Health Care: No, the State Doesn’t Know Best
…the death penalty, but their core principle is not much different from Diocletian’s: The state knows best. What fraction of the local economy should health care consume? How fast should…
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Internships and Research Assistantships
/by Mary Connaughton…record who want to explore a new career track. They collaborate with our senior staff in core organizational functions such as media and public relations, development and institutional outreach. Some…
Patrick’s economic development plan is flawed
/by Editorial Staff…core functions, such as upgrading infrastructure. It calls for government to remove barriers to hiring by cutting the tangle of regulation, streamline permitting, and make the corporate tax structure predictable…
Middle Cities Inititative
/by Scott W. GravesThe Middle Cities Initiative helps the Commonwealth’s older cities facing economic, demographic, and political challenges. The Initiative develops and disseminates concrete policy reforms for local and state officials in four…
The right reform path in Lawrence?
/by Jim Stergios…the rest of the state, and the international achievement gap whereby the percentage of students who are advanced in core subjects in the top-performing countries far outstrips the percentage among…
Lawrence Eagle-Tribune: Lawrence’s big school problem needs a big, bold solution
/by Jim Stergios…upward mobility — a core value of American society. We are relegating City of Lawrence to permanent ward of the state status. For a long time, nearly 100 percent of…
Mass Media
/by Scott W. GravesNews items relating to Pioneer’s core issues of education, better government, and economic opportunity appear in the sections below. These articles are updated instantly from Massachusetts media outlets across the…
New Municipal Guide Provides Tools for Local Budgeting
/by Editorial Staff…core services. Since 2007, the Institute has produced 14 reports related to municipal management of finances, education, public safety and economic development programs. Our most recent publication was A Practitioner’s…
Pioneer to Participate in U.S. History Competition for Students
/by Editorial Staff…content-based academic standards that include U.S. history and civics instruction. In 2010, Pioneer held an event on the importance of a U.S. history-rich core knowledge curriculum that featured University of…
Outsourcing Helps Cities and Towns Provide Better Services for Less
/by Editorial Staff…develops and disseminates concrete policy reforms for local and state officials the Commonwealth’s older cities facing economic, demographic, and political challenges. Pioneer’s research focuses on four core service areas: financial…
Unemployment Insurance: A Drag on Employment?
/by Editorial Staff…convincing evidence that UI’s problems are serious, but solvable. “Our UI system gets abused by individuals and companies alike,” explains co-author John O’Leary, former director of the Commonwealth’s Division of…
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A 2013 Pioneer Institute Release
/by Editorial Staff…increased at a uniform rate. There is no deep-reaching effort to address the core causes of the state’s structural deficit – healthcare and the cost of public employees’ retirement benefits….
Government Effectiveness Index: A Cross-State Survey
/by Editorial Staff…so in regard to eight “core” functions of state government (functions common to most states): K-12 educa- tion, higher education, highways, transit, state police, the judiciary, corrections, and financial administration….
It's not nice to call the President a liar
/by Jim Stergios…we’ve already seen — 48 states working on common standards, lots of charter school restrictions going away. Yes, that’s December 2009. Mr. Georges and Massachusetts will need to wake from…
Passion and Fellowship
/by Jim StergiosMassachusetts charter schools have a strong record in serving urban and suburban minorities. What about children who are clearly at-risk or have special needs? Chelsea-based Phoenix Charter Academy (PCA) serves…
School dollars and health reform
/by Jim StergiosCalls for more funding for education are common. Policy organizations may have played a significant role in the ideas included in the framework for Massachusetts’ nation-leading education reform, but teachers…
No Free Lunch
/by Elizabeth PrasseWhat do the recent kerfuffle involving Boloco and Boston’s new plan to collect a “voluntary” payment from tax-exempt organizations with properties valued at $15 million or more have in common?…
Factory contracts for teachers unions
/by Jim Stergios…and state), has sought to weaken academic standards in Massachusetts by advancing the soft skills agenda of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. And they aren’t big fans of Commonwealth…
Governor’s Budget & Plan for Cities
/by Joshua Archambault…intiatives that move the Commonwealth in the right direction on two fronts: A) local performance management and B) regionalization. Pioneer has been a vocal advocate for the state to be…
Full Disclosure
/by Jim Stergios…to get Massachusetts to adopt what were then proposed national standards and queried Chester on potential conflict-of-interest or ethical violations. Common Cause MA (hardly witch hunting partisans) told the news…
Happy 234th Anniversary: On Individual Freedom & Dignity
/by Jim Stergios…form of monetary tinkering or fiscal sleight-of-hand. We will simply apply to government the common sense that we all use in our daily lives. Work and family are at the…
It's official: VA declines to participate in RttT
/by Jim Stergios…common standards as a key part of the Race to the Top competitive program “is overly prescriptive and disregards individual state initiatives and progress.” States, like Virginia, that were not…
Advice to BU grads as they go into the world
/by Jim Stergios…a common wisdom of our day, which tells you to “be yourself” or “be who you are”. A weirder tautology man has never made—and its meaning is a far cry…
An Interesting Idea — Behind the Counter Medications
/by Steve Poftak…and complain of specific symptoms. This should be familiar to anyone whose ever gotten mildly ill in Europe — where the practice is widespread. Although this seems like common sense,…
Redistricting Wish List
/by Steve Poftak…is too extended and lacks any sense of regional commonality of interests. (Hmmm, where have I seen such an elongated district before? Oh, that’s right.) – Keep regional centers together…
So you want European-style health care
/by Jim Stergios…a lovely human being unlike Ugh. End of sidebar. The common argument made in favor of universal care is that finally we would join the rest of the industrialized world–but…
Floor falls out in California housing
/by Jim Stergios…the San Fernando Valley, losing a home to foreclosure is now almost as common for families as buying a home. The L.A. Daily News: “During January and February, there were…
46 years ago and still true
/by Scott W. GravesJane Jacobs was the maven of public input, but she is also in many respects a common sense proponent of organic, private market growth in our cities. Try this on…
Stopping the Drip, Drip, Drip
/by Steve Poftak…written opinion from the Retirement Board that actually has to pay out the money. Its apparently angered at least one of their colleagues, but we salute their common sense request…
People v Place
/by Scott W. GravesIn the High Court of Common Sense, the people will always win. Consider Youngstown or Buffalo. Both have seen a complete collapse in their populations. Youngstown is half the city…