections in Iraq led to the horrific violence there, which was then met with American-imposed repression, ultimately symbolized by the spectacle of Abu Ghraib.

Klein makes a convincing case that all too many key current and former members of the U.S. government, such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle, James Baker, George Shultz and others have personally profited either from the war in Iraq or from the Bush administration's “War on Terror” in the wake of 9/11.  She notes:

In the Bush administration, the war profiteers aren't just clamoring to get access to government, they are the government: there is no distinction between the two.

The book, subtitled “The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” also describes a pattern of  corporate corruption in country after country in which the U.S. has intervened economically and sometimes militarily in the past four decades.  This pattern began in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s, and continued in Poland and Russia, just after the fall of Communism, in South Africa after Apartheid, in Thailand and other countries in Asia, and finally in Iraq.  It's a pattern that appears to involve the imposition of Milton Friedman's “Chicago School” economic doctrines in every case.

In none of these cases have these doctrines of mass privatization, deregulation of markets, and massive cuts in social services worked.  In every case, a small cadre of corporate elites has gotten rich, while the middle class has been pushed into poverty and despair.  Iraq has been the ultimate example of this.  Moreover, because these economic principles are so unpalatable to the local populations, Klein contends, the principles have had to be imposed in conjunction with violent shocks involving repression, violence, natural disasters, and, in many cases, torture.   

Klein opens with the example of Hurricane Katrina, a major shock, which was seen by many local politicians and corporate lobbyists as an opportunity to level public housing projects in New Orleans, lower taxes, deregulate the economy, and downsize the government.  She  details the situations in Chile, Argentina and other South American countries, beginning in the 1970s, in which Augusto Pinochet and other dictators imposed the shocks on their own, instituting enormous repression, killings, torture, and disappearances on their populations, with the sole aim, it turns out, of installing free-market economies in their countries.  Lurking behind the scenes in case after case has been the University of Chicago Economics Department and Friedman, its free-market guru, who advised and encouraged these dictators to transform their countries according to their free-market theories.  

Klein also drags Israel into this morass, but I think she goes off the track here.   She contends that Israel's security wall has turned that country into a “fortified gated community” equivalent to the Green Zone in Iraq.  She makes no mention of the fact that the wall appears to have stopped the suicide bombings inside Israel.  She also contends that a lot of Israeli companies have profited from selling security-related technology around the world, but she makes no case that those companies are running the Israeli government the way Halliburton etc. appear to be running the U.S. government.  She makes no case, moreover, that Israel's leaders are seeking to impose free-market principles on the Palestinians or anyone else for that matter, so this chapter really doesn't seem to fit within this book.

On the whole, however, this is a book that should be read and discussed in both programs and courses on corporate social responsibility and public sector governance.  It should also be part of the curriculum in economics departments and should be a key focus of discussion in the presidential campaign as well.

By way of disclosure, I have been working as a consultant to The Fernald League for the Mentally Retarded, Inc., a nonprofit, family-run organization seeking to keep Fernald open.   However, I’ve written this and a previous entry, about how the Patrick administration has politicized Fernald cost-benefit numbers, on my own volition.

I think it’s important to know what’s at stake here and what the state is potentially giving up in closing an institution such as Fernald and very likely the five other remaining state facilities in Massachusetts for persons with mental retardation.  (Administration officials insist they have no plans right now to close any facility other than Fernald, but I think it’s unlikely they would be underaking the expense of this legal battle in the U.S. Court of Appeals if they didn’t have ambitions to close other state facilities as well.)

Here’s what the state and its citizens and taxpayers will be losing if the Patrick administration wins its appeal:

1. They will lose a long-held state asset—190 acres of land and buildings—in exchange for one-time revenues from developers purchasing the property.  The Department of Mental Retardation has already signed 20-year agreements with a contractor to lease homes in the community for some of the transferred Fernald residents.  The state will not own those properties even though it will be paying up to $2 million per home over the 20-year period.

I should note that the Fernald League does not oppose the sell-off and development of most of the Fernald Center campus, and has proposed a “postage-stamp” arrangement under which the current residents would remain in a smaller, designated section of the grounds. The Patrick administration, however, has declined all offers to negotiate such an arrangement.

2.  They will lose a source of high-quality state-operated care for persons with mental retardation.  This care will ultimately be assumed by contractors, who are more interested in preserving their bottom lines.  This is evidenced by the fact that levels of staffing in community-based, privatized group homes are lower than in state facilities such as Fernald, and by and large community-based staff have little or no health care benefits.

It is this lower level of staffing and lower levels of pay and benefits that are driving the administration’s assertions that the state will save money in closing Fernald.  The problem is that facilities such as Fernald serve individuals with the most severe and profound levels of mental retardation and extensive medical needs in the state.  These people don’t represent the average population in the DMR system, who, by and large, have more mild to moderate levels of mental retardation.  And yet the administration insists, without any explanation, that when these fragile Fernald residents are transferred to the community, they will receive equal or better care there.

