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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Massachusetts began the Revolution. We should lead the way in showing how to live up to its ideals.
Time and again this Commonwealth has demonstrated that progress begins when people are willing to challenge the status quo.
Honoring America’s promise by reading Frederick Douglass
In one of the greatest statements on American history ever written, Douglass demands that the country live up to the promises of 1776.
Massachusetts is failing to keep kids safe online. It can start by criminalizing AI-generated child pornography
THE GREATEST THREATS to children’s safety are no longer confined to dark alleys or strangers cruising in vans. They are embedded in the digital spaces children enter every day — on phones, gaming platforms, social media, and increasingly through artificial intelligence capable of generating child sexual abuse material. Predators now have unprecedented, real-time access to children. The digital landscape has never been more dangerous for young people or difficult for parents to navigate. The online targeting and exploitation of children is far from isolated, exacerbated by the fast pace at which emerging AI technology is becoming more publicly accessible. Just…
Why generic AI policies won’t protect students from AI sexual exploitation
When technology is used to fabricate sexual images of children, the response cannot be a vague AI policy, a delayed committee review, or a scramble after the images have already spread. It has to be immediate, concrete, and centered on protection: preserve the evidence, support the targeted student, notify families, stop the circulation, and hold those responsible to account.
We are shortchanging rural schools and the students they educate
An overhaul of the state’s approach to funding rural school districts is desperately needed in order to provide their students with the education they deserve.
$1.25 billion available for students. Why would Massachusetts say no?
Massachusetts Democrats do not need to embrace Donald Trump’s education vision to recognize an opportunity when they see one.
Massachusetts is a leader in public education — but not for students with disabilities
Those navigating the state’s special education complaint process often describe experiences marked by lengthy delays, procedural obstacles, limited remedies, and a growing perception that the system is more responsive to institutional interests than to the needs of children.
DiZoglio’s campaign to audit the Legislature is fueled by misinformation, political ambition, and personal attacks
There has been no better example in Massachusetts politics of the chasm that exists between what is actually true, and what the loudest voices are willing to say for their own personal gain, than the legislative audit spectacle.
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.
Congress shouldn’t block Massachusetts from protecting workers from AI
AS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE races forward with lightning speed, Congress is scrambling to catch up. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have proposed various bills to address the growing dangers of AI. The latest attempt comes from Massachusetts Rep. Lori Trahan, who is proposing a bill that would block states, including Massachusetts, from legislating protections against AI-related harms. With workers at the center of the greatest technological transformation of the modern era, this is a bad deal for Massachusetts workers and communities already fighting for greater economic opportunity and racial equity. Companies today are already using AI tools…
Don’t ban data centers. Build better rules.
Through policies rooted in transparency, stewardship, and innovation, Massachusetts can open the door to right-sized, smartly sited data centers.
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.
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