Regulators are trying to renew fish stocks. But are they throwing fishermen overboard? Photographs by Farnsworth/Blalock Stephen Smith, a 36-year-old fisherman from Ipswich, steers the Scotia Boat Too, a 42-foot […]
On the Hook
Posted inUncategorized
In Need of Guidance
High school counselors are playing pal, shrink, and surrogate parent for stressed-out kids. So who’s planning students’ academic future? Photographs by Mark Morelli It was 25 years ago that Brockton […]
Posted inEconomy
Anti-family values
Photographs by Flint Born TRACEY AND SEAN FRANCIS used to look forward to Fridays, but not for the usual reasons. That’s the day The Patriot Ledger newspaper carries its big […]
Posted inUncategorized
Walpole chats up the web
Walpole seems to be a place that won’t take no or yes for an answer. The town has had three elections in less than a year, all of them related […]
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Battling the cable guys in Lakeville
LAKEVILLE– When there’s a problem with their cable-television service, Lakeville residents call AT&T– whose nearest customer center is in New Bedford, almost 20 miles away. Just a few years ago, […]
Posted inUncategorized
State return on federal taxes
Once the beneficiary of federal largesse, Massachusetts is now on the losing end of the tax-and-spend game. For every tax dollar sent to Washington in fiscal year 2000, the Bay […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
The New Economys dubious dividend
As we find ourselves heading into a particularly brutal state budget-debate season, the focus, naturally enough, is on the fiscal realities ahead and how to come to terms with them. […]
Posted inUncategorized
James Q Wilsons marriage problems
The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened FamiliesBy James Q. WilsonHarperCollins, New York, 274 pages You have to admire James Q. Wilson’s nerve. In his latest effort, The Marriage […]
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Salvati makes the FBI a federal case
When the appalling tale of Joe Salvati’s 30-year imprisonment for a murder he did not commit first became public more than a year ago, there was something strangely unsurprising about […]
Posted inEducation
Summer school is no picnic
When the argument over MCAS started heating up, in the late 1990s, it didn’t register with me beyond the swirl of sound bites on the local news. I was a […]
Posted inEducation
A math teacher learns crowd control
“It’s all about instruction.” People involved in school reform often say this, meaning that raising student achievement depends on improving the quality of instruction. I’ve said it plenty myself in […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
The unfinished business of school improvement
Nine years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts launched an historic initiative to improve the state’s system of public education. The set of strategies embodied in the Education Reform Act of […]
Posted inEducation
Doing the math on education reform
Education reform has long been the favorite pastime of Massachusetts state government. Since 1888, more than 100 commissions and official studies have put public education under the microscope. Many of […]
Posted inEducation
Counterpint
I am sincerely disappointed that my friend Mark Roosevelt, co-author of the Education Reform Act, has chosen this critical time not only to abandon his own efforts, but also to […]
Posted inEducation
The teachers waiting for a contract
INTRO TEXT When school committee members take out a newspaper ad claiming that teachers are overpaid and underworked, it’s a pretty good sign that contract negotiations aren’t going well. Indeed, […]
Posted inEducation
The student who sets educational policy
INTRO TEXT James Madden will be ousted from the state Board of Education in June, but it’s not because he asks too many questions. Madden’s term will end when he […]
Posted inEducation
Marathon Man
Surrounded by the auto body shops and waste haulers of Roxbury’s Newmarket section, the Samuel Mason Elementary School is a lonely educational outpost. But the brick schoolhouse is one of […]
Posted inEducation
Lost in translation
Today is all about the letter Y, announces Kathleen Harvey to the 15 Latino students who make up her kindergarten class. “Y for yo-yo,” she says slowly, pointing to the […]
Posted inEducation
Learning a new trade
In the welding shop at Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School, in Lexington, Jessica Antonelli, a 17-year-old junior from Woburn, peers through protective goggles and aims the spitting flame of […]
Posted inEducation
Eavesdropping
For almost nine years now, ever since passage of the Education Reform Act of 1993, there has been endless discussion- ranging from earnest talk to frantic hand-wringing- over the effort […]
Posted inEducation
Highschoolers get a sneak preview of college demands
Eija Ayravainen doesn’t have time to waste on educational reforms that are headed nowhere, and two years ago, when College Now came across her desk, it seemed to fit that […]
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Toy towns
All Bay State cities and towns have children to educate, but the burden isn’t evenly distributed. The Kids Count Census, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, used US […]
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Exta Credit
In a commentary that begins on page 9 of this issue, S. Paul Reville calls education reform “the most important work of our time.” We couldn’t agree more. The job […]