3. They will lose the ability to oversee the care and services provided by the DMR.  In a brief filed in 2006 in the federal court case over Fernald, the Wrentham Association, a plaintiff in the case, noted that DMR’s oversight of the community system is inadequate and relies largely on consumer satisfaction surveys and reviews whose reports are not available until long after the data have been collected.

In addition to eroding the ability of the state to oversee care provided in thousands of community residences, the spread-out community system erodes families’ ability to organize and advocate effectively for their loved ones.  DMR officials have shown that they understand the power of this advocacy.  When families of DMR clients have gotten together to hold DMR to account for its treatment those clients, DMR officials have threatened to evict those clients from their residences and split the families apart.

In its notice of appeal last September in the Fernald case, the Patrick administration stated that the decision to close Fernald is:

…consistent with a national shift away from institutional care in favor of community living.  Decades of research indicate that community settings offer people with mental retardation the best care available and the highest quality of life.

The first sentence of this statement is true, and the second is false.  It’s true that there has been a national shift away from institutional care in the past three decades.  In state after state, families of residents of state-run facilities have been fighting uphill battles to save them.  What is false is that the privatized alternative to the facilities provides the best care available and the highest quality of life.

In Massachusetts, the 2006 legal brief filed by the Wrentham Association detailed a privatized system of community-based care in Massachusetts that is at the “breaking point.”  Levels of physical and sexual abuse, medication errors, and outright neglect were far higher in the privatized community system on a per-resident basis than in the state facility system, the brief stated.

It is patently false, therefore, to say that community settings provide the best care available or the highest quality of life.  If that was the case, families of residents in institutions would be clamoring to get those residents out of the facilities and into the community settings.  Instead, they’re fighting to keep them in.  This has forced the privatization proponents to adopt the condescending position that these families don’t know what’s best for their own loved ones.

In June 2007, a Boston Globe editorial, headlined “The Folly of Closing Fernald,” called on the Patrick administration to “stop sparring with a judge (Tauro) whose rulings are consistently in the best interest of the Fernald residents,” and craft “a solution that makes economic and therapeutic sense.” The administration, however, has chosen not to follow either of these pieces of advice.

Simply because a practice or governmental policy has become a trend doesn’t make it inherently good or right.  As the Globe stated, “deinstitutionalization is not the right remedy for every man and woman with mental retardation, despite the assertions of advocates for group homes.”

Naomi Klein notes on p. 451 of her excellent book, The Shock Doctrine, that in Latin America, country after country have been reversing the privatization trend in recent years, recognizing the economic demage that privatization and deregulation have inflicted on their economies since the 1970s.  Is there really agreement in this country that privatizaton and deinstitutionalization have been uniformly good things?

Meagher maintained that despite U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro's ruling last year that Fernald must remain open to its current residents, the Patrick administration “is trying to subvert that order by reducing the number of residents at Fernald.”  The administration has appealed Tauro's ruling to the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Unlike most of the remaining Fernald residents, whose guardians and families oppose their transfers out of the facility, the elderly woman is represented legally by a corporate guardian, the Arc of Greater Boston, Inc. (GBARC).  GBARC has approved the move, apparently giving DMR the green light to transfer her as early as this coming Thursday to a newly constructed group home in Bedford. 

GBARC is affiliated with the Arc of Massachusetts, which is pushing hard for Fernald's closure.  So, it's not surprising that GBARC has given its approval to a move that the woman has said she doesn't want and that those working directly with her oppose.  The question that Meagher has is how GBARC could have her best interests at heart in this case.

GBARC also represents at least five other Fernald residents, all of whom it has similarly approved for moves to houses in Bedford and Shrewsbury.  Three of those residents, none of whom can speak, each of whom is profoundly retarded, and none of whom the 91-year-old woman knows, will be living with her in the Bedford house.

Meagher contends the plan to move the elderly woman out has to do with DMR's larger plans to close Fernald and privatize its services.  As part of the overall consolidation and closure effort, DMR plans to close a cottage on the Fernald campus in the cluster of cottages in which she now lives, and move those residents into her cottage.  Meagher says DMR needs to move her out to make way for the residents from the other cottage.

Meagher said she had heard that the woman did not want to leave Fernald, so she decided to see for herself.  On January 25, Meagher visted her in her living room.  Meagher said three direct-care workers were seated nearby and heard the entire conversation.

Meagher said that in response to her questions, the woman said she liked living at Fernald; that she had been there a long time; that she had her own bedroom there; and that she liked going out on field trips with staff in a van.  Then Meagher asked her about the new group home in Bedford to which she had recently been taken for a visit.  Did she like the house, Meagher asked.  Yes, she replied, it was “very pretty.”  Did she want to move there?  No, she replied.  Meagher said she asked the questions several times and got the same answers each time.  As far as Meagher was concerned, there could be no mistake in understanding her preference.

“Whenever I asked about whether she wanted to move away from Fernald, she said no,” Meagher said. 

