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.
The answer to the school desegregation lawsuit? Revive urban communities.
This long-overdue school desegregation lawsuit may provide the push we need to change the conversation from cross-district enrollment to place-based revitalization of urban neighborhoods.
Mass. environmentalists have lost the plot on energy affordability
People can want offshore wind, solar, storage, hydro, geothermal, efficiency, and new technology – while also supporting natural gas as an affordable and reliable bridge to that transition.
Massachusetts must stop separating siblings in foster care
IN NOVEMBER 2024, when I launched Kicking It Together, a soccer program for kids in foster care, I hoped it would be a fun, recreational outlet for children going through an incredibly challenging experience. For two participants, however, it was much more than that: biological brothers Jackson and Chris had been separated into different foster homes, and as I soon discovered, my weekly clinic was the only time they got to see each other. At each session, they would sprint over to the field and begin playing together. After the session ended, Jackson would pull out Go Fish and other…
What does $1.7 billion get you in the Boston Public Schools? Abysmal student achievement and declining results.
A majority of Boston students are unable to read or do math at grade level. In a district spending $1.7 billion a year, it should be unconscionable to rest on good intentions without the ability to show real results.
Massachusetts should join the 43 states that allow psychologists to provide telehealth therapy across state lines
Competing priorities and legislative inertia are the only reasons Massachusetts has not caught up to the other states that have already taken this step to enhance access and continuity of behavioral health care.
Hampshire College, as we know it, is closing. We still think it has a future.
The question is no longer whether Hampshire’s existing financial model is viable—it is not—but whether what remains can be guided through a structured transition rather than resolved through rapid liquidation.
The Health Policy Commission is concerned about health care costs — but powerless to do much about it
It was created in 2012 as part of legislation aimed at containing health care costs, but not vested with much authority.
Voting Rights Act ruling can harm belief in fair representation, even in bluest states like Massachusetts
Civic participation is shaped as much by trust as it is by policy. That’s why leadership at the state level must be proactive, visible, and unequivocal in the face of federal rulings that set us back.Â
Norwood Hospital was done in by inadequate state regulations. Here is the fix.
Massachusetts has shown it knows how to prevent the next Norwood-like crisis. The question is whether it will build the tools to help the communities already living through one.
In Boston police shooting and LaGuardia tragedy, strikingly different approaches to the ‘decisive moment’
If we learn to look, every “decisive moment” can teach us what came before it, what lay beneath it, and what we can do beyond it to prevent recurrence.
In charging Boston police officer with manslaughter, Suffolk DA ignored broader framing mandated by US Supreme Court
Under the Constitution, the question is not whether the officer was ultimately right. The question is whether a reasonable officer, confronted with the same tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving circumstances, could have perceived an immediate threat and responded in this way.
I want statues of saints at my church, not at my police station
Installing two larger-than-life Christian saints to loom over the entrance of our public safety building sends a clear message to non-Christians.
AI is coming to schools. Teachers need time to debate its use, experiment, and figure out how it fits in
THERE’S A CERTAIN feeling right before summer camp ends. It’s the feeling that through the new friendships, conversations, and activities, you’ve met a revised and better version of yourself. You’re wondering how you’re going to take this self back to your “real life.” Right now, in my professional career, I have that feeling, as if summer camp is drawing to an end.  In education, we might understand this feeling through “transformative learning theory.” Often applied to adult learning and associated with sociologist Jack Merizow, the premise of this theory is that transformative learning happens through expanding one’s knowledge base, critiquing…
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