The record-tying number of initiatives on the ballot next week put Beacon Hill on the defensive, and it’s resurfaced thorny questions about the powers and pitfalls of lawmaking by statewide vote.
Alice Peisch
Posted inBallot Questions
Lawmakers and DiZoglio clash again – this time over public records reform
Auditor Diana DiZoglio showed up ready to fight, and some lawmakers indulged her, at a hearing about a ballot question that would subject the Legislature and governor’s office to the public records law.
Posted inEconomy
Fixing early ed system could cost $1.5 billion a year
MASSACHUSETTS’S EARLY CHILDHOOD education system is unaffordable and inaccessible to too many families, and it will cost an estimated $1.5 billion a year to improve it, according to a report […]
Posted inEducation
Education funding shortfall could spur new lawsuit
WHEN MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS passed a landmark rewrite of the state’s school funding formula last year, it was done with a lawsuit hanging over their heads. Now, advocates are keeping a close eye on the […]
Posted inEducation
The new Massachusetts ‘grand bargain’ in public education
ANY PARENT WHO has watched her child walk into school for their first day of kindergarten – or dropped her off at college some 13 years later – knows it […]
Posted inEducation
With education bill-signing, cheers and challenges
AFTER YEARS OF false starts and Beacon Hill standoffs on a growing funding crisis that has seen school districts shed hundreds of teachers and pare back vital curriculum offerings to […]
Posted inEducation
Agreement reached on ed funding bill
LAWMAKERS HAVE REACHED agreement on a long-awaited education funding bill, setting the stage for the most significant update to the formula for financing Massachusetts school districts since the landmark 1993 […]
Posted inEducation
Education bill hinges on accountability tussle
THE SWEEPING EDUCATION funding bill, versions of which have cleared both branches of the Legislature, is now in the hands of a House-Senate conference committee, which will work to reconcile […]
Posted inEducation
House unveils education bill — minus controversial Senate amendment
TWO WEEKS AFTER the Senate approved a sweeping education funding bill, but stripped out language giving the state authority to oversee how the money is spent, the House appears poised […]
Posted inEducation
On education bill, funding and taxes loom large
THE RELEASE OF a long-awaited bill updating the state’s education funding formula immediately raised one big question: Would new state taxes be needed to pay for the $1.5 billion plan? […]
Posted inEducation
‘Promise Act’ ed bill would be boon for Boston
WHEN BOSTON MAYOR Mayor Marty Walsh testified in late March on behalf of a bill to revamp the state’s 26-year-old education funding formula, he called it “a solution that will […]
Posted inEducation
Senate calls for ed funding formula revamp
STATE OFFICIALS ARE marking the 25th anniversary of the landmark 1993 education reform law with a statewide set of events being held under the banner “Leading the Nation,” a reference […]
Posted inEducation
Will state embrace innovation school zones?
THE HIGHLY CHARGED DEBATE over charter schools last fall ended with a resounding statewide vote against significant expansion of the public, but independently operated, schools. What the vote did not […]
