Don't give up pole position on standards!
…at great expense in time, commitment, and taxpayer dollars. And the investment, for the most part, has paid off. Massachusetts students rank at or near the top of national and…
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626 search results for: graduated income tax
NEA: $26M to Advocacy Groups
/by Jim Stergios…that opposed the petition to roll back the income tax. For those of you interested in the full extent of the NEA’s involvement in the fight against the tax rollback,…
Go back to the Governor's bill
/by Jim Stergios…That is not fair, because charters serve a much higher number of African-American and Hispanic students (50 to 22%) and low-income students (44 to 30%) than district schools. Question: Do…
Civil Disobedience Protest in DC for School Choice
/by Jim Stergios…of support for the 216 low-income District students who, because of actions by President Obama and Secretary Duncan, were refused entry this week into the schools of their parents’ choice….
Hitting the Reset Button
/by Jim Stergios…The “progressive” states that built their enormous public burdens by soaking the wealthy will hit the wall first and hardest. California, which extracts more than half its income taxes from…
Our New State Piggy Bank
/by Steve Poftak…The MCCA operated for years with a state budget subsidy (since eliminated) to fund its debt and a special series of dedicated tax and fee revenues. The intent was to…
FactCheck.org: ‘RomneyCare’ Facts and Falsehoods
/by Joshua Archambault…a raise, send them off to the exchange, where they can take their raise and their federal subsidies ….up to 10% of their income…and the employer can come out ahead…..We…
The Governor's choice on charter schools
/by Jim Stergios…sub-groups that must make up 80 percent of the charter student body, including low-income, limited English proficient or special education students, or students determined to be at risk of dropping…
School choice programs increase 84 percent in 5 years
/by Jim Stergios…School Choice: Student enrollment in private school choice programs, which include school voucher programs and scholarship tax credit programs, has increased by 84 percent over five years, according to the…
Counterintuitive News
/by Steve Poftak…up — spent out in a ‘supp’, flushed into the Bay State Competitiveness Trust Fund, or put back into Stabilization. What, you thought it would fund an income tax rollback?…
Chinatown bus
/by Jim Stergios…inter-city bus lines in his newsletter Surface Transportation Innovations. From the December issue: One of the justifications offered for U.S. taxpayers to subsidize Amtrak is the idea that lower-income people…
46 years ago and still true
/by Scott W. Graves…in ten years, reverse the decay in the great, dull, gray belts that were yesterday’s and day-before yester-day’s suburbs, anchor the wandering middle class and its wandering tax money, and…
Interesting Reading
/by Steve Poftak…short by $124m next year, unless sales pick up significantly. That’s $243m that the state needs to make up somewhere. Taxes: pg. A-3 — FY2007 tax revenues exceeded projections by…
People v Place
/by Scott W. Graves…resurrecting Buffalo as a place–very different from government aid that seeks to help disadvantaged people, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit–was destined to fail. Yup. And: As for state…
It’s about the children – ugly, mean and expensive
/by Scott W. GravesOn October 5, Pioneer is releasing a survey of state tax deduction and tax credit programs in other states that have been used to offer scholarships to inner city kids….
Thoughts on housing and Middle Cities
/by Scott W. Graves…of total 40R units to households earning no more than 80 percent of area median income (AMI). Most of these cities easily exceed the state’s affordability goals. Holyoke more than…
Jim on WGBH – Housing
/by Scott W. Graves…folks in the 65 to 80 % of median income range. Discussion covers: the continued impact of regulations that restrict supply; the arguments made by municipalities (impact on property values…
How much does a kid cost?
/by Steve Poftak…existing. The Donahue Institute study is advocating for the “Fair Share” approach which produced more mixed results in terms of the ‘cost of new housing’ versus property tax income. I’m…
Who’s to pay for affordable housing?
/by Amy Dain…housing prices remain sky-high in Massachusetts, expect debate over such policies for some time. What are the best ways to ensure there are homes affordable for households at all income…
Which way to a greater Boston region?
/by Steve Poftak…priced housing would be in suburban towns, providing more opportunities for lower income families to live anywhere in the region. Great idea, but the cities and towns of eastern Mass…
Be Careful What You Wish For: Participatory Democracy Dept.
/by Steve Poftak…is a ‘fathers’ rights’ proposal. And among the top 15 issues on the site are 3 anti-gay marriage entries, an income tax rollback proposal, a contract proposal for corrections officers,…
The New Monopoly and the Ballot Initiative
/by Jim Stergios…the part of local government. When states like Texas and New Hampshire look at Massachusetts, Prop 2 ½ and the state’s flat income tax are great balancers for the rest…
Kerry should leave lending standards alone
/by Taylor Armerding…more than five years are very much upper-middle. Check the income of municipal workers in your community. Public safety workers are always at the top, many of them well into…
A Roadmap to Financing
/by Editorial Staff…Center for Urban Entrepreneurship that helps low- and moderate- income entrepreneurs by bolstering the skills of the community-based business advisors they look for assistance. For more information about the program,…
Consumer Driven Health Care a Proven Cost-Saving Strategy
/by Editorial Staff…health care challenges. Health care costs borne by Massachusetts’ employers and employees are among the nation’s highest, and the commonwealth’s high insurance premiums disproportionately impact low-income working families. In an…
Education Tax Credits: A Review of the Rhode Island Program and Assessment of Possibilities in Massachusetts
/by Editorial Staff…first-in-the-nation research on the expansion of educational opportunities for low-income students via tax benefits. That report outlined and assessed education tax credit programs in Florida, Minnesota, and Arizona. Building on…
Teacher Contracts in Massachusetts
/by Editorial Staff…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;…
MetroWest Daily News: Chieppo and Gass: More charter schools to close the education gap
/by Editorial Staff…various MCAS tests and academic improvement ratings. State data shows that they are also effective at closing race- and income-based achievement gaps. Parents certainly recognize their success. Almost 30,000 students…
Fall River Herald News: Time to reform Massachusetts unemployment insurance system
/by Jim StergiosGUEST OPINION: Time to reform Massachusetts unemployment insurance system By Charles Chieppo and Jim Stergios Posted Jan 15, 2013 @ 02:27 PM Unemployment benefits are funded by a tax on…
Boston Herald: Pay for current transit system first
/by Jim Stergios…includes a laundry list of taxes and fees to pay for new investments. Some — like a measured gas tax increase that does not put Massachusetts stations at a disadvantage,…