Meagher maintained that DMR's insistence on moving the woman out of Fernald “is a clear indication of how desperate this administration is to get the closure process moving even though Judge Tauro has said Fernald must remain open.”  Meagher believes that DMR has run into so much opposition to the closure of Fernald from the families and guardians of its current residents that it has had to resort to moving out people such as the 91-year-old woman, who are represented by corporate guardians.  “This just shows the lengths to which they are willing to go,” she said.

You may recall that we reported here that A.T. was transferred out of Fernald in February, apparently against her will, and moved to a newly constructed group home in Bedford.  The circumstances surrounding the transfer are currently being investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office at the behest of U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro.  The Patrick administration, which is seeking to close Fernald, has appealed a ruling last year by Tauro that Fernald remain open as an option to current residents unless it can be demonstrated that equal or better care is available elsewhere.

A.T. was one of six Fernald residents who were transferred from Fernald to the group home in February.  All six were represented legally by the same corporate guardian, the Arc of Greater Boston (GBARC), which approved the moves in cooperation with DMR. 

At the time of A.T.'s transfer, the GBARC CEO made the claim that the level of care at the Bedford home were higher than at Fernald.  We were skeptical of the claim, so we filed a Public Records Law request to DMR on March 7 for information about the Bedford group home staffing.

On May 22, more than two months later, we received two lists of names, positions, full-time-equivalent levels, and salaries of DMR staff both on site at the Bedford facility and “available” to the residents there.  We compared that data with the most recent staffing information that we have for Fernald from Fiscal Year 2006.  Among other things, the data show:

1. Total direct-care staffing (total FTEs listed for “mental retardation workers”) was 48 percent higher per client at Fernald in 2006 than at the Bedford group home today.  The ratios are based on a residential population of 8 at the Bedford group home and 181 at Fernald.

2. In addition to nursing staff, Fernald had 67 other clinical and professional staff on site in 2006, including clinical social workers, habilitation coordinators, occupational therapists, physical therapists, psychological assistants, respiratory therapists, speech language pathologists, and a respiratory technician.  There are doctors on site at Fernald as well.  The Bedford home has no clinical or professional staff listed on site other than nurses, and has no doctors on site.

3.  Total nursing staff per client at the Bedford home is 25 percent higher than at Fernald in 2006.  However, nearly all the Bedford nursing staff are LPNs.  In 2006, Fernald had nearly 2 1/2 times the number of RNs per client than the Bedford facility has on site.  RNs are more highly trained than LPNs.

4.  The Bedford site has an additional 15 LPNs and 1 RN listed as being “available” to the Bedford facility, but these staff are not located at the site and serve other DMR clients in the area.  In addition, DMR lists only 1 occupational therapist, 1 psychological assistant, and 1 audiologist as being “available” to the Bedford facility.  Apparently, if guardians want to provide physical and respiratory therapy, speech language therapy, habilitation counseling, and medical services to the Bedford clients, they must seek it outside of DMR.  All of those services are available at Fernald.

In another development, the Fernald plaintiffs have submitted a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals, supporting Judge Tauro's ruling last year.  The brief makes a key point about Judge Tauro's decision that many people may not understand.  As the brief notes, Judge Tauro never ruled that Fernald must stay open indefinitely, only that it must stay open until DMR is able to place the current residents in equal or better settings and all mandated services are provided at the new locations.

We think the Bedford staffing figures provide evidence—in addition to significant evidence already collected—that equal or better care is not yet available in the community system. 

         Bedford group home vs. Fernald staffing data chart

                                  (Numbers are FTEs)

1. Direct Care MRWs (mental retardation workers):

At the Bedford site today:              At Fernald in 2006

0 MRW IVs                                   21 MRW IVs making $43,020

0 MRW IIIs                                   26 MRW IIIs making $37,977

4 MRW IIs making up to $28,852    119 MRW IIs making $34,523

10 MRW Is making up to $32,536   303 MRW Is making $31,588

14 total MRWs                               469 total MRWs

2. Nursing Staff

At the Bedford site today:        At Fernald in 2006:

0 RN VIs                                1 RN VI

0 RN Vs                                 1 RN V

0 RN IVs                                5 RN IVs

0 RN IIIs                               10 RN IIIs

1 RN II                                  41 RN IIs

0 RN Is                                  1 RN I

0 LPN IIs                                15 LPN IIs

4.5 LPN Is                               2 LPN 1s

0 Nursing assistants                 23 Nursing assistants

5.5 total nurses                            99 total nurses

3. Other clinical and professional staff

                        At the Bedford site today:        At Fernald in 2
006:

