MORE ARTICLES
Statement on MBTA Communities Law Milton RulingJanuary 8, 2025 - 3:36 pm
Harvard’s Leo Damrosch on Alexis de Tocqueville & Democracy in AmericaJanuary 8, 2025 - 9:57 am
Mapping Mass Migration: Massachusetts Remains a Top Destination for ImmigrantsJanuary 6, 2025 - 10:29 am
Mapping Mass Migration: New Census Data Shows Continued Out-Migration from Massachusetts to Competitor StatesDecember 19, 2024 - 8:52 am
UK’s John Suchet, OBE, on Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker, & BalletsDecember 18, 2024 - 9:40 am
Tim’s Take: An Education Reform Stalwart Takes a Curious Look at Homeschoolers With ESAsDecember 12, 2024 - 1:10 pm
U-OK’s Dan Hamlin on Emerging School Models & Learning LossDecember 11, 2024 - 10:20 am
What To Do About 340BDecember 11, 2024 - 9:47 am
Pioneer Institute Offers Blueprint for Federal Administrative ReformDecember 10, 2024 - 9:06 am
The House Call – Mayor Wu Wants to Overhaul Boston’s Arcane Development Approvals Process? Here Are Three Reform OptionsDecember 9, 2024 - 11:05 am
Walking the Walk
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byA number of state legislators did not accept an automatic pay raise last year, citing economic conditions. But did you know that Senator Steven Panagiotakos of Lowell has forgone most of the payraises since 1994. It’s cost him close to a quarter of a million dollars. Impressive.
Well, that's going well….
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byA bit of weirdness in today’s Globe article on the final meeting of the MBTA board of directors: Board members had also been expecting to hear a report from the MBTA’s chief of operations, Richard Leary, in response to safety concerns raised by the federal government about a fatal crash on the Green Line in May 2008. Board members voted last month to require Leary to deliver the report before the board dissolved. But Leary, who is eligible for retirement, did not show up at the meeting, and the T’s interim general manager, William A. Mitchell Jr., said he did not know where Leary was. “He has been nonresponsive on coming forward,’’ said Janice Loux, a board member who has […]
Cleaning up my emails
/0 Comments/in Blog, News, Related Education Blogs /byNo, not those emails, silly. No reference to new computers or troubled staffers moved to campaigns. (Note that the Kineavy emails are now available online.) Instead, I am talking about the great suggestions for reading that get passed to me. Here is one, and it comes from Mike Antonucci, who suggests an article by Mike Petrilli in the new edition of Education Next entitled Disappearing Ink. Ed Next is a great magazine, but Petrilli’s article stood out in my mind, because we interact with reporters an awful lot. And the landscape is changing very fast. And Petrilli is right to delve into the question of whether we can have a good public debate about education when the pressures in the […]
This is dumb smart growth
/1 Comment/in Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /byWhile Pioneer has done quite a lot of work on water pricing and on wetlands regulatory reforms, given the fiscal crisis and President Obama’s call for school reform, we have set environmental issues a little to the side for the moment. Over the next few months, I’ll post a few questions on environmental issues, which any gubernatorial candidate will need to weigh. So, basic question on smart growth. I understand the politics of targeting $50 million a year for open space protection. I also understand the shortcomings, such as goal-setting based on dollars out rather than environmental significance (i.e. agricultural value, habitat protection, or drinking water source protection). But in the term “smart growth”, there is, well, growth. Land protection […]
Do I hear $1.9 Billion?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Better Government, News /byYep, you sure do. The total cost of the South Coast Rail Link gets pegged at that figure in today’s New Bedford Standard-Times. That’s up from $1.4 billion last year, and the 2003 estimate of $670 million. Guess we better build it fast at these rates of increase….