MBTAAnalysis: A look inside the MBTA

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The MBTA shuttles over a million passengers a day around Greater…

The Clock is Ticking…….

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The clock is ticking towards December 30, 2017.  As part of…

School Choice is Expanding like Never Before—Now Comes the Real Test

School choice is sometimes sold as a cure-all for underperforming public schools, other times it is deemed ineffective and a siphon of public resources. Both can be true, but this debate misses the point: school choice is not a guarantor of student success, nor was it ever intended to be. Its purpose is to provide choices, and most agree that choice is good. Not all choices will be good, to be sure. Indeed, there are poor-performing charter and private schools, just as there are ineffective district schools. When systems with school choice features fail, we ought to blame and reform the choices—they are clearly of poor quality—not ban the freedom to choose. It is grossly undemocratic to suggest otherwise.

How Massachusetts Let School Accountability Slip—and Student Achievement with It

The Commonwealth’s enormous investments in its schools—over 100 billion dollars since MERA was enacted—have continued to this day, but basic accountability has not. It is time to honor the original bargain. Massachusetts must once again couple its record-high investments with the same uncompromising scrutiny that made our schools the envy of the nation. That means prying accountability out of the foxes’ paws and restoring it to a truly independent watchdog—an EQA reborn.

Surge in State Revenue, Growing Expenditures and Inflation

How has state government spending and revenue changed from 2017…

Innovation and U.S. Patents

In 2023, the United States Patent Office issued 159,880 patents…

Affordable Housing Crisis in Massachusetts: Could Manufactured Homes be a Solution?

Massachusetts is in an affordable housing crisis. The median home price across the state was $629,500 in December 2024, up 9.15 percent from $576,700 in December 2023. The median home price across the U.S. was $427,728 in December 2024.  

Boston’s 2026 Budget: Prioritizing Stability in Uncertain Times

With Boston projected to lose about $1.4 billion in commercial property tax revenue over the next five years, the city's new budget is less about growth and more about long-term stability.

Massachusetts Local Pensions: Fund Count, Access, and Benefits

Public employee pensions contribute to national savings, representing 21 percent of retirement assets according to the Urban Institute. These pensions help public workers plan and live out retirement, especially the 97 percent of Massachusetts government employees who do not earn Social Security benefits through their current job.

From the City on a Hill to a Shrouded Statehouse: Massachusetts’ Push for Government Accountability

Once seen as a city upon a hill, Massachusetts, the first state with a public viewing gallery for its Legislature faces persistent concerns about lack of government transparency. Data on Statements of Financial Interest (SFIs) from US DataLabs highlights those concerns and emphasizes the need for accountability. 

Lessons from Military-Run Schools: America’s Secret Weapon in Education

Military-run schools lead every U.S. state in NAEP scores and even outperform educational juggernauts abroad—despite half of their students living at the poverty line. “Lessons from Military-Run Schools: America’s Secret Weapon in Education” argues that, rather than embracing new fads and experimental programs, American public schools ought to be studying the DoDEA playbook. 

A Budget at Risk: How Office Market Decline Could Undercut Boston’s Public Services

Researchers are predicting revenue shortfalls for the City of Boston due to the collapse in office values. Boston’s budget continues to grow, making it crucial to understand how revenue will keep up.

Massachusetts and the Energy Equation: Balancing Imports with Innovation

The gap between the energy Massachusetts produces and the amount it consumes results in a reliance on out-of-state energy sources, making the Commonwealth vulnerable to price volatility and supply disruptions. While consumer prices continue to rise, clean energy production provides an avenue for the state to be more energy self-sufficient.

On Literacy, Time to Learn From Louisiana & Mississippi

Twenty years ago, saying that Louisiana and Mississippi had something…

The Paradox of Justice in the Commonwealth: A Deeper Look at Massachusetts Incarceration Rates

At first glance, Massachusetts appears to be a national model for criminal justice reform, boasting both the nation’s lowest incarceration rate and a low crime rate. However, a deeper look at the numbers in US DataLabs reveals a surprising paradox: Massachusetts also has one of the highest rates of life sentences in the country—and leads the nation in the percentage of life sentences without parole. 

Does the Middle-Ground Still Exist? Exploring How Party-Dominance Erodes Bipartisanship

A system that offers voters limited electoral choice has the potential to undermine democracy. When candidates don’t face primary opponents or general election challengers, it is harder to hold them accountable to the will of voters. The lack of political competition can have broader implications: when compromise becomes scarce, governance suffers.

Education Provisions of OBBB

Two major education provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), signed into law on July 4, 2025, garnered a lot of ink and debate—a federal School Choice Tax Credit and an excise tax on the investment income of private universities with large endowments.

Truth on Trial: Relativism in the Classroom

As Steven Wilson argues in his new book, The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, “central to a liberal education is the pursuit of truth, however elusive.” Indeed, the quest for truth, and knowledge of it, is enshrined in the slogans of most universities, including my own—the University of Chicago—as a reminder of our purpose. It seems absurd to suggest otherwise, to propose educating students in anything but rationality, logic, and ultimately, truth; but absurdity has taken hold in education.