Clinical social wrkrs.            0                                   5.5

Education specialists            0                                   1

Habilitation coord.               0                                   7.98

Human services coord.         0                                  10

Music therapist                    0                                  2

Occ. therapist III                 0                                  1

Occ. therapist II                  0                                  3

Physican therapist asst.        0                                  1

Physical therapist II             0                                  1

Physical therapist III            0                                  1

Program coord. I                 0                                  4

Program coord. II                0                                  2

Psych. asst. II                     0                                  3

Psych. asst. III                    0                                  2

Recreat. svs. sp.                  0                                   2

Recreat. therapist I              0                                  3

Recreat. therapist II             0                                  1

Recreat. therapist III            0                                  5

Respiratory tech.                  0                                  1

Spec. svs. asst.                    0                                  2

Speech therapist asst.           0                                  1

Speech lang. path. III           0                                 0.88

Speech lang. path. I              0                                 1.1

Vocational inst. (A/B)             0                                  1

Vocational inst. (C)                0                                  5

0 total other clinical and prof. staff            67 total other clin/prof. staff

Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods organizer Shirley Kressel says in a Boston Globe op-ed that the group has filed a bill that would tap the state budget to the tune of $5.5 million a year to run the 10-acre park. By way of comparison, Kressel points out, the city of Bostonspends $15 million on its 2,200 acres of parkland.

So much for running our city like a business.

The lease drawn up by the Greenway Conservancy would give the group rights similar to private ownership, including the power to determine what events are held in the parks and the right to charge admittance to events. In short, Kressel says, the Conservancy is seeking public funding to run a privately controlled park.

The $15 million the city spends pays for gems like Franklin Park, the Boston Common, the Public Gardens and Jamaica Pond – spaces where residents of all Boston neighborhoods can play ball, sunbathe, sail, swim, listen to concerts, see plays, fly a kite, protest the war in Iraq, rally in support of a presidential candidate or meet friends for lunch. Freedom of assembly, free speech, the pursuit of happiness — this is what public spaces in the United States are for.
Businesses are best suited to run enterprises that earn profit. Let the stewardship of publicly-owned land remain under the control of our local government.

But let's get back to the overall skimpiness of the plan.  It has broad goals, but in key respects, it doesn't say how those goals will be achieved.  It's first two goals, for instance, are 1) Help individuals transition from institutional care; and 2) Expand access to community-based long-term supports.  Another goal (#4) is to “expand access to affordable and accessible housing and supports.”

One has to wonder how the administration can propose expanded access to community supports as it continues to cut the DMR budget.

There are currently thousands of people with mental retardation in Masschusetts on a waiting list for long-term care in the DMR system.  The administration's plan talks about expanding access to affordable housing; but how much housing will have to be built, where will it be built, and what will it cost?  There is no discussion of that.

The plan is particularly vague when it comes to the state facilities for people with mental retardation.  Neither the Fernald Developmental Center, which the administration is trying to close, nor any of the other five facilities is mentioned.  The closest the plan comes to saying anything about them is the statement that:

…the Plan supports the administration's commitment to shifting the focus of long-term care financing from institutions to the community.

We can only surmise that “shifting the focus” means shutting all the state facilities.  But if that happens, won't the facility residents be competing with the thousands already waiting for community care?  The plan doesn't get into this issue.  Where are these hundreds of facility residents ulimately going to be “transitioned” to?  The plan doesn't say.

The plan doesn't address these questions, and the reason is not surprising.  If you shut down facilities, you worsen the overall housing problem.  For some period of time, there will be less access to housing and less access to community supports for everyone.  How will those problems be overcome?

The plan also states that this commitment to shift this focus from institutions is based on the 1999 Supreme Court decision, Olmstead v. L.C., in which a plaintiff sought a transfer from a state institution to a community setting.  We would argue that the administration is misreading Olmstead.

As the Massachusetts Coalition of Families and Advocates for the Retarded, Inc. (COFAR) pointed out in an amicus brief in the ongoing appeals court case over Fernald,  the core holding of Olmstead is that insitutional care is appropriate for people with severe disiabilities who cannot be accomodated in community settings.  The Court found that three factors must be in place before institutional care can be deemed to be unjustified and community care required: 1) the determination of treatment professionals, 2) the views of the individual, and 3) the resources of the state.

The High Court also specifically stated in the decision that:

We emphasize that nothing in the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) or its implementing regulations condones termination of institutional settings for persons unable to handle or benefit from community settings.  (527 U.S. at 601-602)

Not surprisingly, the community vendor-first advocates never note this clear distinction that the Supreme Court drew in Olmstead.

Finally, the plan notes the “broad array of internal and external stakeholders” that helped in its drafting.  All of these stakeholders are either state agency officials or members of advocacy organizations opposing institutional care.  No facility advocates were invited. 

Ever since Deval Patrick was a candidate for governor, the Fernald League, COFAR and others have sought to meet with him and offered to become involved in his administration's planning for care for persons with disabilities.  Needless to say, we have never been taken up on our offers.

…the era of Dickensian, deservedly maligned institutions housing those who are least able to voice their objections to them must come to an end, beginning this June 30 at Fernald.

