sponsored by The Boston Foundation
Explore Massachusetts’ vibrant political and civic landscape with incisive commentary from legislators, local activists, seasoned political analysts, and interested residents across the Bay State.
CommonWealth Voices aims to be a beacon of robust discourse, offering a platform for analysis and advocacy on the challenges and aspirations of political life in Massachusetts.
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Voters said no to one-size-fits-all tests. The governor’s graduation framework can’t let them go.
Piling multiple layers of new requirements on our students will create new obstacles rather than providing opportunities for them to increase their life skills and pursue their individual goals.
Instead of a war on poverty, we wage war on the poor
EVERY SAFETY NET in this country has been stitched with holes just wide enough for many of us to slip through. We’ve recently had a front row seat to this playing out again. From the billions cut from Medicaid in the sweeping tax and spending bill enacted last summer to the use of SNAP food assistance as a bargaining chip during the government shutdown, the most vulnerable among us continue to be political collateral. Poverty is once again being weaponized. And poor people, particularly Black and brown families, are once again the target. There has always been a war on…
Beacon Hill’s new rules are good. They should follow them.
Everyday people–and not just advocates deep in the trenches–are seeing that things need to change. Â
Why are we looking to deport ambition?Â
These students are tomorrow’s nurses, engineers, teachers, artists, and entrepreneurs. Driving them from classrooms is a moral failure, but also an economic one: It makes the next generation smaller, less educated, and less able to compete in a global economy that depends on talent and drive. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.Â
New graduation requirement must include rigorous statewide standards
Ensuring a reliable, objective measure of student competency must remain a top priority. Our students deserve rigorous statewide standards, not subjective benchmarks at a district’s discretion. Â
We can’t sit idle as Washington pulls the plug on the Massachusetts innovation economy
The Commonwealth needs to act boldly and creatively to respond to the threats to its innovation economy. Fighting to reverse these moves in Washington should be a top priority, but we surely can’t count on that happening.
State antisemitism commission report is a strong call to action
The recommendations of the antisemitism commission focus on Jewish students, because that is they who have an unprecedented need for timely, effective intervention.
The state commission on antisemitism doubles down on its mistakesÂ
The report’s concern is not with universal rights but with how anti-Israel speech makes some Jews feel, an approach that can only make antisemitism worse. It distracts from the interests that Jews share with all minorities in vigorous civil rights guarantees.
I’ve seen hate up close. The antisemitism commission’s recommendations can help stop it.Â
We know from our own lives that antisemitism, if left unchecked, doesn’t stay contained. We must confront it with interventions that work, and the state commission offers reasonable, practical, common-sense safeguards against allowing yesterday’s hate to masquerade as today’s education.
Massachusetts lawmakers must reject the antisemitism commission’s flawed recommendationsÂ
The question isn’t whether to fight antisemitism. It’s how to fight it without sacrificing the democratic rights that actually keep Jewish people—and everyone else—safe.
Massachusetts lagging on implementation of data equity lawÂ
Over two years since the law’s passage, we have seen little progress and movement on implementation, and our residents are continuing to suffer the consequences.
Efficient electric equipment, powered by clean sources, is the answer to the energy affordability crunch
Better equipment and cheaper energy sources are critical to achieving an affordable energy future.
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