News

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.

The Pioneer New England Legal Foundation (PNELF) is calling out the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) for refusing to act on clear evidence that the City of Boston is penalizing commercial taxpayers for exercising their constitutional right to appeal overassessments.

This edition of The House Call explains why the City of Boston is behind the curve on broadly allowing accessory dwelling units by right, and what it's doing to catch up. The newsletter also explores the (limited) housing options for seasonal workers on Cape Cod and how some employers are housing workers in company-owned buildings.

Boston, MA — The two 2026 ballot proposals filed today—one to lower the state income tax from 5% to 4% over three years, and another to strengthen the state’s tax revenue cap (“62F”)—represent concrete steps to return billions to taxpayers and restore Massachusetts’ economic competitiveness. According to fiscal modeling by the Mass Opportunity Alliance (MOA), of which Pioneer Institute is a founding member, the income tax reduction alone would save the average taxpayer more than $1,300 annually. 

Massachusetts has a large share of young adults in its population. However, although Massachusetts’ labor force participation is among the highest in the country, its youth population is dwindling.

This edition of The House Call explores a federal proposal to cut Housing and Urban Development funding by 44 percent, and how it contrasts with a more recent congressional appropriations bill. The newsletter also provides an update on compliance with Massachusetts' multifamily zoning mandate around MBTA stations after the latest deadline.

Twenty years ago, saying that Louisiana and Mississippi had something to teach Massachusetts about education would have given rise to laughter. Well, it’s no longer a laughing matter. After years during which Massachusetts was celebrated as a national leader in education, we...

In the years since fiscal 2018, when the MBTA last balanced its budget without state contract assistance or federal funds, operating costs have been rising at an alarming rate, culminating in an increase of nearly 15 percent from FY 2023 to FY 2024 alone, according to a new policy brief published by Pioneer Institute.

The Institute of Justice and PNELF filed a federal constitutional challenge to Massachusetts’s denial of special education services to children whose parents exercise their fundamental right to enroll them in private school.

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.