“Dickensian,” Leo?  You would think nothing has changed in the state's Immediate Care Facilities for the developmentally disabled since the 1840s.  Nevermind that the American Health Care Association says the following about ICFs around the country:

Changes and improvements in ICF/DD support and training services have created one of the most progressive and technically advanced programs anywhere in the world. For residents, quality of life has improved dramatically, as access and choice have become hallmarks of the ICF/DD program.

No, none of that matters.  In addition to “Dickensian,” Sarkissian manages to refer to Fernald and the other Massachusetts ICFs in his column as “decrepit,” “under-populated,” “archaic,” “inferior,” and “outdated.”   But even that's not enough.  Sarkissan feels its important to his argument to point out the true–though currently irrelevant–fact that prior to the 1970s, treatment at Fernald was “deplorable.”

Can you blame Fernald supporters for feeling somewhat insulted by this? 

And then there's the Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers, the vendor-supported organization that shares the same Waltham address and certain payroll expenses with the Arc of Massachusetts.  

Gary Blumenthal, the ADDP's executive director, is now arguing on the organization's website that the Patrick administration isn't even going far enough in closing four of six remaining state-run ICFs in Massachusetts.  All care for persons with disabilities in the state should be immediately privatized, he asserts.  Why stop now with two ICFs still left in operation?  Shut 'em all down and give us those state contracts expand the “community private provider system,” Blumenthal states.

Here is a little more of Blumenthal's reasoning:

…how can the Commonwealth shred every other element of the state safety net and all other state programs, while a few legislators work aggressively to keep whole an obsolete service model that drains millions of dollars to maintain six campus settings, including dozens of empty buildings that are still draining funds from other individuals needing DDS services and supports?

The only problem is the second half of this statement is completely untrue.  No one has advocated that we maintain six campus settings with empty buildings.  ICF advocates and supportive legislators have consistently argued that these campuses can and should be downsized to accomodate their current populations.  No one is saying these facilities have to be large.  ADDP and the Arc have never acknowledged that point and the Patrick administration has never seriously considered it either.

What the Patrick administration is doing right now, as it shuts down four state ICFs, is actually to temporarily expand two remaining ICFs and develop some additional state-run community-based group homes to accomodate the residents of the closed facilities.  We believe the administration's intention is ultimately to close those two remaining ICFs and privatize the group homes.  Along with this, the administration wants to eliminate ICF-level care, with its strict federal standards, and replace it with the looser standards applicable to community-based care.

The administration is carrying out this agenda even as it continues to cut funding and services to those in the private, community-based system.  There are no plans as far as we know to expand the community-based system to accomodate the thousands of people still waiting for care in it.

Blumenthal recognizes this fact.  But he has a huge conflict of interest in asking the state to turn over all developmental disabilities funding to the vendors.  The evidence is overwhelming that a completely privatized system of care would be inferior to a system with state-run, ICF-level care, in which employees are better trained and receive better pay and benefits.

In a letter to the Waltham Tribune in response to Sarkissian's column, Bill Fowler, a former Waltham firefighter and fire inspector, wrote:

I have personally observed some of the deplorable living conditions that exist in many of these group homes…It has always left a bad taste in my mouth that the leading voice in favor of closing Fernald works in the industry that has the most to gain if the Fernald is closed. All one has to do is look at the outrageous salaries of the upper management of the corporations that run the community-based facilities and you will see why they think closing Fernald makes sense. 

And then there was this statement from a letter to the Tribune from Marion Julian of Braintree:

Our family's experience with the private vendor homes was disgusting and life threatening. My loved one went downhill and was hospitalized because of inadequate care, lack of care and neglect. Where were these wonderful caring people for my child in the private vendor setting? They were not there; the private vendor did not care and was not made accountable.

Julian writes that after her family member was moved to a state-run group home, she gained back 40 pounds after receiving “proper nutrition, proper supports, and medical care.”

We thank people like Bill Fowler and Marion Julian for sharing their personal experiences in order to counter the continuing myths and misrepresentations about care for the developmentally disabled.

GOP gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Baker has listed repealing the Pacheco Law as one of his “Baker’s Dozen” proposals for reducing public sector costs.

The Boston Globe has editorialzed against the law as “wasteful policy,”  as has Globe columnist Scot Lehigh, who has made the Pacheco Law almost as frequent a target of his displeasure as teachers’ unions.  Lehigh has termed the law a:”misguided statute that effectively ended the state’s experiment with hiring private-sector firms to deliver public services.”

Lehigh goes on to contend that: “With Pacheco on the books, it’s difficult even to explore the efficiencies that could come from contracting out, much less realize them.”

The pro-privatization think tank, The Pioneer Institute, which Baker co-directed in the late 1980s, has termed the Pacheco Law “the most restrictive state anti-privatization legislation in the nation.”  A separate paper, written by the equally pro-privatization Reason Institute and published by the Pioneer Institute, claims that as a result of the Pacheco Law, Massachusetts is: “…the only state in the nation that has virtually outlawed the privatization of public services.”

