One of the most contentious issues facing Massachusetts voters on November 8 was in ballot question 2: whether to approve an annual increase of the number of charter schools in the state. Money raised by both sides was more than the amount raised for any ballot question in Massachusetts history, according to the New York Times.

“If the voters reject more urban charters here, then it’s not clear what more the charter movement can do to convince opponents and skeptics,” MIT economics professor Parag Pathak told the Times a few days before the election. Pathak has written extensively on education and charter schools.

The initiative did not pass: 62% voted against raising the cap.

Explore Professor Pathak’s research in the Open Access Articles collection in DSpace@MIT, where it is openly accessible to the world.

Since the MIT faculty established their Open Access Policy in March 2009 they have made thousands of research papers freely available to the world via DSpace@MIT. To highlight that research, we’re offering a series of posts that link news stories about scholars’ work to their open access papers in DSpace.