Blog

Calls for choices of high school pathways, early and end-of-course exams, and independent district accountability

Governor Maura Healey’s fiscal year 2027 budget totals $62.8 billion, a 3.8 percent year-over-year increase. The budget avoids sweeping new initiatives and largely preserves existing structures. That might be defensible in a period of stability. It is indefensible now. 

A new statewide poll finds overwhelming support among Massachusetts adults for expanding vocational-technical high school capacity, along with broad backing for school choice options, including the new Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program.

Context Pioneer Institute has previously gone toe-to-toe with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) over flawed and misleading tax analyses—notably ITEP’s advocacy for the 2022 surtax on high earners as good for the Bay State economy. That argument that has proven to hold about...

Newly released Census Bureau data show that Massachusetts’ population growth is now entirely dependent on immigration, as domestic out-migration rose again in 2025 and underlying demographic and economic weaknesses reasserted themselves. 

“Families won’t feel relief as long as state spending keeps growing at twice the pace of their paychecks. Massachusetts families listening to the Governor’s State of the Commonwealth are confronting rising housing, energy, and healthcare costs even as state government continues to expand. Real affordability starts with slowing state spending, cutting waste, strengthening oversight of government agencies, and redirecting savings to local...

Massachusetts taxpayers were told in 2022 that raising taxes and directing billions in new tax revenues to transportation would dramatically improve quality and reliability. Voters were told the surtax would fix the system. Barely three years later—here we go again.   The...

This edition of The House Call describes a legal complaint alleging that Cambridge’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, which requires set-asides for below-market-rate housing in new development, is a regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. It also describes a number of actions the Commonwealth...

Boston, Mass – A new report from the Cicero Institute and Pioneer Institute finds that while state legislatures remained active on telehealth policy in 2025, most states made only incremental progress toward modern, patient-centered telehealth systems. With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill and its $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, states now face growing pressure to modernize outdated telehealth laws or risk falling behind in access, affordability, and federal funding competitiveness.

Mayor Wu continues to push her effort to further raise Boston’s commercial property tax rate, even though as of 2022 the city already had the second highest ratio of commercial to residential effective tax rates among the largest cities in each state.  Wu claims that cutting Boston’s budget to...