IN MANY WAYS, this new school year looks like a return to normal. But alongside the more familiar, deep and persistent challenges remain in many districts, and these concerns were exacerbated during the last two years. In Boston and across the region, we are faced with the challenge of not merely “returning to normal” because […]
Barr Foundation
Posted inEducation
Poll finds parents bullish on return to in-person learning
AFTER A YEAR AND A HALF of unprecedented disruption of daily life, parents of K-12 students in Massachusetts are very optimistic about what the return to in-person classes will bring, with more than a third saying they expect their child to finish the current school year academically ahead of grade level. That is among the […]
Posted inEducation
Poll: Students unhappy with remote and hybrid learning
A NEW POLL released Tuesday confirmed what many students have been saying all along: High school students far prefer to be learning in person than to be in a remote or even a hybrid model. And in many cases, the students for whom remote learning is most challenging – low-income, black, and Hispanic students – […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Getting Gateway Cities back on the bus
MUCH OF THE FOCUS on public transportation in Massachusetts during COVID has been on service cuts at the MBTA, but the Regional Transit Authorities serving the state’s Gateway Cities and surrounding communities have also been struggling with declines in ridership since the start of the pandemic. A new poll (topline, crosstabs) highlights the challenges facing […]
Posted inEducation
Report rips Boston record with ‘off-track’ high school students
A DECADE AFTER a report found that one of every five students in Boston Public Schools had fallen “off track” to graduate from high school, a new study finds that the figure has barely budged, with the district showing little progress in getting those students through high school. The report documents an uncomfortable truth about […]
Posted inOpinion
Sound lessons from Seattle
MASSACHUSETTS IS ABUZZ with talk about whether Amazon might choose one of our communities for its second North American headquarters. Just days after Amazon announced a nation-wide search for “HQ2,” we visited the company’s longtime home, Seattle, with a delegation of more than a dozen Massachusetts leaders. This study tour – funded by the Barr […]