Dear Gov. Romney: First of all, thank you. Your willingness to confront the dual crises of health access and affordability has enhanced prospects for reform. We may now be on […]
Counterpoints
Posted inHealth Care
Argument
The stars and moon may be aligning, making this the year to fix health care. Employers and employees are finally balking at the high and rising cost of health insurance. […]
Posted inEducation
MCAS hasnt erased the need for remedial classes in community colleges
INTRO TEXT More than a decade after the Education Reform Act, and two years since passing MCAS became a graduation requirement for high school students, few of the grim prophecies […]
Posted inEducation, Politics
Harvard students help Somerville revamp its budgeting process
INTRO TEXT It was an unlikely scene last fall, as 60 students from a graduate course on budgeting at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government descended on Somerville City […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Economy
Civilian firefighters battle for benefits
INTRO TEXT In the day that 31-year-old Martin McNamara died in the basement of a Lancaster apartment blaze, few people on Beacon Hill gave much thought to what happens to […]
Posted inPolitics
A walk through four centuries of Boston politics
SADLY BOSTON’S DUCK Â Tours do not pass what former House speaker Thomas Finneran is said to have called “the best goddam bar in the world.” To find such landmarks, it […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
The courage of their convictions
Eight years ago, Donnell Johnson’s fate seemed to be sealed. He was convicted for the Halloween 1994 murder of a 9-year-old boy, then the youngest shooting victim in the history […]
Posted inPolitics
Meeting him halfway
Recently, as I contemplated Massachusetts politics, my mind turned to physics. Since science was never my strong suit, this is by no means a common occurrence. But it crossed my […]
Posted inPolitics
Great expectations
Just over two years ago, soon after he secured the votes to become the new president of the Massachusetts state Senate, Robert Travaglini began talking to colleagues about what roles […]
Posted inEconomy, Transportation
Driven To Distraction
When Cheryl Travis, an account supervisor at Weber Shandwick, a public relations and marketing firm in Cambridge, moved from Winchester to Charlestown two years ago, there was one cost that […]
Posted inEconomy
Two and a half decades of Prop. 2 1/2
Souce: Massachusetts Municipal Association (www.mma.org); state Department of Revenue, Division of Local Services (www.dls.state.ma.us)This year marks the silver anniversary of Proposition 2½, the property tax cap passed by voters in […]
Posted inUncategorized
Connecting the dots
Every once in a while, I come across people who know about CommonWealth, but have no idea it is published by MassINC. Others know full well that CommonWealth is a […]
Posted inPolitics
Sarahs Long Walk chronicles the first fight for school integration in Boston more than 150 years ago
Sarah’s Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America By Stephen Kendrick & Paul Kendrick Boston, Beacon Press, 291 pages. In 1850, 46 […]
Posted inUncategorized
Statistically Significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster WOMEN IN THE OFFICE, MEN IN THE CLASSROOM According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Massachusetts ranks second in the percentage of employed women who […]
Posted inEnvironment
Power players in the capital are making waves over wind farms and fishing limits
Whether over wind farms or fishing restrictions, the waters off the Massachusetts coast are roiling with controversy. But the real waves are made in Washington, DC, where these and other […]
Posted inEconomy
A condo boom forces Salisbury to grow up
SALISBURY — On a brisk October weekday, the only deals going down on Broadway are at Christy’s, a small pizza stand. At 1 p.m., the lunchtime crowd consists of two […]
Posted inEducation
Classroom cash
It takes a lot of dough for Massachusetts to be nothing special in terms of staffing its public schools, according to the country’s largest teachers’ union. The National Education Association […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
New threats have public safety agencies trying to get on the same wavelength
A savvy technology entrepreneur is always on the lookout for new opportunities, especially in a market as hot as security. So Vanu Bose was ready when the National Institute of […]
Posted inEducation
An education tour of China reveals great success alongside vast failure
You would think that traveling with a 2-year-old would be enough to discourage trips halfway around the world. But when Primary Source, a regional professional development group, invited us on […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Massachusetts is a global leader in innovation but not in civic matters
MASSACHUSETTS HAS BEEN long recognized as possessing unique capacities at producing innovations that have changed the nation and the world. Whether its residents are especially gifted or they take advantage […]
Posted inEducation, Politics
Wrong answer on school finances
In the first week of October, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments in the Hancock school finance case. The arguments addressed the opinion issued last April by Superior Court […]
Posted inEducation, Politics
The state still doesnt provide equal education
June 15, 1993: an important day for education in Massachusetts. On that day, the Supreme Judicial Court issued its decision in McDuffy v. Secretary of Education and defined the Commonwealth’s […]
Posted inEducation
The Hancock Case: Remedy lies in new goals new strategies
We are really just beginning to understand that schools are indeed our most important social institutions. And only recently have we faced up to the reality that, rather than being […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
After reading the article “Being Ron Preston” (Health Care Extra 2004), I was appalled to realize how little the cabinet secretary charged with protecting the health of the Commonwealth understands […]