Top posts of 2016

This was a fairly crazy year in blogging for me:I changed positions, we had a ballot question to fight, the state budget had a sudden dive from conference committee, Diane Ravitch linked to my posts twice, and Worcester got a new superintendent. I don't tend to pay a lot of attention to my analytics, as I have some fairly discrete groups of readers (not everyone follows Worcester schools, but those who do don't necessarily follow state budget news, and not everyone reads state board posts), so the numbers go up and down a lot based on content, but a check-in here is interesting, in what overall gets read.

As per always, the top hit, far and away, is the front page. There are plenty of you to pop through regularly just to see what's here. Thanks to you! You're the reason I feel I need to keep making sure new things come up here.

Specific posts, in order, are:

1. "Here Come the 9C cuts" from December 6. Halfway through the fiscal year, Governor Baker took $98 million out of the FY17 budget, and did so in a way that recreated his vetos, rather than reevaluated budgetary lines. 
2. "The Senate Passed Amendment 196" from May 27. Amendment 196 to the Senate budget barred the use of student performance data in teacher evaluation. This has now led to this being before the Board of Education, so, while the Senate amendment didn't make it out of conference committee, it may happen, anyway.
3. "Foundation what?" from February 29. A foundation budget explainer, motivated in part by my MASC work, which I probably should have done a long time ago. This one may need its own page.
4. "Interview for Special Education Director: Ronald Sinico" from October 28, 2012. Huh??  This is a great example of my not paying attention to analytics: last October, Mr. Sinico (now retired) ran for town supervisor in North Greenbush, NY; he lost the election, but in August, he raised questions about the property tax bill of the man who won. If you google Mr. Sinico's name, one of the first things that comes up...is my notes from this interview. Clicking through is not entirely surprising; what surprises me is that most of them appear (by time spent) to have actually read it!
5. "RISE and Shine!" from March 31. This took apart what actually was in the Senate's RISE Act.
6. "The Debate of the RISE Act in the Senate" from April 7. A long day on a decent bill that deserved much more consideration than it got.
7. "Here's the Answer of What's in the Question" from September 21. A response to those who throughout the Question 2 campaign kept saying it would only hit nine districts and etc, which totally wasn't true.
8. "Voting for Savage Inequalities" from October 7. A response to the suburban guilt arguments on Question 2.
9. "No, This Isn't What One Would Expect for Worcester Finalists" from March 7. Responding directly to the many who asked for some perspective on the Worcester superintendent finalists. 
10. And, bringing us full circle, "Governor Baker's FY17 Budget" from January 28. I'll do FY18 in a few weeks.

With much discussion of the foundation budget for this coming year--heck, it even made the State House News Service's list of things to watch for this session!--plus another budget from the Governor, who is less than popular with many in the Legislature now, the state moving ahead with an ESSA submission, and who knows what coming on the federal level, there'll be no lack of things to blog about! 

Happy 2017! Thanks for reading!