MORE ARTICLES

Stay Connected!

Receive the latest updates in your inbox.

LATEST ARTICLES

Toward a High-Performance Workplace: Fixing Civil Service in Massachusetts

Author: Jonathan Walters, Governing Magazine This paper is a call for continued improvement in a system that in its current form is overly bureaucratic, unresponsive, rule-bound, and control oriented.  The changes suggested address three troubling trends that have been gathering momentum in Massachusetts:  First, the use of “provisional” hires as a way to sidestep testing and hiring rules entirely.  Second, the inclination to exempt entire classes of employees from the civil service system altogether.  And third, continued difficulty on the part of specific agencies to compete for the best and brightest job candidates in what is today a fiercely competitive job market. Toward a High-Performance Workplace: Fixing Civil Service in Massachusetts

THIS IS ANOTHER TEST POST

Etiam in gravida magna. Duis ac nisl metus. Sed a porta ante. Fusce rutrum sit amet neque et sollicitudin. Aliquam erat volutpat. Nullam ornare ex ac augue mollis placerat. Cras pharetra massa sed quam sodales ornare. In elit quam, rhoncus quis nunc ut, placerat ultrices diam.

TEST: Google Map Embed

This is test.

An Economic History of Health Care in Massachusetts 1990-2000

Author: Jerome H. Grossman, M.D. This report examines the Massachusetts health care system during the tumultuous period from the late 1980s to the close of the 1990s. This timeframe begins with the attempt in 1988 to become the first state in the country to ensure universal entitlement to health insurance and ends with the fiscal crisis of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and the general climate of uncertainty and angst that has beset the state’s health care system. Apart from describing the important events of this timeframe—and highlighting the pivotal decisions of earlier decades that set the stage for this period of upheaval—the report aims to illustrate more broadly ways in which the health care system in Massachusetts (and in the […]

Teacher Contracts in Massachusetts

Author: Dale Ballou, University of Massachusetts at Amherst This report is an initial effort to provide systematic information on teacher contracts in Massachusetts. In the summer of 1999, the Pioneer Institute solicited copies of the current contract from all districts in the state. From those that responded, 40 districts were selected to reflect the diverse make- up of the Commonwealth. Although there was no attempt to make the sample statistically representative, the three largest urban systems were included, along with a sample of suburbs and small towns. Care was taken to ensure a mix of high-, medium-, and low-income communities. In these 40 contracts, five topics were closely examined: 1) compensation; 2) teacher evaluation and discipline; 3) transfers; 4) layoffs; […]