Strong words.  But like many of the negative claims about the Pacheco Law noted above, the Reason/Pioneer claim doesn’t appear to be backed up by convincing evidence.  For instance, in discussing the amount of privatization that Massachusetts has supposedly been “missing out on” due to the Pacheco Law, the Reason/Pioneer paper  cites a statistic from the Government Contracting Institute that the value of federal, state, and local contracts to private firms around the country increased by 65 percent between 1996 and 2002.  The paper, however, doesn’t provide any evidence that Massachusetts failed to keep up with that increase in contracting.

No doubt, the Pacheco Law has some provisions that can be argued are unfair to would-be contractors.  There may be good arguments for changing some of those provisions, such as one giving the auditor the power to reject a proposed contract he determines not to be “in the public interest,” without providing a definition or reason.  It might also be worth considering an appeal process from the auditor’s decisions.

At the same time, however, it is unclear that the Pacheco Law has really done much to block either privatization or the closures of state-run facilities in Massachusetts.  In fact, a case could be made that the Pacheco Law has been underutilized by those who might have used it to slow the rate of facility closures and privatization in the state.

Interestingly, the law was enacted in during a battle in the early 1990s over the then Weld administration’s plans to close nine state-run mental health, mental retardation, and public health institutions.  Yet, passage of the law didn’t stop the closures of any of those facilities, particularly the Dever Developmental Center, which was in Pacheco’s own district.  The planned closure of Dever had been the impetus for Pacheco’s proposed law.

As Daryl Cameron Every, an attorney who fought to preserve the Dever Center in the 1990s pointed out, the Weld administration avoided a Pacheco-Law review in that case after reaching an agreement with state employee unions to create a network of state-operated group homes to accomodate most of the Dever Center residents.  Every said she believes the state will eventually privatize those group homes.  As she noted, the Pacheco Law doesn’t obligate the state to continue running the residences.

Today, the Pacheco Law has similarly had no discernible impact on the Patrick administration’s plans to close an additional four state facilities for persons with developmental disabilities, including the Fernald Developmental Center.

There are many ways to get around the Pacheco Law and still effectively terminate or privatize state services.  James Durkin, a spokesman for AFSCME Local 93, said that the law won’t necessarily apply if a state facility, such as Fernald, is simply closed.  If the privatization process occurs over time, as is likely to be the case with the closure of Fernald and the state-operated residences following the closure of Dever, the Pacheco Law isn’t likley to be invoked, he said.

Durkin added that the Pacheco Law only applies to the privatization of existing state services.  When the Massachusetts College of Art recently built a new dormitory and hired private vendors to provide services there, the Pacheco Law didn’t apply, he said.

In addition, contracts under $500,000 in value are exempt from the Pacheco Law. That threshold was raised from $200,000 to $500,000 last year.  Durkin said AFSCME considers the various ways around the Pacheco Law, including the $500,000 threshold amount, to be “unfortunate loopholes.”  Apparently that threshold isn’t high enough and those loopholes aren’t wide enough for the law’s critics.

Glen Brierre, a spokesman for State Auditor Joseph DeNucci’s Office, said the auditor has approved about 20 proposed contracts since the Pacheco Law went into effect.  The “vast majority” of proposals have been approved, he said.

By the way, it’s not as if the Pacheco Law came out of thin air.  The Pioneer/Reason paper acknowledges that the law was modeled after a federal rule for contracting out governmental functions (the Office of Management and Budget’s Circular A-76).  The Pioneer/Reason paper contends that the Pacheco Law made significant changes to the federal guidelines, although it doesn’t specify what those changes were.

The OMB Circular states that governmental “commercial activities (i.e. those activities eligible for privatization) should be subject to the forces of competition.”  Specifically, it says that competition should determine whether “government personnel should perform a commercial activity.”  In other words, like the Pacheco Law, the OMB requires a cost analysis in which government gets to compete with the private sector for the business.

Suffice it to say, the competitive contracting-out process in OMB Circular A-76 is extremely complex (just take a few moments to scroll through the Circular in the link above to appreciate that complexity for yourself), and we’re not in a position to judge exactly how the Pacheco Law differs from the federal model.  But then again, we’d doubt that many of the critics of the Pacheco Law are either.

It seems to us that to the extent the Pacheco Law requires a thoughtful review of the costs and claims of privatization in Massachusetts, it should stay on the books.

(Posted on behalf of The Fernald League, Inc.)

Last week, I posted a (lonely) defense of the Pacheco Law here in the face of a continuing onslaught of calls for its repeal.

I noted that GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker has made repeal of the law a campaign issue.  Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh characterized the law, which was enacted in the early 1990s, as having "effectively ended the state's experiment with hiring private-sector firms to deliver public services."

The pro-privatization Reason Institute claimed that as a result of the Pacheco Law, Massachusetts is the "only state in the nation that has virtually outlawed the privatization of public services."

However, I've just received some numbers from the state Comptroller's Office, which appear to indicate that, despite the allegedly insurmountable hurdles put up by the Pacheco Law, privatization is alive and well in Massachusetts.

