As the senatorial candidates traded jabs over their positions on abortion restrictions, the current holder of the seat they all want, Sen. Paul Kirk, hopes the terms in the Stupak […]
Kirk on the abortion flap
Posted inEducation, The Download
Ed bill packs a punch, but
The legislation released last week by Beacon Hill's education committee approved yesterday by the state Senate was labeled the "Education Reform Act of 2009." That's pretty grand language to live […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Appeals court investigates term paper writer
By Colman Herman The Massachusetts Appeals Court is investigating a report by CommonWealth magazine that a senior staff attorney working for the court ran a side business writing term papers […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Campus hate speech
Nearly everyone condemns the scheduled appearance tomorrow by convicted terror bomber Raymond Luc Levasseur at UMass-Amherst. But the efforts by Gov. Deval Patrick and UMass President Jack Wilson to stop […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download, Transportation
No backing off the Green Line extension
If state leaders have to back off any transit projects, the Green Line extension won’t be one of them. Secretary of Transportation Jeffrey Mullan again reaffirmed support for the project […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Daniel Grabauskas
Daniel Grabauskas is the inaugural senior fellow for public policy at MassINC. Grabauskas brings two decades of public sector management experience spanning five administrations to this transitional appointment. Most recently […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Ted Sizer
Ted Sizer, the noted education thinker who died last month, was known nationally as founder of the Essential Schools movement, but made his biggest mark here in Massachusetts. His ideas […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Maryland’s “carrot” approach to smart growth gets failing grade
Right before Gov. Deval Patrick took office, Harvard University's David Luberoff gave him some advice about "smart growth" policies in the pages of CommonWealth. Luberoff posed a simple question:…should Massachusetts […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Boston City Council race: 4 were elected, but 5 had strong bases
Matt O'Malley has his typically smart rundown on the ward-by-ward results for the Boston City Council race on Tuesday. He notes that the candidates elected to the four at-large seats […]
Posted inThe Download, Transportation
Grabauskas on the D’Alessandro Report: It goes beyond the news that “the T is still broke”
By Daniel Grabauskas Tasking business executive David D’Alessandro to determine if the MBTA’s financial situation is still dire is a lot like asking someone 25 years ago to confirm that […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Economy, The Download
Will creativity gild the road to growth in Gateway City economies?
At a recent roundtable with leaders from across the state, we learned how Massachusetts discovered the value in “creative economy” economic development well before Richard Florida popularized the concept with […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download, Transportation
An inconvenient truth: Fixing the MBTA’s problems costs $$$
So many problems, so little money. Few people understand, much less want to wrestle with, the MBTA’s financial morass. That’s why safety issues captured the headlines with this week’s release […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
An election result you’ll be hearing about for the rest of your life
Assuming the results hold up, yesterday's election in Barnstable will be trotted out for years to come in "why you should vote" editorials. The Cape Cod Times reports that an […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Warning sign for the “Menino in 2021” campaign
The Berkshire Eagle reports on the upset at the opposite end of the state:After an historic 26-year reign, John Barrett III — the state's longest serving mayor — has lost […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
A Corzine warning to Patrick?
According to State House News Service (subscription required), Gov. Deval Patrick was on the radio this morning saying there is "no comparison" between yesterday's New Jersey/Virginia gubernatorial elections (both won […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Flaherty as change agent a shaky idea from the start
If there was a path to upset victory in yesterday's Boston mayoral race, it was never going to run through Michael Flaherty's "Good/Better" campaign, which always seemed to suggest that […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
No treats at Deval’s Milton house
A state trooper turned away trick or treaters outside Gov. Deval Patrick's home in Milton on Halloween night even though no one appeared to be home. The governor's home is […]
Posted inHealth Care, The Download
US should emulate Bay State health care reform, says MIT’s Gruber
Via Ezra Klein, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber (subject of a CommonWealth Conversation in 2007) says that the Massachusetts health care reform law suggests that national reform can lower insurance premiums:The […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download, Transportation
All aboard for MassDOT
"This is new, and anything new draws critics." Ever mindful of the less-than-stellar reception his picks for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation board of directors received on Beacon Hill and […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
Bay State sheriff defends his right to bill inmates
The Standard-Times reports on Supreme Judicial Court arguments around Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson's practice of charging inmates $5 a day for his hospitality. Lawyers for a prisoners' rights group […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download, Uncategorized
Harvard panel, Boston police chief Davis discuss the Gates controversy
That human beings profile one another isn’t surprising. But when certain social, class, and cultural norms and values collide during confrontations between police and civilians, those instincts sometimes take on […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
An ethics dilemma: Do as I do or do as I say?
What would be the official reaction if someone had a court date for a speeding ticket but showed up a couple days later, maybe as much as three weeks after […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
It’s the teachers, stupid
Our cover story in the new issue of CommonWealth explores the outmoded, industrial-model teacher policies that are holding our schools back. It is increasingly clear that teachers are the key […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
School facts not friendly to Menino, but that’s not the biggest problem
The troubled state of the Boston public schools is Mayor Tom Menino’s Achilles’ heel. The woeful performance of the schools has surfaced over and over during the mayoral campaign, including […]