Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Getting Power Back: Court Restoration Of Executive Authority In Boston City Government, Marcy M. Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article chronicles some of the events that occurred when a state and a federal court attempted to disengage from active jurisdiction over two Boston public systems: the public schools and the Boston Housing Authority (BHA). It makes three proposals which, if enacted, would help to keep the courts out of day-to-day management of municipal operations. It also makes some generalizations about the court-agency interplay which are relevant to the postremedial phase of institutional reform litigation. The author uses the term restorative law to describe this court-controlled process of returning power to the executive branch.

Urban Public Services: What The Future Holds, Robert Morris

New England Journal of Public Policy

Health and welfare are usually considered secondary or peripheral concerns of modern society. The article considers how questions about the provision of social welfare are imbedded in the economic, social, moral, and political fabric of contemporary America and New England. Underlying trends of economic, social, and attitudinal change are outlined, and implications for the future are considered. The article also considers the role of universities in equipping the next generation of citizens to cope more effectively with the complex issues that are forcing a restructuring of urban services.

Teaching--From Occupation To Profession: A Response, Robert S. Peterkin

New England Journal of Public Policy

Educational reform must go beyond a restructuring of the teaching occupation. A realistic approach would include strengthening the principalship, reestablishing the primacy of education as the focus of public schools, improving the physical plant, increasing parental participation in the decision-making process, and aligning schools with the external communities — especially the business and university communities.

Book Reviews: The Endangered Metropolis, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

Reviews of books by Anne Whiston Spirn, Jane Jacobs, George Gallup, Jr., Gary Gappert, and Richard V. Knight.

What all of these books have in common is the futuristic glimpse they give us into urban life in the twenty-first century. In approaching such a milestone, one can be either an optimist or a pessimist. These authors present a balanced mixture; they bring tidings of good news and bad news. As one of them aptly puts it: "In the present lies not only the nightmare of what the city will become if current trends continue, but also the dream of what …

Teaching--From Occupation To Profession: The Sine Qua Non Of Educational Reform, Bernard R. Gifford

New England Journal of Public Policy

Many problems have been blamed for the crisis in public education. This article argues that the teaching occupation as it currently exists is one problem whose solution promises to yield significant consequences in terms of pupil learning. That solution, according to the author, is to restructure the teaching occupation to bring about a greater appreciation of and respect for teaching as a high-level activity that supports self-evaluative behavior — a professional consciousness that encourages teachers to see themselves as evolving practitioners capable of learning from errors, rather than as nonreflective paraprofessionals armed with a set of error-proof teaching methods applicable …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Central to the evolution of public policy, since all subsequent processes flow from it, is the question of problem identification — or, more broadly, the question of definition. The importance of definition derives not only from the need to address the "right" problem but from the often greater need not to address the "wrong" one, since the subsequent misallocation of resources can alter the nature of the problem itself. More is not always better, whether in reference to federal largesse, nuclear power generating capacity, or the length of the school day. In fact, as the articles in this issue of …

Fiscal Paternalism And New England Cities: A Policy For The Year 2000, Mark S. Ferber, Elizabeth A. Ferber

New England Journal of Public Policy

The following commentary explores the future of urban public finance by focusing on the fiscal ills of New England's major cities. The impact of general revenue sharing, categorical grants, federal tax policy, state aid, and own-source city revenues is assessed in light of a city's ability to support itself. The authors conclude that a pattern of "fiscal paternalism" — the past and present policies for annual financial assistance to narrow the expenditure-revenue budget gap — must be altered if cities are to enter the twenty-first century as fiscally stable governments capable of providing the necessary services for a varied constituency.

Dismal Science Meets Dismal Subject: The (Mal)Practice Of Nuclear Power Economics, Charles Komanoff

New England Journal of Public Policy

Electric utilities, reactor designers and builders, and the federal government have badly underestimated the costs of new nuclear power plants over the past fifteen years. Although not all of the increases were readily predictable, particularly those caused by rapid general inflation, nuclear advocates failed to foresee most of the sixfold growth in real costs resulting from new reactors' greater complexity, scope, and regulatory surveillance.

This review recounts the methods used by nuclear power proponents to convince policymakers, the public, and themselves that new nuclear plants would be competitive with other energy sources, long after conclusive contrary evidence was available. It …

The New England Economic Revitalization And Future Research Priorities, James M. Howell

New England Journal of Public Policy

New England's recent economic revitalization is largely attributed to the region's success in technological innovation and adaptation. This capacity to supplant older, maturing technologies with new technologies — a willingness to continually shed the old to make room for the new — has been a characteristic of New England since the early nineteenth century. At that time, as today, the critical factors in the process of technological development were the presence of investment capital, skilled labor, entrepreneurs, and, above all, preeminent colleges and universities that foster unconventional thinking and risk-taking. While the region's economy should continue to benefit from these …

Seabrook: A Case Study In Mismanagement, Irvin C. Bupp

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Seabrook nuclear power plant construction project is an unqualified financial disaster. It simultaneously threatens its chief owner, the Public Service Co. of New Hampshire (PSNH) with bankruptcy and the company's electricity customers with huge rate increases. The fifteen-year history of the project is reviewed to identify "what went wrong?"

The review suggests that the basic problem has been mismanagement by both PSNH and by government regulators. A three-year regulatory imbroglio over the environmental effects of the plant's cooling system was extremely costly in the mid-1970s.

By the time this problem was belatedly resolved, the project had begun to outstrip …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Over the years, public policy issues have proliferated, and with proliferation has come the inevitable specialization. The result: fragmentation of effort and problems of communication not only between those who make policy and those who implement it, but between practitioners in general and the academic and research disciplines that complement them. Public policy constituencies have created their own languages, but too often the result is a confusion of tongues rather than a profusion of ideas.

The New England Journal of Public Policy is designed to create a profusion of ideas by providing a medium for practitioners, policy analysts, and academics …

The Demography Of New England: Policy Issues For The Balance Of This Century, George S. Masnick

New England Journal of Public Policy

New England's rapidly aging population, its traditionally low fertility rate, and the fact that net migration from other regions and abroad should continue to be close to zero means that only very slow population growth will characterize the region for the balance of this century. Nevertheless, New England's demographic metabolism is exceptionally dynamic: (1) the numbers of different age groups are growing at very different rates; (2) a redistribution of population is occurring from the southern to northern tier states; (3) within each state population is dispersing into non-metropolitan areas; and (4) metropolitan areas, both central and suburban, are quickly …

Public Education In Boston, Joseph M. Cronin

New England Journal of Public Policy

Historically, Boston schools have been a source of pride and educational innovation, yet they have also been fraught with problems that are typical of urban education. Both the success achieved and the problems encountered in Boston schools bear analysis. In looking at such areas as overall quality of education, funding, and compliance with federal guidelines, specific recommendations for the future of public education in Boston can be offered. In addition, the impact of Boston's success or failure in implementing new ideas through the school committee and the mayor is not limited to the city itself. This article' s outlining of …