Newton’s new mayor, Setti Warren, talks to CommonWealth‘s Alison Lobron about the challenges of a 24/7 job, the meaning of Martha Coakley’s loss, and how to govern a highly opinionated city. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Lobron: Is Setti a nickname? Warren: No. Setti was an Egyptian pharaoh. My parents did […]
Alison Lobron
Posted inCriminal Justice, Health Care
The big picture
Indiana paramedic Tom Arkins remembers the days, not too long ago, when he’d be called to an elderly person’s home and find a giant box of medications on the bedside table. If the patient was disoriented or unconscious, as was often the case, Arkins had no way of knowing what the drugs were or what […]
Posted inEducation
Reform in the real world
it sounded so easy. How could I not ace a college class called “Going to High School in America?” I had, after all, just finished going to high school in America. I was an expert. The professor — noted educational leader Theodore Sizer, who died in October — taught the only education class at Brown […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Four-day week deemed a success
A yearlong Utah experiment with a four-day work week for state employees has ended with a positive verdict, even as its goals changed along the way. In August 2008, then-Gov. Jon Huntsman (now US ambassador to China) issued an executive order changing the operating hours of state agencies. Offices were shuttered on Fridays and stayed […]
Posted inEducation
Nonprofit shows results with troubled kids
where some see reason for despair, Matt Stone sees possibility. Stone is the Massachusetts manager for Youth Villages, a nonprofit that aims to replace some residential services for troubled youth with intensive in-home counseling. Founded in Tennessee in 1986, Youth Villages expanded throughout the southeast and, in 2007, opened its first Bay State office. Stone […]
Posted inUncategorized
Second chances
INTRO TEXT three years ago, Dan Ladd of Lincoln closed up a real estate law practice and went back to school. Faced with a slow business climate and a desire for a skill he could take overseas, the former lawyer is now in training to be a veterinary technician. Dan Ladd left realestate law to […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Carpentry apprentices help nonprofits get real-world training
for david leonhardi, a union’s effort to increase its community service offerings has helped enhance his teaching. Leonhardi is an instructor at the New England Regional Council of Carpenters’ training center in Millbury, where apprentice carpenters spend 16 weeks — one week per quarter for four years — learning the trade. In the past, his […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Free labor market
INTRO TEXT when caroline huang remembers her first job out of graduate school, tension creeps into her soft-spoken voice even now, almost 20 years later. The speech recognition scientist went to work for a Massachusetts software company in 1991, and inside two years, she was eager to move. “It was very stressful,” says Huang, of […]
