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By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — Someone has officially filed a petition to put on the statewide ballot the question of whether students should be required to pass a standardized test in order to graduate — but it wasn’t the state’s large teacher’s union, which has been...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — Lawmakers tasked with negotiating details of a major firearms bill left their work open to the public last week — a move that broke from opaque traditions on Beacon Hill. A week later, those negotiators moved to close their meetings to the...

By Sam Drysdale

HOLYOKE — Almost a decade after the state took control of Holyoke Public Schools through the controversial and rarely used receivership model, the district is now on the path back to local control.The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — Following a presentation on reforming education to embrace artificial intelligence, build more flexibility into the school day, and fundamentally rethink how and where students learn, the state’s K-12 education commissioner agreed that...

By Sam Drysdale

Hampshire County is currently home to just 26 of the 7,000 or so families in the state’s emergency shelter system, with 11 families in Hadley, 10 in South Hadley and five in Amherst, according to statistics released this week by the Healey...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — As the state moves into a “new phase” of its ongoing emergency shelter crisis, Gov. Maura Healey is turning to a Southampton resident for help.The governor announced Monday that she has appointed Lt. General Leon Scott Rice, former director...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — Over the past decade, the Senate has passed a bill that would remodel what sex education looks like in Massachusetts on four occasions — but House Democrats have never taken it up.With a new governor who may be more amenable to the measure...

By Sam Drysdale

An increasing reliance on travel nurses is contributing to high turnover rates among nurses in Massachusetts, as health care remains strapped by labor shortages here and around the country, according to a Health Policy Commission report. The issue has...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — Residents all over Massachusetts are scheduled to absorb a significant decrease in food assistance aid in just over two weeks, with more than 630,000 households facing a loss of about a third of what they have received in SNAP benefits over...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — In her first appearance before Massachusetts’ municipal leaders, Gov. Maura Healey said she would fully fund the Student Opportunity Act, seek supplemental funding to cover costs associated with serving migrant children in the state’s public...

By Sam Drysdale

BOSTON — Cannabis control commissioners are in sharp disagreement over a new curriculum on driving under the influence of marijuana.This month, Massachusetts became the first recreational-use cannabis state in the nation to adopt a curriculum to...