![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-40-495x400.png)
Columbia’s Prof. Roosevelt Montás on the Great Books & a Liberal Arts Education
Professor Roosevelt Montás, Director of the Freedom and Citizenship Program at Columbia University, and author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, shares his immigrant story and what inspired his appreciation for the Great Books tradition.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-2022-12-27T104250.406-495x400.png)
Immigration Unbound: After Title 42 Comes the Deluge
Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Todd Bensman, senior fellow at the Center For Immigration Studies, about the conditions for aspiring immigrants and border security officials at the U.S.-Mexico border and the likely effects of the expiration of Title 42, a policy that had denied asylum claims during Covid-19.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Blue-Modern-Merry-Christmas-Facebook-Post-1200-×-500-px-495x400.png)
Happy Holidays
During this festive season, we want to wish you and your loved ones a joyous holiday and happy New Year.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Untitled-design-2022-12-21T215609.799-495x400.png)
Pioneer Commends MA Governor-elect Healey’s Step Toward Greater Transparency
Pioneer Institute commends Governor-elect Maura Healey for choosing not to claim a public records exemption for the governor’s office. Governor-elect Healey also pledged to support legislation that would curb exemptions claimed by the legislative and judiciary branches of state government.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-39-495x400.png)
UK’s Prof. Michael Slater on Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, and A Christmas Carol
This week on “The Learning Curve," co-host Gerard Robinson and guest co-host Mary Connaughton talk with Prof. Michael Slater, Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London, and the world's foremost expert on Charles Dickens and his works. They discuss some of the main elements of Dickens’ brilliant, prolific, and complicated life, as the 19th century’s most influential, best-selling writer of memorable works, from Oliver Twist to Great Expectations.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-5-495x400.jpg)
Eight Billion Minds: Unsustainable Population Bomb or Infinite Resource?
Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Scholar and author Marian Tupy about his new book, Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet, focusing on the contrast in policy perspectives between those who see humans consumers of finite resources and those who recognize the unlimited potential of human ingenuity.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Copy-of-11.-Employees-of-the-Public-Sector-14-495x400.png)
Study Urges Massachusetts to Embrace Innovative School Models
A new policy brief from Pioneer Institute urges Massachusetts policymakers to encourage the proliferation and progress of non-traditional models that offer families creative, flexible, personalized and low-cost private education options.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-38-495x400.png)
Senegal’s Magatte Wade on Education & Economic Freedom in Africa
This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara and Gerard talk with Magatte Wade, the founder & CEO of Skin Is Skin and an advocate for African dignity and prosperity. Her forthcoming book is "The Heart of the Cheetah."
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-2022-12-12T183634.870-495x400.png)
MBTA Safety Overhaul: Retooling Teams For Trustworthy Transit
0 Comments
/
This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with transit advocate and expert Chris Dempsey about ways in which structural change in the MBTA's safety oversight can be reformed to improve performance, engender greater trust amongst the region’s riders, and reduce transportation congestion in our growing economy.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Guest-christina-qi-67-495x400.png)
Julianne Zimmerman on the Inventive Legacies of Immigrants
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Julianne Zimmerman, managing director at Reinventure Capital, lecturer on Social Entrepreneurship at Tufts University (and named to Forbes' 2022 "50 Over 50" list). Julianne sees first-hand how immigrants collaborate with the U.S.-born to create meaningful inventions that solve real problems - but how rhetoric, policy, and an outdated system can shut them out.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Copy-of-11.-Employees-of-the-Public-Sector-13-495x400.png)
Report: Immigrant Entrepreneurs Provide Economic Benefits, but Face Significant Obstacles
Immigrants have started a quarter of all businesses in Massachusetts despite making up just 17 percent of the state workforce, and those establishments appear to be more innovative than those founded by native-born Americans. Despite these contributions, shrinking federal visa caps and red tape are among the factors making it more difficult for immigrants to come to the U.S., according to “Immigrant Entrepreneurs and the Barriers They Face: An Academic Literature Review,” published by Pioneer Institute.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-37-495x400.png)
Former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Edu Federalism & School Choice
This week on “The Learning Curve," guest co-hosts Denisha Allen and Kerry McDonald talk with Betsy DeVos, a former United States Secretary of Education and the author of the book, Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child. She shares how she became one of the country’s foremost proponents of school choice, educational federalism, and bold changes to K-12 education.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Copy-of-11.-Employees-of-the-Public-Sector-12-495x400.png)
Poll Finds Strong Majority of Massachusetts Residents Support Restoring U.S. History MCAS Graduation Requirement
Sixty-two percent of Massachusetts residents support restoring passage of a U.S. history test as a public high school graduation requirement, according to a poll of Massachusetts residents’ attitudes toward education policy commissioned by Pioneer Institute and conducted by the Emerson College Polling Center.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-4-495x400.jpg)
Climate Death Toll: Will A Warming World Overwhelm Human Resiliency?
