Yesterday, the Boston Foundation released our latest Understanding Boston report, on charter schools and college readiness, to mark the release of a new report from the MIT School Effectiveness and Inequality Institute.

The data are striking.

It might not have made your calendar, but May 6-10 is Teacher Appreciation Week. 

This week we have multiple opportunities to highlight the impact that good teachers - and the right environment - can have on students.

One week after the bombings that forever left their mark in Boston history, things are starting to look as they did before the afternoon of April 15th. The satellite trucks, National Guard vehicles and constant sirens of the past week are fading into memory. The images of violence, injury and evil are appearing less and less on our television screens. Eventually, the barricades will be removed, the damage will be repaired, and life will appear to be back to normal.

But our healing is just beginning.

Yesterday, the Boston Foundation hosted its latest Understanding Boston forum, on the issue of transportation funding. The timing couldn't have been better - as the Massachusetts House and Senate try to construct a transportation funding plan and then reconcile that with the broader (and more costly) vision laid out by Governor Patrick in his budget proposal.

But while the public attention has focused on the politics and the difference of as much as $1.4 billion between lawmakers and the Governor, we hoped the forum could help bring the broader focus back to the real issue at hand - the devastating impact the deteriorating transportation infrastructure might have on the Massachusetts economy.

Eight years ago, this was just the kind of Understanding Boston event we hoped to have the opportunity to host. The topic: life sciences.

This morning, more than 250 people, including Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, gathered for the presentation of an Understanding Boston report by Barry Bluestone and Alan Clayton-Matthews of the Dukakis Center at Northeastern University evaluating the success of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and Governor Patrick's billion-dollar, 10-year initiative to grow the life sciences sector.