EACH SPRING, THE Boston Globe salutes the city’s valedictorians by publishing photographs of the top-achieving student in each of Boston’s 40 public high schools and describing their college plans. Many of […]
Left behind
Posted inEconomy
A have and have-not world
carol meyrowitz started her climb up the corporate ladder at Framingham-based TJX Corp. in 1983. Today, nearly 30 years later, she runs a $22 billion retailing giant whose off-price strategy […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Politics
What happens when a community loses its newspaper?
Holyoke City Hall, looking up Dwight StreetFor days, hundreds of callers speaking in the hushed tones more commonly reserved for funeral parlors queried switchboard operators inside the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram: […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Silent crisis
Gov. Deval Patrick issued a press release in September announcing seven new appointees to the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees. The release contained all the basics: their names, their […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Dialing for dollars
training high school journalists wasn’t the first order of business for Joe Bergantino when he launched the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University. But as it became […]
Posted inPolitics
Court rejects Parente pension claim
A state appeals court has rejected a bid by a former lawmaker who sought to increase the value of her pension by counting her monthly walking-around stipend and per diem […]
Posted inEducation
Learning curve
FOR MOST OF the 20th century, America truly was the land of opportunity. The nation emerged as the world’s dominant economic superpower, and the prosperity that resulted was widely shared. […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
The good news about news
where there are people, there’s news. And where there’s news, there are journalists. Why? Because we have learned that when professionals make it their business to look at the world […]
Posted inPolitics
A novel idea
tripp jones traces most of his career path, including the founding of MassINC 15 years ago, to a chance meeting in Washington, DC, in 1986. At the time, Jones was […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
The politics of extremism
was there ever a generation luckier than mine? Born in 1942, I have no memories of the horrors of World War II. But I have clear recollections of the way […]
Posted inEnvironment, The Download
Beacon Power-less: Another clean energy mess
With the demise of Beacon Power, Massachusetts has the dubious distinction of steering scarce state dollars to not one, but two, failed clean energy companies, firms that also pulled in […]
Posted inPolitics
Judge returns O’Brien “statements”
A correction has been added to the story regarding Judge Carol Ball’s involvement in another case.The judge in the cases against former Probation Commissioner John O’Brien and a one-time top […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Election apathy hinges on pride
Does anybody care that elections for mayor, school committee, and city council in Worcester are next week? Alas, most people probably don’t, and it’s very unclear what can be done […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Mass. scores high but reading a concern
The results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress were announced yesterday and, once again, Massachusetts topped the country in fourth-grade reading. Yet only half of the Commonwealth’s fourth […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Odds improving for online poker?
Two Las Vegas gambling powerhouses, MGM Resorts and Boyd Gaming, are betting that Congress will legalize online poker — a development that could have deep ramifications for the casino gambling […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
It’s cozy inside
In this world of harsh economic conditions and political divisiveness we all need some coziness. Fortunately, the worlds of politics and business provide us with many suitable examples of how, […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
The folly of a (slightly) longer school day
The effort by Boston school administrators to add a half-hour to the school day looks a lot like the Obama economic stimulus plan — only possibly much less effective. Some […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
The lost decade
the past decade in both the United States and Massachusetts has been referred to as a “Lost Decade” for the economy and especially its workers. Nationally, the Gross Domestic Product […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Compromise is cheaper
Bitter enemies are suddenly finding common ground on Beacon Hill. First, supermarkets and package stores endorsed legislation that would allow food stores to purchase more liquor licenses. Then insurance agents […]
Posted inPolitics
Agency spends big to fight severance
With the case only in the deposition stage, a quasi-public Massachusetts authority says it has already spent $240,000 on legal fees fighting a $562,000 severance payment claimed by former employee […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Winn pleads guilty to 2 misdemeanors
The prominent Boston developer Arthur Winn is pleading guilty to a pair of misdemeanor campaign finance violations, and a development company formerly headed by Winn agreed to pay a $1.5 […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics, The Back Story
Municipal health care reform taking hold
The municipal health care reform law is slowly starting to have an impact. Several early-adopter communities have used the law – or the leverage the law provides – to shave […]
Posted inEnvironment
Clean energy official a Big Oil investor
The Massachusetts official overseeing most of the state’s clean energy investments has a personal portfolio that includes stock holdings in many non-clean energy businesses. The 2010 ethics filing of Patrick Cloney, […]
Posted inOpinion, Uncategorized
The Constitution’s road map
Congress wasn’t intentionally setting out to write a Strategic Plan for the United States, but that’s what the Founding Fathers did in the preamble to the Constitution, only they didn’t […]