Dear Mitt: By now, I’m sure you’ve grown accustomed to the joys of being governor. You know what I’m talking about: The invitations to forums and events. The endless meeting […]
Handing over the keys
Posted inPolitics
Our own set of experts gives the new governor advice on making good policy and good first impressions
With a transition team of nearly 100 of the biggest movers and shakers in Massachusetts politics and business, Mitt Romney had no shortage of input as he took the helm […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
Your article “On-the-job training” (Fall 2002) highlighted the CALL initiative of the Jewish Vocational Service of Greater Boston as providing essential post-employment follow-up services that are so critical to the […]
Posted inPolitics
The public never forgets a governors first year
For a newly elected governor, the transition to office is a heady time, but it’s also politically perilous. Buoyed by victory at the polls and stocked up with advice from […]
Posted inUncategorized
Counterpoints
The more people are informed about the impact of legalizing casino gambling– better described as the tax-by-casino plan– the more they will see it’s a bad idea for Massachusetts. Casinos […]
Posted inUncategorized
Argument
Acknowledged or not, casino gambling has become a perennial question for the Massachusetts Legislature, spanning all of my tenure in the General Court from 1969– when, as a member of […]
Posted inUncategorized
Volpe makes an encore appearance in the corner office
INTRO TEXT The transition has been made on Beacon Hill. One governor has left the corner office, another moved in. And it’s not just Mitt Romney who replaced Jane Swift. […]
Posted inEducation
Top colleges come up short on community service
INTRO TEXT Like all freshmen involved in work-study programs at the College of the Holy Cross, Philip Colvin got his first assignment in Dining Services. Four times a week, he […]
Posted inUncategorized
The feds crackdown on undocumented workers creates headaches for local employers
INTRO TEXT Organizers of the Boston janitors’ strike last fall thought they had a great slogan (“Justice for Janitors”) and compelling arguments, but they wondered whether a work force composed […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
Commonwealth Forum panelists give Romney a taste of the future
INTRO TEXT “We do want Mitt Romney to succeed. If he succeeds, we succeed,” said House Speaker Thomas Finneran at the first of two Commonwealth Forums entitled “No Ordinary Time: […]
Posted inUncategorized
A revolutionary way to teach math in the age of MCAS
INTRO TEXT When people ask Mahesh Sharma what he does for a living, he knows what their reaction is going to be. Hearing that he’s a math educator, many people […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Scene of the crime
IN THE LATE 1980s and early 1990s, when the city was teeming with crack cocaine and drive-by shootings, Boston police sergeant Robert Merner watched the life drain out of more […]
Posted inUncategorized
Multiple Choice
It is a blustery autumn afternoon and the Framingham Community Charter School is in lockdown mode. Just moments before, the school’s 96 sixth-graders were on the playground after lunch when […]
Posted inUncategorized
A question of commitment
Barbara Schwartz wears big glasses and uses a trained dog named Thomas to help her get around. She is small, funny, sarcastic, and sometimes dismissive of those she deems unworthy. […]
Posted inPolitics
A transition of our own
There comes a time in the life of every young organization, firm, or company when the founder moves on. It is a time of anxiety, but also a milestone of […]
Posted inPolitics
The budget and reform challenge ahead
If there were similarities between the gubernatorial campaigns of 1990 and 2002, the parallel between 1991 and 2003–new Republican governor facing fiscal crisis–is even closer. There are a handful of […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Unions look for relevance in job training
Workforce Development and the New UnionismEdited by Penn Kemble; introduction by Morton BahrNew Economy Information Service, Washington, DC, 210 pages. The second half of 2002 showcased, in rapid sequence, the […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
The glory days of cub reporting
First Job: A Memoir of Growing Up at WorkBy Rinker BuckPublic Affairs, New York, 396 pages. Several years ago I was at a reunion of journalism alumni at the University […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
The smartgrowth movement meets its Waterloo in Kingston
KINGSTON–On windy days, commuters shield their eyes from the flecks of sand and dust blowing toward them as they step onto the commuter-rail platform in Kingston. Abutting the station is […]
Posted inEconomy
Household tax burden
How much of a burden are taxes in Massachusetts compared with other states? It all depends on how you make the comparison. In one common measure–total tax burden (state and […]
Posted inPolitics
Year Up raises the aspirations of innercity high school grads
By the age of 35, Gerald Chertavian had made so much money that his two children would probably never have to work a day in their lives. Now the Lowell […]
Posted inUncategorized
The conventional wisdom about Bostons image
Who stands for Massachusetts–Frasier or Spenser? Visions of conventioneers–and not Shriners in fezzes–are dancing in Boston heads. Mayor Thomas Menino wants to host the Democratic Party’s national convention in 2004, […]
Posted inPolitics
Tom Patterson on why parties campaigns and the media are driving voters away from politics
At the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Thomas E. Patterson is something of a rare breed: a political scientist. […]
Posted inUncategorized
Counterpoint
Contrary to Sam Tyler’s opinion, institutions that offer advanced educational degrees that qualify police personnel for salary upgrades have not stood still for the 30-plus years the Quinn Bill has […]