sponsored by The Boston Foundation
CommonWealth Voices aims to be a beacon of robust discourse, offering a platform for analysis and advocacy on the challenges and aspirations of political life in Massachusetts.
The Boston Foundation is deeply committed to civic leadership, and essential to our work is the exchange of informed opinions. We are proud to partner on a platform that engages such a broad range of demographic and ideological viewpoints.
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We welcome informed commentary about local, state and national public policy. Please include the author’s contact information when submitting.
Family, friend, and neighbor child care providers are essential for families and the economy. State policy should treat them that way.
FFN caregivers are the reason parents can get to work, keep their jobs, and provide for their families. Yet for years, policies shaping Massachusetts’s childcare system have failed to reflect that reality.
A new high school or housing? Here’s how Boston could have both.
Facing shortages of housing and open land in our densest cities, we should not construct a police station, a fire station, a library, or a school without providing opportunities for housing to be constructed above.
An ode to the 71 bus: How ‘familiar strangers’ form a small part of the community we desperately need
The bus will hardly be the solution to the loneliness epidemic. But it can be a small part of it.
Including end-of-course testing in new graduation requirement unlikely to do much good
New test mandates like those in the governor’s proposal are not likely to help our children prepare for satisfying and productive adult lives.
Local wetlands and water resource rules are crucial for affordable housing – not barriers to its construction
While advocating for increased housing supply, we can and must protect our water supplies from pollution and ensure that housing development is accelerated in places and ways that are safe, healthy, and resilient.
I co-authored the Commonwealth’s report on school segregation. Two years later, it’s time for Massachusetts to act.
We need a two-pronged approach: generational investments in urban and Gateway districts to modernize facilities and develop appealing and effective community schools alongside policies and investments designed to make public school district boundaries more porous, including the expansion of inter-district school choice and programs like Metco, as well as the creation of regional magnet schools.
The House’s anti-transparency bill
This bill is not transparency. It is a legislative workaround dressed up as reform.
When it comes to CVS MinuteClinic plan, Massachusetts needs more primary care – but without Mass General Brigham prices
Massachusetts should not have to choose between expanding primary care and protecting affordability.
Ending the requirement that legal ads be published by news outlets would harm democracy and journalism
Legal ads are one leg of a three-legged stool — along with public-records laws and open meetings — ensuring government transparency.
Lack of contested legislative races and overflow of ballot questions reflect democracy in decline
The many ballot questions but few contested legislative races is less a study in contrasts than a snapshot of correlates.
SJC should let tax-cut question stay on the ballot
The court’s role is only to determine whether the ballot summary fairly explains the proposal. Under both common sense and longstanding court precedent, it plainly does.
Congress must act now on AI
No federal agency has clear authority to step in when something goes wrong. While some have argued there is still plenty of time for Congress to act, I would say, look around.
Dual language immersion programs are a huge asset to our schools. The state should stop treating them as an afterthought.
Every spring, the state celebrates high school graduates who receive the Seal of Biliteracy, while failing to build the dual language programs that would make bilingualism truly accessible to far more students.
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