Mapping the Public Workforce: State Government Employment Trends in 2024

During the COVID-19 pandemic, state and federal policy sought to stabilize the economy and job market. Today we still see the effects on public employment, where some states have experienced recovery at differing rates.

Riding toward a greener future? How Massachusetts public transport compares to other public transportation networks.

What is the relationship between public transportation usage and CO2 emissions in Massachusetts? To investigate this question, this blog uses a peer group of the only nine states with over 100 million total public transport trips in 2023, which are referred to as ‘high transport states’ throughout the blog.  

A Decade of Doubt

By failing to believe in students’ capabilities, and to set standards accordingly, we have condemned many to illiteracy and generally dire educational outcomes—in sum, incapability.  This need not be the case, and for a brief moment, in Massachusetts and other educational hotspots, it wasn’t.

The Changing Landscape of Standardized Testing in Massachusetts

National SAT scores have dropped to their lowest levels in years, and Massachusetts has also faced a moderate decline in scores. With fewer students in Massachusetts opting to take standardized tests, data from US Data Labs illustrates a complicated picture of academic performance and recovery in the state. 

Adoption of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

Electric vehicles (EVs) have steadily been on the rise in the United States. New England cities, such as Boston and New Haven, have prioritized making them accessible. But capacity falls short of EV demand.

AGI Growth in the Last Decade: The Winning and Losing States 

Want to make $1 million every year? The good news is that your chances are much better now than they were 10 years ago. Using Pioneer Institute’s US DataLabs Economy and Taxation applications, you can see just how many more people are making $1 million than were 10 years ago, and where they reside, using the information most recently available from the IRS. 

Fixing the Foundation: Can Massachusetts’ Infrastructure Reach National Standards?

While Massachusetts may be known for having the worst drivers in the country, this judgment might unfairly punish drivers for a factor beyond their control—the quality of the roads and bridges they drive on. According to US Data Labs, Massachusetts has fallen behind the national average in both road and bridge quality over the past 15-25 years.

Pulitzer Winner Rick Atkinson on the American Revolution’s 250th Anniversary

In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts Alisha Searcy and Kelley Brown, a Massachusetts U.S. history and civics teacher, interview Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson, author of The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777. Mr. Atkinson explores the rise and fall of British imperial power in North America, the radical leadership of the American patriot Samuel Adams, and the early military struggles of General George Washington and the Continental Army. He discusses the brutal battlefield realities faced by Continental soldiers, the pivotal roles of Lafayette and the French alliance, and the ideological stakes of America's War for Independence. As the nation marks the 250th anniversary of the April 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, Atkinson reflects on the Revolution’s lasting lessons about civic sacrifice, liberty, and the meaning of American democratic ideals. 

Pioneer Institute Launches Tracker Showing Drug Price Controls Are Raising Out-of-Pocket Costs for Medicare Patients

A new data tool from Pioneer Institute reveals that federal drug price controls—intended to reduce out-of-pocket costs for seniors—are instead making many prescription drugs more expensive for Medicare beneficiaries.  

Historical Domestic Migration Patterns: Putting Massachusetts in Context

This week's edition of Mapping Mass Migration features an analysis of newly released data from the Census Bureau, its March supplement of the Current Population Survey. Our analysis covers how migration trends have played out nationally since 1948, including the demographics of movers, the extent of their migration (within a county, across counties, to another state, etc.), and the most common reasons movers cite for changing their primary residence. The newsletter concludes with a brief discussion of what might account for a decline in overall migration rates nationally and where Massachusetts fits in.

We Have a Long Way to Go for Massachusetts Residents to Have the Government Transparency We Deserve

As Pioneer Institute observes Sunshine Week,?we are disappointed by the legislature’s attempts to deny what the vast majority of voters want: an audit of the legislature by our State Auditor. Trying to avoid an audit further exacerbates the loss of public trust. After all, what are we left to think? Do they have something to hide? That is not the government our founders intended; nor is it what 72 percent of Massachusetts voters wanted. This year, during Sunshine Week, we are entirely focused on the top three actions to bring sunlight to the state legislature. They are: 

State Report Card on Telehealth Reform: Progress Slowed in 2024 Leaving Patients Without Access

Connecticut, Louisiana and Tennessee missed the mark; Colorado…

Pioneer Institute Study Calls for Reforms to Ensure that Pharmacy Benefit Manager Practices Benefit Patients, Healthcare Payers

Congress likely to take up PBM reform early this year; Pioneer Institute Calls for PBM’s to be more transparent

Mapping Mass Migration: Massachusetts Remains a Top Destination for Immigrants

This week's edition of Mapping Mass Migration will cover foreign migration into Massachusetts in 2023 and since 2010, including an examination of the most and least attractive destinations for immigrants by state, a demographic breakdown of immigrants arriving in Massachusetts, and an analysis of how these trends have changed over time.