THE HEAD OF THE BOSTON ARCHDIOCESE SCHOOLS is eager to work with public and charter school operators to improve education for all Boston students, but says the church’s recent […]
Elementary and Secondary Education
Posted inEducation, Politics
Virtual uncertainty
TWO YEARS AGO, the Greenfield school district launched the state’s first all-online public school with the promise of leading Massachusetts into 21st century education. The school set out to tap […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Reading law targets daunting problem
ON SEPTEMBER 26, surrounded by children in the Robin Hood School library in Stoneham, Gov. Deval Patrick signed An Act Relative to Third Grade Reading Proficiency into law. Three weeks […]
Posted inPolitics
High-stakes test
Photographs by Michael Manning JEFF RILEY RECEIVED a fairly consistent piece of advice when he was considering the offer to become receiver for the Lawrence public schools, the person in […]
Posted inEducation, State House News Service
MCAS scores trending up
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICEStudents’ standardized test scores are trending upward and the persistent achievement gap between certain demographic groups is closing, according to the Massachusetts Department of Early and Secondary […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion, Politics
Patrick’s school story
Gov. Deval Patrick delivered a rousing speech on behalf of President Obama Tuesday night, with his gift for inspiring oratory on full display before a national audience. But when it […]
Posted inEducation
Students stock up on iPads, ebooks
Trips to OfficeMax to fill up on pencils, filler paper, binders, and notebooks for the first day of school could soon go the way of the horse and buggy, replaced […]
Posted inEconomy, Education
What would Jesus do?
The Holy Trinity School in Lawrence, which closed in 2004, was recently sold with the restriction that it not be used as a charter school for the next 90 years. […]
Posted inEducation
Not adding up
After CommonWealth went to press, the state budget was finalized. The Senate proposal for a Foundation Budget Review Commission, described in the final paragraphs of the story, was not agreed […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Education, Opinion
You’ve got to have art
In many school districts, the last few years have not been kind to arts education. Arts are among the first subjects to be cut when budgets are tightened. But the story […]
Posted inEducation
AFL-CIO reverses course on teacher bill
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO changed course on Wednesday and now says it supports a teacher evaluation bill that has been proposed as a way of avoiding a costly ballot question fight. […]
Posted inBallot Questions, Economy, Education
Teachers’ union opposes ballot question deal
The state chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 22,000 public school employees, has forged an alliance with the AFL-CIO against a deal struck by the state’s largest […]
Posted inEducation, The Back Story
Globe vs. Herald
The Boston Herald’s circulation is dropping, but the tabloid is gaining readers. By contrast, the Boston Globe’s circulation is rising slightly, yet the broadsheet is losing readers. It doesn’t make […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, State House News Service
State officials announce Lawrence school turnaround plan
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE Lawrence public school students will be expected to spend more time in the classroom under a plan state education leaders plan to announce Wednesday to reverse […]
Posted inEducation, Politics
Lawrence sets bold turnaround plan
If states are the laboratories for democracy, the Lawrence schools are now the laboratory for overhauling a failing urban school district. State and local officials gathered in the Merrimack Valley […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Full-day kindergarten should be universal
Massachusetts has seen a dramatic increase in full-day kindergarten over the past decade and is poised for even more growth. With 83 percent of children in public school kindergarten now […]
Posted inEducation, Health Care, Transportation
Groups promote walking to school
Over the past 30 years, the number of overweight children in the United States has soared while the number of kids walking to school has plummeted. The two trends, and […]
Posted inEducation
Log-on learning
Brynn Wetherbee, an eighth grader from Clinton, is a student at the Massachusetts Virtual Academy, the state’s first full-time online school. SCHOOL BOOKS, PAPERS, and two laptop computers are […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Federal early ed aid is great but not enough
When Gov. Deval Patrick and more than 150 legislators, early educators, early childhood advocates ,and state education leaders gathered at the State House last month to celebrate the Commonwealth’s newly […]
Posted inEducation
Turnaround challenge
High School of Commerce from Amherst Wire on Vimeo. Singing. Laughing. Dancing on a balcony that nobody can ever remember being used in the auditorium. It’s August 30, the first […]
Posted inEducation
Teachers ask SJC to block petition
The Massachusetts Teachers Association today filed a suit to block a ballot initiative that would establish a teacher evaluation system in public schools. Click here to read the suit.
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Latest Census finds fewer young children in Mass.
In an aging state whose prosperity depends on a pipeline of skilled, well-educated workers, the burden of sustaining the Commonwealth’s future prosperity is resting on fewer small shoulders. The 2010 […]
Posted inEconomy, Education
Left behind
EACH SPRING, THE Boston Globe salutes the city’s valedictorians by publishing photographs of the top-achieving student in each of Boston’s 40 public high schools and describing their college plans. Many of […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Politics
A way out of gridlock
with unemployment too high, economic growth too low, and the gap between the rich and poor widening, the American Dream is hurting. Adding to the gloom is the polarization in […]