Spring 2000

Spring 2000

Education

This is only a test

Kids are the canaries in the mineshaft of education reform

By 0 Comments

It’s springtime, which has come to mean not only balmy weather and blooming flowers but MCAS testing in our public schools. In April, fourth-, eighth-, and 10th-graders took their tests in English composition. In May, these students will sharpen their Number 2 pencils for subject-matter tests in four areas: English Language Arts and Literature; Mathematics;(...)

Read More »

Uncategorized

The Trouble With Harry Potter

By 0 Comments

What gets lost in the shift from books to screen and merchandise? The magic. My mother would have loved Harry Potter. This might not seem like much to J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling series about the life and times of a boy wizard in contemporary England. After all, she’s at the top of the(...)

Read More »

Education

Five Ways to Reinvent Education

By 0 Comments

When it comes to education reform, two topics have dominated the debate on Beacon Hill of late–money and MCAS. What’s been lost is much discussion of what education reform was supposed to be about–actual changes in the classroom. So we went looking for some. CommonWealth checked out traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools(...)

Read More »

Education/ Opinion

A Fair Share for Continuing Education

By 0 Comments

In the evening, after a long day at work, an estimated 35,000 adults attend classes at Massachusetts community colleges, trying to further their education and their careers. These students take real academic courses, such as computer programming, business management, or English composition–courses that count toward graduation. In terms of academic quality, they are the same(...)

Read More »

Uncategorized

New Englands Embattled Men of The Sea

By 0 Comments

Against the Tide: The Fate of the New England Fisherman By Richard Adams Carey Houghton Mifflin, Boston, New York, 1999, 381 pages. Many people hold two simultaneous images of the New England fishing industry. There is the romantic view, with pictures of beautiful fishing schooners like the Gertrude L. Thebaud and Canada’s famous Bluenose. This(...)

Read More »

Education

Ted and Nancy Sizer on Schools and Morality

By 1 Comment

Schools teach more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. And we’re not just talking electives. In the way teachers and administrators conduct themselves, in the work they do and don’t do, in what they expect and what they tolerate in student behavior, schools teach lessons far more powerful than any formal curriculum. So say Theodore R.(...)

Read More »

Examining the books in Hopkington

Uncategorized

Examining the books in Hopkington

By 0 Comments

HOPKINTON — Dr. John Duffy, who has been involved in Hopkinton politics for more than 30 years, says he’s never seen the town’s finances in such a mess. The bungled books have been scrutinized in investigative stories by The Boston Globe and the town has hired an outside accountant to sort out a long unresolved(...)

Read More »

A jaundiced emEye on Winthropem

Uncategorized

A jaundiced emEye on Winthropem

By 0 Comments

WINTHROP — It’s a mid-winter evening, Eye on Winthrop is on the air — or, more accurately, cable — and Dick Bangs is perturbed. That in itself is not so unusual. But right now, it’s not the “disservices,” as he calls them, that state and especially municipal officials rain down on his fellow Winthrop citizens(...)

Read More »

Uncategorized

Counterpoints

By 0 Comments

Most taxpayers would agree that it is desirable to reduce the Massachusetts income tax rate to 5 percent, especially given a state income tax burden that is one of the highest in the nation. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation shares this view. The real question is how we can achieve that result while preserving the extraordinary(...)

Read More »

1 2 3