Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. E-cigarettes, which came onto the market about a decade ago, have been heralded as a means to assist adult smokers in their attempts to quit smoking. And some high-quality research supports this position: adult smokers who switch from cigarettes or cigars to e-cigarettes have had good success in decreasing their use of nicotine and even quitting altogether. The trouble is, e-cigarettes – such as the dominant brand, Juul, which has about 55% market share – have become an appealing avenue to introduce young people to nicotine. According to Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital and […]

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Most of us would agree that leadership matters — whether we’re talking about the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the mayor of a city, or the coach of a football team. Leadership certainly matters when it comes to student academic achievement in K-12 schools. A rigorous 2013 study found that “highly effective principals raise the achievement of a typical student in their schools by between two and seven months of learning in a single school year; ineffective principals lower achievement by the same amount.” One of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation’s strategies in our Education focus […]