(While I’m promoting this post as being of general interest, this shouldn’t be seen as a BMG endorsement in this race - Charley) Boston is at a crossroads. Tuesday's election is fundamentally about what kind of city we want this to … [Read more...]
Who is Marty Walsh?
Just throwing this question out for the comments. When I voted for him, I thought Marty Walsh was a progressive. But his policies are mostly pro-wealth, anti-regular-people. I heard him speak once. He seemed like a sincere advocate for … [Read more...]
State of the City: Take to the Street
In case you haven't seen it elsewhere, I'm putting it here: a bunch of us will be standing in the cold starting tomorrow at 4:30 PM to protest the $50 million proposed budget cuts from the Boston Public Schools' budget. We don't have the … [Read more...]
How the Ed Reform Sausage Gets Made: The Barr Foundation
I had hoped to write a big ol' primer on the Walsh Administration's plan to charterize the Boston Public Schools. But it's hard for me to write coherently about something that makes me so angry, and, anyway, anything I wrote would basically … [Read more...]
Boston Compact: Charters Reject Choice
There are many reasons to be suspicious of The Boston Compact's Unified Enrollment plan, not least of which is that a body that "Chief Collaboration Officer" Rachel Weinstein asserts is "not a public organization" (direct quote from last … [Read more...]
Backfilling: The Solution to Charter School Waiting Lists
So now the charter school advocates are trying a ballot initiative to raise the charter school cap. Think of the children! Those poor children languishing on the charter school waiting lists! I know from personal experience that there's … [Read more...]
Blanchard’s, racial profiling,and the problem with internet activism
I have no financial interest in Blanchard's, other than the fact that I spend money there. Just saw this today, amid a Twitter storm of righteous indignation about how terrible this business is and how we should all boycott them. I … [Read more...]
The Strange Death of Burrell Ramsey-White
Given everything we've seen in recent months about police killing black men and then lying about it, I thought I would revisit an event in Boston that caught my eye a few years ago: the killing of Burrell Ramsey-White. At the time, … [Read more...]
Lifting the Charter School Cap: A Look at the Numbers
I read this story about a civil rights lawsuit being used as an end-run around the legislature and their increasingly-skeptical constituents to raise the charter school cap. I decided to put my feelings aside and take a hard look at the … [Read more...]
My Education Platform
I scoured the websites of all the Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates and could not find one that matched my agenda. So I wrote one. Enjoy! Quality Education for Massachusetts. Massacusetts deserves educational equality. For too long … [Read more...]