I was interviewed recently on Danvers cable access TV about my new book, Managing Public Sector Projects: A Strategic Framework for Success in an Era of Downsized Government.

The book has been moving steadily up the charts on Amazon. (It made it to 24th this weekend among books on public administration and government, before slipping a little.)

Here’s the TV video:  

The foundations warned that we mustn't falter in this reform effort, according to the Globe, because that would be a sign of “bureaucratic inertia, union resistance, or political malaise.”

It's difficult to question a policy juggernaut consisting of The Mass. Taxpayers Foundation, The Boston Foundation, the Patrick administration, and The Boston Globe.  But we'll give it a try.

Our question is: where did these findings in the MTF/BF report come from — particularly the finding that closing the state ICFs will save tens of millions of dollars a year?

Unfortunately, as noted, only an executive summary of the report is available yet on the websites of the MTF and the BF.  So, that's all we have to go by right now.

The executive summary (linked above) includes a table with an institutional-vs.-community-bed cost comparison.  According to the table, it costs $183,000 per bed in a DDS institution, such as Fernald, compared with a cost ranging from $95,000 to $150,000 per bed in the community system.

What's the source of that information?  Beneath the table in the executive summary, it states that the source is the “DMR (now DDS) Community Services Expansion and Facilities Restructuring Plan, Revised March 9, 2009.” 

In other words, the source of this cost comparison is the Patrick administration itself.  The Mass. Taxpayers and Boston foundations are apparently relying on the administration's cost-savings numbers in reporting to the administration that there are… get this…cost savings. 

Very nice arrangement.  The administration can then point to this presumably independent report and say, 'We told you so.  This report backs up our claim that closing state facilities will save us money.  In fact, we look moderate in only seeking to close four out of six facilities.  This report says we should close them all.'

Nevermind that groups supporting the developmental centers, such as the Fernald League, COFAR, and others, have been raising questions for years about these supposed cost savings, and pointing out the dangers in closing these critically important institutions.  Closing all of the remaining ICFs in Massachusetts would not only not save money, it would have devastating consequences for hundreds of the most vulnerable citizens of the commonwealth and their families.

Those questions and concerns have been conveniently ignored in the MTF/BF report, or rather, executive summary.

BTW, we're eagerly waiting for the full MTF/BF report, and will probably have more to say about it when we get to read it.

The question the authors leave unanswered is how far the Obama administration intends to go, or has gone, to de-politicize the office of the presidency.  They point out that Barack Obama made an early effort to avoid shows of excessive partisanship, particularly in his decision to retain a Bush appointee, Robert Gates, as secretary of defense.  But politicization of the presidency may only be in remission, they say.

I would suggest that in one respect, Obama appears to have shown the same impulse as Bush and other recent presidents; and that is the impulse to reduce the power of career bureaucrats though privatization of governmental functions.  (See Rick Cohen's interesting series in The Nonprofit Quarterly on the Obama administration's push for more privatization and free-market approaches in public housing services, education, and other governmental functions.) 

It may not be the case that Obama is pushing privatization for the same political-loyalty-inspired reasons as Bush.  But that may not make a lot of difference to the career employees who lose their jobs as a result.

Moynihan and Roberts state that starting with Andrew Jackson, the decision to politicize a presidency has been connected with a distrust of the federal bureaucracy and of career employees, who are seen as hostile to presidential goals because of professional and ideological biases.  

They suggest at least three basic characteristics of a politicized presidency: 1) Expansion of the number of political appointees in the administration, with more weight given to loyalty than merit in hiring; 2) the transfer or termination of career officials in the bureaucracy who are deemed untrustworthy; and 3) the centralization of key decision-making in the White House.

It would be hard for Obama to top George W. Bush in the politicization arena.  Moynihan's and Roberts' article doesn't provide new disclosures about  Bush.   But they put enough examples together that the case against the Bush presidency appears fairly persuasive.  We still clearly remember the debacle of the appointment of Michael Brown to head FEMA, for instance.  Brown and other senior appointees in FEMA lacked emergency management expertise, the authors note, but had “significant political campaign experience.”

Then there were the forced resignations of the U.S. Attorneys and the hiring at DoJ of politically connected yet inexperienced personnel such as Kyle Sampson, a classmate of Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, and Monica Goodling, who had been an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee.  

Moynihan and Roberts also recount the case of Bradley Schlozman, a political appointee at the DoJ's Civil Rights Division, who apparently had high-level personnel hiring and firing responsibilities there.   In email comments, Schlozman repeatedly referred to conservative applicants as “real Americans.”  He also wrote, regarding existing employees, that, “My tentative plans are to gerrymander all of those crazy libs right out of the section.”  He apparently had quite a bit of success in doing so.

And then there were the political considerations that colored the hiring of staff to manage the U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq.   Moynihan and Roberts rely heavily here on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's excellent book, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone,” for details on the White House's insistence that job applicants in the reconstruction management effort be screened for loyalty to the Republican Party and the president.

