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January 6, 2012

Odds-On Favorite? Not the Lottery

The Massachusetts state lottery has made news the past few weeks for two things — a $20 holiday raffle that lost money and a proposal to allow gamblers to use their debit cards to buy tickets. The stories might seem only vaguely...
January 4, 2012

MBTA Puts the Screws to Bus Riders

The MBTA released two scenarios to deal with a projected FY13 budget deficit of $161 million. Scenario 1 fills the gap with close to 80% fare increases and 20% service cuts. Scenario 2 roughly splits the difference between service cuts and fare...
Healthcare
January 3, 2012

Will 2012 be the year of the e-patient?

Dave deBronkart gave an interesting talk at a TED conference site last year that highlights the potential of patients having access to their own health data.
Education
December 27, 2011

Tough Times on virtual learning

Back at the start of December, I blogged on the need for both an open door to online learning and also a greater focus on accountability for those who would operate in that space. Understanding the quality of the choices in the...
December 21, 2011

Filling the Red Kettle

The Salvation Army is struggling to raise money this year through its traditional red kettle/bell-ringing campaign, with donations down 22%. It might be due to a down economy. I know that my dependence on electronic transactions frequently leaves me without bills or...
Education
December 18, 2011

The wrong strategy to fix Lawrence public schools

With a wondrous display of British understatement, the state’s education commissioner recently announced his “concern” about Lawrence schools. Commissioner Mitch Chester noticed that the Lawrence Public Schools might have “a potential leadership gap” and that “[o]verall, the district is not yet where...
American Citizenship
December 16, 2011

Massachusetts raced other states to win over doomed Evergreen Solar

In my last post, I took a look at how surprisingly credulous state executives were of Evergreen Solar’s business. Rarely, if ever, were concerns raised about whether Evergreen Solar was a good investment for the state to make, nor whether the solar industry...
December 16, 2011

Tim Tebow, the Read Option and Our Patriots

(What? I have to do policy wonk stuff all the time?) Tim Tebow is all the rage right now, both for his spectacular late game comebacks and his very public professions of his faith. We’ll leave the latter alone and focus on...
December 14, 2011

Boston's Struggle With 3rd Grade Reading

Achieving reading proficiency by 3rd Grade is a vital skill, closely correlated with important measures of academic achievement later. As one major study found: – One in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade do notgraduate from high school...
American Citizenship
December 13, 2011

Why did Evergreen Solar backers miss the Chinese threat?

In reviewing hundreds of pages of documents related to Massachusetts’ incentives for Evergreen Solar, decision makers made clear the risks of not investing: Passing on the proposal would lead to, officials stated, a loss of potential manufacturing jobs to other states or...