This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with climate scientist and Johns Hopkins lecturer Dr. Patrick Brown about his recent paper, Human Deaths from Hot and Cold Temperatures and Implications for Climate Change, on the factors that contribute to high climate-related mortality, and those that lead to better resiliency.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Guest-christina-qi-66-495x400.png)
Joséphine Erni on Bringing Swiss Innovation to the U.S. Market
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Joséphine Erni, Innovation Lead at Swissnex in Boston and New York, and immigrant from Switzerland. She explains how building collaborations between the highly entrepreneurial Swiss and the world’s biggest market, the U.S., gives rise to incredible innovations that benefit the world.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-36-495x400.png)
Award Winner Peter Cozzens on Tecumseh, the Indian Wars & the American West
This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara and Gerard talk with Peter Cozzens, the award-winning author of The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West. As National Native American Heritage Month winds down, Mr. Cozzens reviews what our schoolchildren should know about Native Peoples’ innumerable contributions and heart-wrenching experiences.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-35-495x400.png)
Award-Winner Nathaniel Philbrick on the Mayflower and the First Thanksgiving
This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara and Gerard talk with Nathaniel Philbrick, historian, winner of the National Book Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and author of Mayflower: Voyage, Community, and War. Mr. Philbrick shares what we should know about the actual historical events of the First Thanksgiving in 1621.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Guest-christina-qi-65-495x400.png)
Josh Bedi on How Immigrants Boost Native Entrepreneurship
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Dr. Joshua Bedi, child of an immigrant and postdoctoral researcher in entrepreneurship in the Department of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He is the son of an immigrant who relocated from India to Jackson, Mississippi, and started a business. It was a simple neighborhood gas station, but also a symbol of what hardworking immigrants can do to boost innovation and business generation in host countries, as you’ll learn in this week’s JobMakers podcast.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Copy-of-11.-Employees-of-the-Public-Sector-11-495x400.png)
Survey Finds Spotty Compliance Among Hospitals with Federal Price Transparency Law
A 2019 federal law requires hospitals to make prices for 300 shoppable services available online in a “consumer-friendly format,” but a Pioneer Institute survey of 19 hospitals finds that information on discounted cash prices—the price most likely to be charged to consumers paying out of pocket—was unavailable at seven of those hospitals.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-34-495x400.png)
Georgia’s Alisha Thomas Searcy on School Choice, Teacher Unions, & Elections
This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara and Gerard talk with Alisha Thomas Searcy, the Democratic nominee for Georgia state school superintendent. She shares her experience as a former six-term state legislator and school leader; her recent bid for Georgia’s top education post; and her passion for K-12 education reform.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-100-495x400.png)
Legal Property Theft: Legal Defense Against Town Taxman Taking Neediests’ Deeds
This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with President of PioneerLegal and retired federal judge, Hon. Frank J. Bailey, about PioneelLegal’s work to advocate for the U.S. constitutional prohibition against the practice of municipalities taking an the entire value of a property to settle a relatively small tax debt, a procedure legal in Massachusetts and thirteen other states.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Pioneer-Institute-Statement-on-Question-1-495x400.png)
Pioneer Institute Statement on Question 1
Yesterday, voters came closer than many expected to rejecting the largest tax increase in Massachusetts history, even though opponents were dramatically outspent by the unions that bankrolled the amendment to the state Constitution.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-33-495x400.png)
KaiPod Learning’s Amar Kumar on Homeschooling Pods & Blended Education
This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara and Gerard talk with Amar Kumar, founder and CEO of KaiPod Learning, a network of in-person education centers for online learners and homeschoolers, based in Massachusetts. They discuss how the pandemic dramatically changed parents’ sentiments about their traditional public schools, opening the door to wider private school choice options, including homeschooling, micro schools, and pods.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-99-495x400.png)
Right To Save: Paying Healthcare Consumers To Shop For Value
This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with healthcare policy expert Josh Archambault about the findings from his Cicero Institute report, The Right to Save: The Next Generation of Price Transparency. He outlines how to incentivize healthcare consumers to utilize price information to reduce out-of-pocket costs, and lower healthcare costs for everyone.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/drugs-commonwealth-495x400.jpg)
Harvard research points to ending drug cost help
A common grievance about Harvard is that the university is out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans. This perception is confirmed by recent research from Harvard Business School that contends patients should be denied assistance that helps them afford their prescription drugs. The Harvard study argues that in order to control drug prices, the government should deny patients’ access to copay assistance programs offered by drug manufacturers. It flies in the face of federal and state efforts to protect the value of such assistance programs for patients and ignores basic facts about how and when patients use copay assistance to access their medications.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Guest-christina-qi-64-495x400.png)
Steve Tobocman and Mamba Hamissi on How Refugees Are Revitalizing Detroit
This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Steve Tobocman, head of the economic development nonprofit Global Detroit, and one of the thousands of refugee business owners he’s assisted, Mamba Hamissi, Burundi native and co-founder of Baobab Fare, an East African restaurant.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-32-495x400.png)
Stanford’s Pulitzer-Winning Prof. Jack Rakove on James Madison, The Federalist Papers, & U.S. Constitutionalism
This week on “The Learning Curve," Cara and Gerard talk with Dr. Jack Rakove, Coe Professor of History and American Studies and Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford University, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. Professor Rakove reviews the biography of James Madison, often called the "Father of the Constitution," and the influence of classical and Enlightenment learning on his farsighted political thought and leadership.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-98-495x400.png)
Grading State Governors: Do Higher Taxes Equate To Higher Value?
This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards about the new report he co-authored entitled, "Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors 2022." They discuss how Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s fiscal stewardship compares with other states, and explore whether higher tax rates and spending correlate with better state performance and resident satisfaction.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TLC-template-31-495x400.png)
UK’s Miranda Seymour on Mary Shelley and Frankenstein for Halloween
This week on a Halloween edition of “The Learning Curve," guest host Mary Z. Connaughton talks with Miranda Seymour, novelist and definitive biographer of Mary Shelley, author of the classic Gothic novel, Frankenstein.
![](https://pioneerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Hubwonk-Template-97-495x400.png)
The Causes and Potential Cures for Inflation
This week on Hubwonk, Harvard economist and Pioneer Institute board member Ed Glaeser interviews Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and President Emeritus of Harvard University, for a special episode on the origins of inflation, its impact on the American economy, and a roadmap to recovery.