On the way home from the New England News Forum conference in Lowell on Saturday, David Eisenthal and I were talking about Gov. Deval Patrick and the Corporate Tax Loopholes issue. Eisenthal makes a strong argument that Deval Patrick should push his chips on the table in a showdown with the Legislature on the Corporate Tax Loopholes. Eisenthal said ( Read more... )

My contribution to this week's Valley Advocate is a story called "School-Tax Connection." It focuses on Rep. John Scibak (D-South Hadley), who is the lead sponsor of a bill that's being heavily promoted by the MTA, which would use the $500 million from not passing Gov. Mitt Romney's tax rollback and spending it on Chapter 70 School Aid instead. It' ( Read more... )

I went to the Jonathan Kozol reading at Greenfield High School last week and it provided the grist for my contribution to this week's Valley Advocate, a Between the Lines column called "Black and White." I think education and local aid are the next things up in Massachusetts, after the health care reform compromise. And House Speaker Sal DiMasi, ( Read more... )

L. and I went to see Jonathan Kozol last night, at Greenfield High School. The room was packed, largely with teachers. Kozol told stories of the South Bronx, of the children from his books, Pineapple and Mario. He said his hero was Mr. Rogers, who died recently. He told us about marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Boston and he said that public ( Read more... )

I've been following pkhentz's ongoing saga with the impending strike at the St. Louis Public Schools. It is in that light that I read with interest this story in The Springfield Republican about the situation in the Springfield Public School system. The thing you need to know to understand Springfield's situation is that the city is basically bankrupt and ( Read more... )