As I point out in my own book, Managing Public Sector Projects,” the Iraq reconstruction has been marred by poor to nonexistent planning, shoddy and delayed project work, and a failure to properly account for billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money spent there.

In addition to hiring politically connected personnel, there is also the “assault on rationality in decision making” that the Bush administration engaged in as part of its politicization efforts.  These ranged from alterations by the EPA of scientific reports on climate change to opposition by the Food and Drug Administration to the vaccination of young women against the human papillomavirus, the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States.

Moynihan's and Roberts' article might be no more than an interesting discussion of recent history, were it not that they ask the larger question whether the politicized presidency is on the wane or in remission.  The article also started me wondering whether some of the characteristics of politicization may have also spread to the private sector.

In today's highly competitive job market, we hear, for instance, about applicants “dumbing down” their resumes in order to persuade potential employers that they won't leave for higher-level opportunities when the economy improves.  In other words, are employers looking these days–as the Bush administration did a few years ago– for loyalty over expertise and experience?

Both court decisions reject anti-institutional biases of groups and organizations ranging from state vendors to the U.S. Department of Justice.

In the Tennesse case (People First of Tennessee vs. Clover Bottom Developmental Center), a U.S. District Court judge ruled on May 28 that individuals and legal guardians can choose a large Intermediate Care Facility for their wards and loved ones even if professionals have determined that those residents should be transferred to community-based group-home settings.

The case concerns the pending closure of the Clover Bottom Developmental Center in Tennesse and the wish of guardians to move residents there to another ICF.  The DoJ had argued against that right of choice, contending professionals had determined the community system was “more integrated.”

The U.S. District Court decision quoted from the brief of the Parent Guardian Association, which argued that:

Conservators [and guardians] — who have the longest and most meaningful relationship with their loved ones and the greatest investment in their well-being — are in the best position…to assess the risks…of the less protective environment of community settings…and to make an informed decision…to decline community placement.

It would have been nice had the First U.S. Circuit Court in Boston similarly recognized the validity of the Fernald guardians' argument that transferring residents from Fernald would not result in equal or better care for them.

In the California case, a state appellate court ruled on June 22 against a state vendor agency, which was seeking to block admission of Michael, a profoundly developmentally disabled man, to the Sonoma Developmental Center, an ICF.

In 2008, an administrative law judge in California had sided with Michael's parents, who had sought to have him admitted to the Sonoma Center because his existing ICF was slated to close.  However, the admission had been blocked by the San Andreas Regional Center (SARC), a state vendor that contracts to develop individual care plans for California citizens with developmental disabilities.

The administrative law judge stated in her decision that:

…it was evident Michael's family was motivated by their love and devotion to him…[and] given his very severe and significant developmental disabilities and medical issues, a developmental center is the least restrictive and best environment for him…

The administrative law judge's decision was appealed by the state public defender, who was purporting to represent Michael, and who wanted him placed in a community-based group home. (You'd think, given the state budget problems in California, that the public defender's office there would stick to representing defendants in criminal cases.) 

A trial court judge sided with the public defender, and against Michael's parents.  But the appellate court reversed the trial court and described the public defender's appeal as “ostensibly on behalf of Michael but effectively on behalf of SARC (the vendor that had blocked his admission to the Sonoma Center).”

It should be noted that, according to the appellate court decison, Michael has an IQ of 10, is legally blind and is paralyzed in all four limbs.  Nevertheless, the SARC objected to the Sonoma Center because it was “a locked facility where Michael would not be free to leave on his own.” 

Michael's parents and the administrative law judge pointed out that given Michael's level of disability, the relative freedom of the group home proposed for him was irrelevant to him.  Moreover, they argued, unlike the group home, the Sonoma Center would be able to provide 24-hour medical and nursing care, which Michael did need.

We're not legal experts, but we hope these two court decisions do reflect a return to common sense in the care of the developmentally disabled and a recognition of the rights of families and guardians in these very senstive cases.

CITIZENS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ISSUES CONFERENCE: “Taking Back Our Schools: Promoting Equity and Excellence in Public Education.” Rep. Carl Sciortino, Melissa Colon, (Gaston Institute), Jose Lopez (co-chair Boston Coalition for Quality Education, Boston Teacher) and others will speak at CPS’s conference at Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown. Speakers, panels and workshops will address a broad range of issues, including CPS President Ruth Rodriguez Fay on “Countering the Attacks on Public Education,” FairTest’s Monty Neill on “Federal Standardized Tests. Dangers? Opportunities?” as well as “Social Pressures on Public Schools.” Workshops will address MCAS reform, privatization and profiteering, budget cuts and addressing the achievement/opportunity to learn gaps. CPS is an organization of parents, teachers, students and other citizens whose mission is to promote, preserve and protect public schools and public education. Find out more and register on the CPS web site. (Saturday, Oct. 16, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Bunker Hill Community College, Lecture Hall C202, 250 New Rutherford Ave., Charlestown)

Lisa Guisbond

Citizens for Public Schools