A timely look at the racial gap in American schools

By Charles L Glenn 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in LearningBy Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan ThernstromSimon & Schuster, New York, 334 pages. This is a useful and timely, though ultimately somewhat disappointing, book by a prominent husband-and-wife team: a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education (and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute) and a distinguished historian who(...)

Politics/ Transportation

After salvaging the Big Dig Andrew Natsios has a tougher task rebuilding Iraq

By Shawn Zeller State Government 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

President George W. Bush’s hopes for re-election are now riding on turning Iraq, a country riven by ethnic and religious factions with no memory of anything but dictatorship, into a stable, thriving democracy. In that daunting task, the president is counting not only on the US military, which has suffered more casualties from guerrilla attacks(...)

Uncategorized

Poetic views of good ideas

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

Play on Words In a good play on words Ideas seem to just emerge, Fully formed long lyrical lines From the chamber of a brilliant mind. Hah! Don’t believe it my friends! Chaos–thousands, thousands of words, Ideas, theories, notions carom off walls, Tumble off the backs of one another. Some drift lazily like hot-air balloons,(...)

Economy/ Politics

A 5 raise buys a lot of trouble for Stonehams town moderator

By Victoria Groves Cost of Living and Consumer Affairs, Municipal Government 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

STONEHAM–Five bucks can’t even get you into a movie in most places, but it can still buy a lot of trouble in Stoneham. Moderator Michael Rotondi won an annual pay raise of $5 from town meeting in May, but two months later the voters snatched it back, with some claiming they never realized just how(...)

Uncategorized/ Opinion

What Boston needs to do to capitalize on the Democratic National Convention

By Hubie Jones 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

Political and civic leaders of smart, effective cities use big public events to achieve long-lasting development and social benefits. That’s what I’ve learned from six years of visits to world-class metropolises in this country and abroad in search of models for civic development. These benefits are achieved because hosting high-profile occasions forces these cities to(...)

Politics

Where the largest corporations and philanthropies put down roots

By CommonWealth Staff Demographics 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

Much has been made of Massachusetts becoming a branch-office economy and the threat that poses to local charities dependent on corporate largesse. But so far, at least, the Bay State is holding its own in big companies and big charities alike. Fifteen of this year’s Forbes 500 companies are headquartered in the Bay State, putting(...)

Uncategorized

Letters

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

I would like to correct some erroneous information about AARP that appeared in your conversation with Theda Skocpol (“Civic Dissociation,” Summer 2003). Skocpol uses AARP as an example of an organization that doesn’t provide much opportunity for engagement among its members, saying, for example, that AARP “doesn’t have chapters.” This statement is incorrect. We have(...)

Education/ Politics

Barnstable cant get enough of charter schools

By Michelle Bates Deakin Elementary and Secondary Education 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

At a time when school districts across the Commonwealth are feeling the triple squeeze of the federal No Child Left Behind law, MCAS tests, and shrinking budgets, officials in the Cape Cod town of Barnstable are taking an unusual tack. Rather than tightening their grip on teachers and principals, they’re loosening it, encouraging each public(...)

Education

Doubling down

Bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren says that housing and education, not restaurant meals, are driving two-income families to the edge

By Robert Keough 1 Comment Dec 1, 2003

WHETHER USED AS an income bracket, a collection of values and attitudes, or a state of mind, “middle class” is a pretty broad category. But at its core, middle class connotes material comfort born of personal responsibility. The luxuries associated with a middle-class lifestyle are contingent, the fruit of effort, not entitlement. And if financial(...)

Economy

The Hub has averted economic disaster before and can do so again

By Edward Glaeser 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

What a difference two decades make. In 1980, Boston was a city in decline, the Hub not of the universe but of a middle-income metropolitan area in a cold-weather state. The city’s population had fallen from 758,000 in 1920 to 563,000, and real estate values had sunk so low that three-quarters of its homes were(...)

Fall 2003

Bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren says that housing and education, not restaurant meals, are driving two-income families to the edge