AMID GROWING CONCERNS over violence in Boston schools, a new poll finds that more than two-thirds of parents of Boston Public Schools students are worried about their children’s safety in school and three-quarters would support a return of police to the city’s schools. The survey, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group for the Shah Family Foundation, […]
Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas works with Bruce 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.
Michael has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His story on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. His CommonWealth work has also won awards from Capitol Beat for state government coverage and from the New England Newspaper & Press Association for work in several areas.
Prior to coming to CommonWealth, for 15 years Michael wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Globe. Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In the late 1980s he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for a weekly news magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.
Posted inEducation
$10m donation to Holyoke Community College sets record, challenges norms
TO PEG AND GARY WENDLANDT, it’s a simple matter of doing good after doing well. But in the world of higher education philanthropy, last week’s announcement that the couple are giving $10 million to Holyoke Community College stands out as an uncommon example of donor generosity targeted to the kind of institution that needs it […]
Posted inPolitics
In Boston race for open state rep seat, a field of 1
IT’S BECOME A dismal, recurring storyline underscoring the state’s political torpor: Massachusetts is among the least competitive states in the country when it comes to elections for state legislative seats. The electoral malaise is often framed as a function of the lack of challengers to entrenched incumbents. But a special election for state representative playing […]
Posted inEducation
Polls apart on teacher strike issue
LEGALIZING TEACHER STRIKES in Massachusetts has become a contentious topic following a spate of illegal walkouts in local districts and a push by the state’s teachers unions to change state law and allow educators to take to the picket line. What does the public think about the issue? That seems to depend on how you ask. […]
Posted inRace/Racism
Mel King remembered as ‘humble and generous humanist’ for justice
MEL KING was remembered Tuesday as a champion for justice who had a global vision of a better world that was shaped profoundly by the very local wrongs he saw people face in the South End neighborhood of Boston where he was born and lived almost all of his 94 years. Perhaps the most influential […]
Posted inEconomy
Greater Boston’s Black population becoming more diverse, dispersed
WHEN THE PRESIDENT of Cape Verde visited Massachusetts earlier this week, after meeting with Gov. Maura Healey at the State House, his big public appearance didn’t come in Boston but at Brockton High School, where President José Maria Neves got a rock star welcome when he spoke at the school auditorium. It’s no wonder why: About […]
Posted inPolitics
For Ed Flynn, awkward roles of race healer and redistricting foe
WHEN WILLIAM FAULKNER famously observed that “the past is never dead, it isn’t even past,” he wasn’t referring to Boston’s troubled history on matters of race – but he might as well have been. In the midst of the city reflecting on the life of Mel King – framed by the idea that his historic run […]
Posted inPolitics
Mel King: A singular Boston sensation
MEL KING looms as the iconic figure above all others of Black Boston’s last 50 years, but it’s not because he fit any archetypal picture of an outspoken activist or outsized political figure – though he was both. King was sui generis, making a huge mark across decades of Boston history while cutting a profile […]
Posted inPolitics, State Government
Mariano to DiZoglio: pound sand
IN A SHARPLY WORDED letter, Speaker Ron Mariano told state Auditor Diana DiZoglio her plan to audit the House of Representatives is “entirely without legal support or precedent” and that he has no intention of cooperating with it. In his letter, which the speaker’s office released at noon on Friday, Mariano tells DiZoglio that her […]
Posted inEducation
Union urges teachers and students to ‘opt out’ of MCAS
THE DEBATE OVER standardized testing has sometimes come to feel like a battle of biblical proportions, so perhaps Deb McCarthy’s word choice is no accident. “In the beginning, I was definitely an avid supporter,” she said. “I was known as the MCAS guru in my building.” To say McCarthy has undergone something of a conversion […]