With a statewide referendum looming in November, Massachusetts voters will have to decide just how much school privatization they’re willing to bear. What happens when charter schools begin to proliferate in traditional public school districts? In Massachusetts, where K-12 alternatives have had more than two decades to metastasize, it means millions less in annual funding […]
WELFARE KINGS: BAKER MOVES TO MAKE CORPORATE GIVEAWAYS EVEN SWEETER
June 28, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS If you think that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Boston lavishing $270 million in tax breaks and direct aid on General Electric in exchange for moving their world headquarters to the Hubis unconscionable, you should realize that the deal is only a more extreme example […]
GE BOSTON DEAL: THE MISSING MANUAL, PART 8
Photo by Jason Pramas. Copyright 2016 Jason Pramas. June 21, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Problems with GE Fort Point arrangement show need for democratic economic development planning A new wrinkle surfaced earlier this month in the plan to use a big chunk of the $270 million in public aid and tax breaks being shoveled at […]
KILL SHOT: YEARS OF STATE AUSTERITY BUDGETS PUT UMASS BOSTON IN JEOPARDY
June 10, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Community needs to join Faculty Staff Union movement for a return to full funding There is only one appropriate response to the looming layoff of 400 unionized non-tenure track faculty at UMass Boston. Rebellion. We are well past the era of shots across the budgetary bow of public […]
UNACCOMMODATING: A BLS STORY
The Hub’s most elite high school has been under growing scrutiny for its apparent neglect to properly address a culture of racial intolerance. While federal investigators probe that issue, this story of a former Boston Latin School student with special needs raises additional points of concern about another minority population at BLS. It was near the end […]