Gov.-elect Charlie Baker, who ran for office in Massachusetts as a bipartisan policy wonk, is taking a break from his post-election vacation to attend a Republican Governors Association conference in […]
Baker and the RGA
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Back Story
Patrick’s education-policy split personality
When the Boston Globe reported on its front page earlier this month on a brewing backlash against what critics say is an overemphasis on standardized testing in Massachusetts schools, the […]
Posted inEconomy
Patrick, facing shortfall, proposes $329m in cuts
The Patrick administration on Wednesday proposed a series of cuts in state spending to close an estimated $329 million budget gap. The executive branch will absorb nearly $200 million of […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Commuter rail firm hit with $804,000 in fines
Transportation officials on Wednesday hit the state’s commuter rail operator with $804,000 in performance-related fines after just four months on the job. Keolis, the French company that runs commuter rail […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Health Care, State House News Service
Westminster tobacco ban stirs outrage
Don’t even think about prying cigarettes from their cold, dead hands. The right to smoke, or more properly, the right to consume legal products has roiled Westminster for weeks. The […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics
Judge wants O’Brien, Tavares near homes
US District Court Judge William Young, who last week sentenced former Probation commissioner John O’Brien and his top deputy Elizabeth Tavares to surprisingly lenient prison sentences, has endorsed their requests […]
Posted inEducation
Boston Schools shifted school funds to nonprofit
The Boston Finance Commission says the Boston Public Schools rented out school buses and facilities and funneled the proceeds to an affiliated nonprofit that was able to pay for “miscellaneous […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Politics, State House News Service
Panel: End mandatory minimum drug sentences
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE Tackling an issue that could re-emerge in the Legislature over the next two years, a special commission studying the state’s criminal justice system recommended eliminating mandatory […]
Posted inPolitics
Casino cannibalism
Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly voted to uphold the state’s casino gambling law earlier this month. By a margin of 20 percentage points, voters rejected a ballot question that would have repealed […]
Posted inPolitics
Legislative panel urged to probe Probation
Two Republican state representatives are asking the chairman of the House Committee on Post Audit and Oversight to investigate the “rigged hiring system” at the Probation Department and make referrals […]
Posted inPolitics
Galvin orders DPH public records training
Secretary of State William Galvin is ordering officials at the Department of Public Health to attend training sessions on the workings of the Massachusetts Public Records Law. “In the past […]
Posted inPolitics
Will the Warren wing take flight?
Whether it was an effort to tame some of the restive rebellious energy she has helped unleash, to tap into it at a time when the party’s fortunes have hit […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
What’s the matter with Blackstone?
Ten years ago, journalist and historian Thomas Frank published What’s the Matter With Kansas? The book was an exploration of the political transformation of his home state, which had gone […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
PARCC assessment a step forward
This summer my school’s principal and teacher leadership team prioritized projects for the year. At the end of the discussion, we put preparing staff for the Partnership for the Assessment […]
Posted inEconomy
Boston’s PILOT program lagging
three years after the city of Boston launched a concerted effort to convince 49 of its largest nonprofit landholders to voluntarily make payments to the city in lieu of taxes, […]
Posted inHealth Care
More grandparents raising their grandchildren
lori fortin of Athol thought the joys and stresses of raising kids were behind her, but when her daughter got caught in the undertow of opiate addiction, Fortin found herself […]
Posted inPolitics
Probation verdicts to end pensions
When former Probation commissioner John J. O’Brien and two of his top deputies return to court on November 12 for sentencing, they’re not just facing the potential loss of their […]
Posted inHealth Care
Life savers
The diagnosis was a shock to Waxman, in part because she didn’t know much about the disease. Its name conjured up images of needles, drug use, and unprotected sex, but […]
Posted inTransportation
Laying it down, testing it later
TRANSPORTATION AND ENGINEERING officials from across New England gathered at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in June for what was being called an emergency “pavement summit.” The officials had learned a […]
Posted inPolitics
Battling for the urban vote
robert lewis jr. stood on a stage in Dorchester, gripping a podium and firing up the crowd in front of him, hollering, “Isn’t it so great to be with a […]
Posted inEconomy
The man who lied to Worcester
SHORTLY AFTER BUYING the Boston Globe last year, John Henry wrote a 3,000-word essay for the newspaper explaining why he bought it. The purchase wasn’t about profits, Henry explained, it […]
Posted inPolitics
President-in-waiting
IF LIFE HAD taken a different turn, Stan Rosenberg might be an Orthodox Jewish rabbi today. That was his ambition while studying for his bar mitzvah in the early 1960s […]
Posted inPolitics
Guest workers
most of the attention on the immigration bill that is now foundering in Congress is on the 11 million or so immigrants who live in this country without the government’s […]
Posted inEducation
Tracking student migration
a program set up to provide more educational opportunity for New England college students is proving to be a brain gain for some states and a brain drain for others. […]