As regular readers know, I’m a big fan of parades (see here and here). Once again, I’ve tried my best to divine political trends from watching this year’s marchers: 1) Kudos to City Councillor Rob Consalvo for both marching in the parade and for sponsoring the Boston Crusaders Senior Marching Band. Other Hyde Park politicians (looking at you Rep. Scaccia) should be so thoughtful about the Roslindale portion of their districts. 2) Absolutely no statewide officeholders marched in the parade or participated in any way. Tsk, Tsk. 3) Of Boston’s four at-large city councilors, only John Connolly marched (and got the standard strong positive reaction). It’s basically a homegame for Councillor Connolly but it’s surprising that no one else participated. […]

Today’s Globe has an op-ed decrying the problems with the buses taking kids to the Boston Public Schools — they’ve been plagued with delays since school started. The article points out two potential causes of the problem — issues implementing a new routing software system and resistance/noncompliance by the drivers union. (Given that their union has seen fit to traffic in the coarsest forms of racially-charged attacks in the past, it can’t be ruled out.) Other issues, that might not be obvious to non-residents are: 1) Broad eligibility: Any elementary school child over a mile away from their school (or with an intervening major thoroughfare between them and school) is eligible. That’s a lot of kids. 2) Huge coverage area: […]

Ed Glaeser is a brilliant economist and someone who cares deeply about local, state and federal policies that impact housing, segregation, crime, the growth of cities and the role of innovation in reviving urban landscapes. He has done a ton of work with us, spoken at Pioneer events, and we look to him as a leading intellectual — as does just about everybody. All that throat-clearing is necessary because in today’s Globe, Ed slipped on a banana peel. Looking to weigh in with a timely piece on what is becoming a key issue in the gubernatorial debate — the standards and MCAS debate — Ed makes four assertions that are questionable at best and wrong at worst. Here’s wrong assertion […]

1) Suzanne Bump’s resounding victory over Guy Glodis and Mike Lake has to be the surprise of the night. She came within 3000 votes of winning an outright majority. 2) Glodis only won his stronghold of Worcester by 1,359 votes (with pretty light turnout). Almost makes one wonder if someone in the firmament of Worcester political stars did not really deliver for Glodis. 3) On the topic of not delivering the vote, Stephen Murphy only beat Grossman by ~4000 votes in Boston. So, Murphy can manage 50,000 votes in the city in an off-year council race (where voters get four choices to be fair), yet less than half that in the Treasurer’s race. 4) I’m guessing that Suzanne Bump was […]

Governor Patrick is receiving Mayor Tom Menino’s endorsement this afternoon. It should not be surprising that a sitting Democratic governor would be endorsed by the sitting Democratic mayor of the state’s largest city and capital. But the relationship between Patrick and Menino has been frosty at times. As an example, recall the GOV’s effort to fire Dan Grabauskas, who got a full vote of confidence from Menino at the time. Again, take the names out and consider the roles — Democratic mayor extends himself on behalf of Republican bureaucrat in opposition to sitting Democratic governor. More recently, when asked to grade the GOV’s performance, Menino responded by giving him a ‘C’ for the first three years and a ‘B+’ more […]