Thoughtful CommonWealth Beacon opinion pieces offered a stark contrast to a year of oxygen-sucking pronouncements by a president whose coarsening of public debate commanded nearly nonstop headlines.
Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas works with Laura in overseeing CommonWealth Beacon coverage and editing the work of reporters. His own reporting has a particular focus on politics, education, and criminal justice reform.
Posted inCommonWealth Voices
The Red-Blue Connector: A half-mile of subway that benefits an entire region
How long is too long to wait for all subway lines on the MBTA to be connected?
100 years?
This December, it will be 101 years since the Boston Globe first reported on the idea to connect the MBTA’s Red and Blue lines, noting that riders “using either the East Boston Tunnel [the Blue Line] or the Cambridge Subway [the Red Line] could change cars at Charles St, instead of transferring at Scollay Square and Park Street, the most congested parts of the whole system … This would have a distinct tendency to remove this congestion and would therefore be a highly desirable end in itself.”
A century later, the Globe’s description remains accurate: the Red and Blue lines remain the only two subway lines on the T that do not connect. Riders must make two zigzag transfers, using the Green or Orange lines, to travel between them. Not only is it inconvenient for riders, it also increases congestion and decreases capacity at Park Street and Government Center. These pressures on system capacity will only worsen with time.
Posted inPolitics
Competitive mayoral races abound, just not in Boston
For the real bare-knuckle action in mayoral contests these days, you need to look outside the state’s capital city, where incumbents don’t just often face serious challenges, but lose with some regularity.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Why elect sheriffs anyway?
The governor appoints a corrections professional to oversee state prisons. So why do we elect people who are essentially regional correctional commissioners, with voters often having little basis to evaluate whether they’re doing a good job or not?
Posted inArts and Culture
Ali Noorani tapped as new Barr Foundation president
Noorani will succeed Jim Canales, the foundation’s longtime president who announced in January that he planned to step down after 11 years in the role.
Posted inPolitics
Galvin pursuing ballot question on same-day voter registration
Galvin understands the ideal often put forth that lawmaking is best done through the give and take of legislative deliberation. But he also knows the difference between thoughtful deliberation and bill-killing delay tactics.
Posted inBallot Questions
Remove restrictions that limit more housing? Rein in rents? Voters may face dueling ballot questions advancing competing ideas.
Housing advocates often fall into two camps, offering very different solutions to the housing crisis.
Posted inPolitics
Kraft 2.0 looks a lot like the first version
Boston mayoral challenger Josh Kraft is looking to recharge his struggling campaign, but it’s not clear how a speech he delivered on Sunday does much to juice his candidacy.
Posted inEducation
Harvard, MIT face steep endowment tax under Trump bill
“We’re witnessing a political broadside, not sensible policymaking,” Wellesley College economics professor Peter Levine wrote of the huge hike in the endowment tax.
Posted inEducation
As Holyoke schools exit state oversight, new scrutiny for receivership law
State takeovers have been employed during the recent era of education reform aimed at closing the achievement gap separating lower-income students and students of color from their better-off, white peers. But the evidence supporting the moves has been decidedly underwhelming.
Posted inArts and Culture
New Bedford building poised to rise as artist space — again
In 2023, efforts to harness arts and culture as part of New Bedford’s economic revitalization strategy were dealt a blindsiding blow. Two years later, it looks as if all’s well that ends well.
Posted inCriminal Justice
Boston stays the course, despite Trump yanking violence prevention grants
While the city plans to deploy more than $5 million to youth public safety efforts, and the state funds a robust set of programs aimed at at-risk youth and violence prevention, the US Department of Justice under President Trump has concluded that such programs no longer further “program goals or agency priorities.”
Posted inEducation
State board approves lottery admissions for vocational high schools
In the end, no one seems entirely happy with the outcome, and in the messy give and take of democratic decision-making that’s often hailed as a sign that the system is working.
Posted inEducation
Senate stays out of vocational admissions debate – for now
A Beacon Hill showdown over vocational high school admissions policies is looming, as the Senate did not follow the House lead in including language to block changes to vocational school admission policies in its budget proposal.
Posted inEducation
House leader looks to put brakes on vocational school admission changes
A top House leader is looking to upend the years-long process to adopt new admissions policies governing the state’s vocational high schools.
Posted inEducation
Push for the ‘right to read’ landing at State House
Just 42 percent of 3rd grade students were proficient in English on the 2024 MCAS. The numbers are far worse for student groups on the bottom end of the state’s yawning achievement gap. Only 24 percent of low-income 3rd graders are proficient in reading, and only 27 percent of Black students and 22 percent of Latinos are reading at grade level.
Posted inEducation
Mass. education secretary’s votes reflect growing Democratic hostility toward charter schools
Growing Democratic opposition to charter schools was cast in sharp relief at February’s state education board meeting, where Gov. Maura Healey’s education secretary, Patrick Tutwiler, voted against all five proposals for expansion of charter schools.
Posted inPolitics
Kitty Dukakis, a champion for the dispossessed who spoke openly of her struggles with depression and addiction, dies at 88
Kitty Dukakis was a prominent presence throughout her husband’s public life, which included a record-setting 12 years as governor and serving as the Democratic nominee for president in 1988.
Posted inEducation
Voc-tech admissions saga zigzags toward finish line
A nearly decade-long debate over admission policies at the state’s vocational high schools seems to be nearing a conclusion, but it’s been a tortured path and there is plenty of discontent with the likely outcome on both sides.
Posted inEducation
Mass. education secretary casts string of anti-charter school votes
In one vote after another, Massachusetts Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler turned thumbs down on recommendations from the state’s acting education commissioner to allow expansion of five Massachusetts charter schools and to modify the area served by a sixth one.
Posted inEconomy
Boston office tower going on the auction block
In the biggest sign yet of persistent trouble in Boston’s commercial real estate market, a 36-story office tower that boasts more than 1 million square feet of prime class A office space is heading for auction.
Posted inHealth Care
Mass. ‘eds and meds’ sector in the cross hairs
Greater Boston’s acclaimed universities, hospitals, and affiliated research institutions are the fuel that has made the region a juggernaut of the 21st century knowledge economy. Now they are making it a target.
Posted inEducation
National scores show Mass. students leading – with big asterisks
Massachusetts 4th and 8th grade students placed first in the nation in math and reading, but that doesn’t change the fact that our scores have been sliding for years.
Posted inEducation
State graduation requirement a muddled mess
Massachusetts students no longer have to pass 10th grade MCAS tests in English, math, and science to graduate from high school. But determining exactly what they do need to do to secure a diploma is proving to be a high-stakes test of its own for state officials.