Carol Gerwin

INTRO TEXT When people ask Mahesh Sharma what he does for a living, he knows what their reaction is going to be. Hearing that he’s a math educator, many people […]

It’s just after 11 on a steamy spring morning and principal-in-training Benadette Manning races from a difficult meeting at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School to her office down the hall. […]

All is well in the Commonwealth–or so the state’s political leaders would have everyone believe. Certainly there is a lot to crow about compared to five years ago, when CommonWealth […]

Robert Moses became a legend of the Civil Rights Movement dodging bullets and taking beatings as he organized voter registration drives in Mississippi. Today, he is battling ignorance of a […]

It’s the kind of steaming-hot day that can make even the most good-natured person cranky, but Rosie Mavrogeorge graciously invites a stranger inside her drab, wood-frame apartment building when asked […]

Each year standardized tests reveal that thousands of Massachusetts schoolchildren can’t read at basic levels and each year educators are pressed for solutions. But a Boston-based, national literacy program suggests […]

Jennifer Howard has long loved to hike along the Taconic Trail in the Berkshires, from the hollows to the lowlands to the ridge. The birds, the wildflowers, the views – […]

For years Betsy Warren has made it her business to know about every new home popping up in the town of Sandwich on the north shore of Cape Cod. That’s […]

Union forces have been gaining strength in Massachusetts, if their membership rolls are any guide. An estimated 30,000 workers joined unions in 1998, bringing the state’s total organized labor force […]

Nothing defuses labor militancy like a few years of prosperity. The state’s coffers flush with tax revenue, public employee unions are winning raises they didn’t see in the recession of […]

When Kathleen Casavant was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, her mother stayed home to raise her and her three brothers. There was never any worry about getting time […]

It’s one of those little-discussed State House mysteries: Why does the House of Representatives have a chaplain who starts each day’s session with a prayer, while the Senate has no […]

Every time the debate over public financing of private and religious schools heats up in Massachusetts, we hear the same legal arguments from each side of the debate: Funding advocates […]

Every time the debate over public financing of private and religious schools heats up in Massachusetts, we hear the same legal arguments from each side of the debate: Funding advocates […]

School voucher programs, which give government checks to parents to send their children to private or religious schools, are currently operating in just two communities nationwide–Milwaukee and Cleveland. While the […]

When he took office in January, Gov. Paul Cellucci promised to make up for what some consider the single biggest failing of the Weld-Cellucci administration. He vowed to rebuild the […]

Protestants may have ruled in colonial Massachusetts, but there’s little doubt who’s in charge on Beacon Hill today: Catholics. Massachusetts is one of the most Catholic states in the country, […]

It’s 10:30 a.m. and time for social studies. “Good morning, class!” Angela Deuso, 22, beams from the front of the room. “Good morrrn-ing!” her pupils sing out together. The students […]

The general public may not have noticed it in the rush of roll calls that marked the end of the legislative session in July, but advocates for the needy sure […]