The Anti-Aid Amendment

Every time the debate over public financing of private and religious schools heats up in Massachusetts, we hear the same legal arguments from each side of the debate: Funding advocates […]

No pollster on the Massachusetts scene today has the ability to get under the skin of the state’s electorate in the way Edwin “Slim” DiNuccio does. Part seer, part savant, […]

With the publication of American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence last year, MIT professor Pauline Maier established herself not just as one of the nation’s leading scholars in the […]

I have been a strong supporter of certification tests for teaching candidates, and continue to be. So, many people were curious about why I rejected Governor Cellucci’s plan to test […]

Imagine the following: The Commissioner of Public Health issues a report that a substantial minority of pediatricians are deficient in their understanding of basic anatomy and childhood illnesses. While many […]

As the high cost of housing started to squeeze families out of desirable suburbs 30 years ago, the state responded with a landmark law that became known by a pointed […]

It’s a fundamental question, whether the subject is welfare reform, affordable housing, or the minimum wage, but it rarely gets answered to anyone’s satisfaction: How much money does a family […]

The general public may not have noticed it in the rush of roll calls that marked the end of the legislative session in July, but advocates for the needy sure […]

Here is a case of journalistic fraud. Some may consider it a minor case. It involves highly questionable practices in the coverage of election-year politics, but it was hardly remarked […]

“I love showing people what we’ve done,” announces our fast-moving, fast-talking tour guide, Jeanne DuBois, director of the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, “because it’s really exciting.” A 52-year-old soccer […]

Over the Bourne Bridge and down Route 151 a few miles, then a stone’s throw from a weathered wood sign bearing the legend “Land of the Wampanoag,” is the stylish […]

Two years ago, Johnny Ramirez and his family seemed unlikely candidates to become homeowners in a west-of-Boston suburb. They had come to Framingham from the Dominican Republic seven years earlier, […]

Get a glimpse from the driveway, and you’ll think Tom and Lisa Ragan have it made in Marlborough. They live with their three children in a sprawling clapboard house surrounded […]

Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of SprawlBy Richard Moe and Carter WilkieHenry Holt, New York, 1998, 276 pages.Home From Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st CenturyBy […]

On a sticky summer afternoon, Easthampton is quiet, the traffic fluid, and the trees heavy with lush green foliage. Two years earlier the town looked notably different. In the spring […]

The nation is in the midst of a home-buying boom, pushing homeownership rates across the country to record highs. After a small decline in the mid- to late-1980s, the percentage […]

Rep. Daniel Bosley, a Democrat from North Adams who is known around the State House as a master of public policy, has a complaint: “No one covers all the serious […]

As we were finishing work on this issue of CommonWealth, the governor’s race had gone into a post-primary, pre-election lull, national politics remained stuck on the Clinton-Lewinsky-Starr sex scandal, and […]

Ariving home from my family’s vacation week in Truro, I sensed something was wrong. Not that anyone was complaining. My children were snug in the backseat, the elder cocooned between […]

Editor’s note: The following book proposal was found by one of our correspondents on his way to work one morning crossing Boston Common. He found it on a park bench, […]

Most campaign finance reforms, including the euphemistically named “Clean Elections” proposal, revolve around some aspect of government funding. Some people are irresistibly drawn to government as the solution to any […]

Massachusetts has an historic opportunity to lead the country in enacting far-reaching campaign finance reform that addresses what ails the body politic: big money in politics, and voter apathy. On […]

The stuffed elephant hat gets your attention, but it’s the dozens of campaign buttons that pinpoint Jeanne Matatall as a true-blue Republican. President Nixon–Now More Than Ever… Vote Volpe for […]