Eija Ayravainen doesn’t have time to waste on educational reforms that are headed nowhere, and two years ago, when College Now came across her desk, it seemed to fit that […]
Highschoolers get a sneak preview of college demands
Posted inUncategorized
Toy towns
All Bay State cities and towns have children to educate, but the burden isn’t evenly distributed. The Kids Count Census, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, used US […]
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Exta Credit
In a commentary that begins on page 9 of this issue, S. Paul Reville calls education reform “the most important work of our time.” We couldn’t agree more. The job […]
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Two authors go back to high school and find little to cheer about
Another Planet: A Year in the Life of a Suburban High School By Elinor Burkett HarperCollins, New York, 325 pages Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed […]
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Great Barrington considers a building spree
Great Barrington, for the most part, has kept up with the times. A former textile mill-based community on the banks of the Housatonic River, it has developed a vibrant downtown […]
Posted inEducation
emEducation Weeksem annual report card
Massachusetts improved its grade point average in Education Week’s annual “Quality Counts” assessment, thanks to more tests for both students and teachers. Tough MCAS requirements prompted Education Week to upgrade […]
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Gee monikers
Lots of people wish they could have filled out their own birth certificates, but no one is saddled with a name their parents picked in 1740. That burden falls upon […]
Posted inOpinion, Uncategorized
Weathering the perfect fiscal storm
One year ago, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation warned of an impending “perfect storm” in the state’s finances that would spell the end of the generous spending growth of recent years. […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Schools need more funds
Providing adequate resources for public education is not just a public policy goal, it is also the law. The Education Reform Act of 1993 made an unambiguous promise to public […]
Posted inEconomy
Economists give their prognoses for recovery
Left to right: Adrienne Ortyl, Paul Harrington, and Alan Clayton-Matthews. Back in March, when economists and other observers were trying to figure out what kept consumers spending even as indicators […]
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Bill Bratton on the new crime paradigm
In Boston and New York, Bill Bratton brought modern management to police work. We asked Bratton what he learned from combating urban crime, and the fear associated with it, that […]
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Ten years after hospital deregulation the honeymoon is over
On December 31, 1991, then-Gov. William Weld signed into law Chapter 495 of the Acts of 1991, An Act to Improve Health Care Access and Financing. This law–which was supported […]
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Terrorism boosts business for Lau
INTRO TEXT Six months ago, Joanna Lau was fending off skeptics who regarded her company’s face-recognition software as another iffy high-tech toy, an intriguing technology with an uncertain market and […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Government reform in a time of crisis
INTRO TEXT Following the events of September 11, the need to reinvent government “is only more stark,” former Al Gore advisor Elaine Kamarck told the Commonwealth Forum October 18, in […]
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Cape Verdeans struggle with crime
INTRO TEXT In the recent incidents of violent youth crime in Boston, no community has been turned inside out more than that of immigrants from Cape Verde. To judge from […]
Posted inPolitics
A busy season for recount lawyers
FROM A 15-VOTE margin in the Quincy mayor’s race to a dead heat in the contest for mayor of Melrose, November’s municipal elections produced a surfeit of electoral cliffhangers. The razor-thin […]
Posted inState Government
The Speaker Who Believed in Democracy
ASK SOMEONE today, “Who is George Keverian?” and the typical response is a blank stare. Those who recall him at all might say he was the portly Speaker who presided […]
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Life After Lucent
The tale has all the hallmarks of a modern-day mill closing. A large manufacturing company tries to cut costs by selling off one of its biggest plants. Longtime employees–some of […]
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Massachusetts exceptionalism
We in Massachusetts like to think of ourselves as something special. We see ourselves setting a civic example for the nation, if not the world; how else could we justify […]
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The political gender gap
The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political ParticipationBy Nancy Burns, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney VerbaHarvard University Press, Cambridge, 453 pages What does political science have to […]
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Father and son in Revere
Revere Beach Elegy: A Memoir of Home and BeyondBy Roland MerulloBeacon Press, Boston, 216 pages We seem to be obsessed with the idea of generations, now as much as ever. […]
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Whats missing from the bioterror plan
By late December it was still hauntingly unclear who had dropped several anthrax letters into the US mail shortly after September 11. Terrorist followers of Osama bin Laden were, of […]
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An officials flipflop makes charter reform devilish
SWAMPSCOTT- Jack Paster has worked at town hall for 22 years, and he had no reason to believe that would change any time soon. In fact, in early 2000 he […]
Posted inEconomy
New Economy Potential
The good news is that Massachusetts has retained its number-one ranking in the California-based Milken Institute’s annual New Economy Index, which measures states by their potential for high-tech growth. The […]