Elementary and High School Education

Latest Articles

An education funding formula, hailed as a breakthrough, faces its critics

Fuzzy math
For years, Rhode Island was one of just two states in the union without a funding formula for its public schools. And then, for a time, it was the only state with that dubious dis-tinction.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 24, 2010

Shaking up the school system

The Reformer
Rhode Island education commissioner Deborah Gist’s take-charge style could make a winner of a state that often seems destined to fail. But critics say her free-market approach won’t work.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | April 21, 2010

Will Beacon Hill be bullied into enacting a politically correct law?

Freedom watch
A case of high-school bullying in South Hadley ended in tragedy this past January when the alleged victim, a freshman girl, committed suicide. Now, ramped up by the outrage over the case, Massachusetts legislators are in danger of enacting a politically correct law that could have devastating effects on our free speech.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | April 12, 2010

By | January 01, 0001

Nasty fun

Sam Lipsyte asks and tells
In his books Venus Drive , The Subject Steve , and Home Land , novelist and short-story writer Sam Lipsyte revels in rage.
By ALEX BLUM | March 11, 2010

Review: Prodigal Sons

An engrossing, unpredictable, often heartbreaking family-drama documentary
Adopted four weeks after he was born and brought up in Helena, Montana, Marc McKerrow suffered through the stress of being compared with his brother, Paul, his high school's valedictorian and star quarterback.
By GERALD PEARY | March 09, 2010

Call for health-care reform

Letters to the Portland Editor, December 25, 2009
The November 7 passage of health-care reform, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, in the House of Representatives was a very important and exciting moment for everyone who is dedicated to the idea that all Americans need and deserve access to high quality, affordable health care.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | December 22, 2009

Let's Get Raw

Do It Clean Dept.
Couldn't score a seat at the Climate Change Conference underway in Copenhagen, but still want to reduce your carbon footprint? Perhaps you need to eat it raw.
By TOM MEEK | December 16, 2009

The human condition

Who’s to say what’s Crazy ?
Kevin Broccoli, the writer and directorial ringmaster, announced before the performance that we were going to see not a play, but rather an experiment.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 23, 2009

The battle for our city schools

Boston Phoenix letters, October 23, 2009
In your recent story “ Boston Public-School Apartheid? ”, charter public schools are faulted for taking disadvantaged Boston students and sending them on to excellent high schools and, eventually, college. Why shouldn’t low-income students of color have access to such life-changing opportunities?
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | October 21, 2009

Boston public-school apartheid?

Think busing was a problem in this town? Some are labeling charter schools as Boston's newest educational battleground
At the Edward W. Brooke School in Roslindale — a kindergarten-to-eighth-grade public charter school — the push to advance graduates to elite secondary programs begins in fifth grade.
By CHRIS FARAONE | October 15, 2009

Crossword: ''Tune in, drop out''

Who needs high school?
Who needs high school?
By MATT JONES | September 09, 2009

Health-Care-Reform Town Hall All-Stars

Plumb and Dumber Dept.
Shamelessly successful political-smear campaigns yield exalted martyrs.
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 20, 2009

Dead like me

Tonya Hurley's high-school afterlife
"Perception vs. reality. In high school, they are pretty much the same thing." So writes Tonya Hurley, author of ghostgirl and ghostgirl: Homecoming (Little Brown), two books ostensibly written for young adults but with elements that are just as appealing to grown-ups.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | August 05, 2009

After a half-century, a theatre crumbles

Looking Glass Theatre closes
The spotlight has dimmed, sadly, on Providence's Looking Glass Theatre. The company, a small crew of three to four actors and a musician, entertained elementary school students across the state for nearly 50 years, at one time performing hundreds of in-school shows per year.
By CHRISTOPHER COLLINS | June 24, 2009

The Big Hurt: Wascally wappers

Plus failed massacres and reverse piracy
Lame as Marilyn Manson may be, I wouldn't wish his fans on him if he were my worst enemy.
By DAVID THORPE | June 01, 2009

Love and friendship (Rhode Island-style)

An excerpt from Sarah Rainone's new novel, Love Will Tear Us Apart , in which six friends let the music do the talking
Cort is whispering something to me but she's trying to be all respectful or whatever so I can't make out what she's saying.
By SARAH RAINONE | May 22, 2009

Review: The Country Teacher

Risible
Czech writer/director Bohdan Sláma's histrionic drama finds dour teacher Petr (Pavel Liska) fleeing from a private Prague academy to a rural elementary school.
By ALICIA POTTER | May 19, 2009

Dueling morals

Mad Horse's masterful The History Boys
A battle of pedagogies is raging at an English grammar school for teenage boys.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 29, 2009

Censorship for Me, Penelope

Girl, Interrupted
Lisa Jahn-Clough's young-adult novel Me, Penelope is the subject of a recent dispute at Tavares Middle School in Orlando, Florida.
By ALEX IRVINE | March 04, 2009

Making a musical connection

Commingling cultures
In 1998, world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma envisioned connecting artists and audiences around the world by focusing on the cultures along the historic 4000-mile Silk Road trade route.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | March 04, 2009

The kult of Al Kaprielian

Not at all like the smooth-talking meteorologists on the air in Boston, Kaprielian looks more like an eighth-grade science teacher as he springs to life.
It's the coldest day of the winter so far and Al Kaprielian is excited.
By MIKE MILIARD | February 06, 2009

Redskin redux

Balls, Pucks, and Monster Trucks
A couple months ago, when I wrote about the fact that the Sanford and Wiscasset high schools are the last remaining Maine schools using the mascot nickname “redskins,” Sanford principal Allan Young told me that if “redskin” critics called his students racists, he would support a change.
By RICK WORMWOOD | January 26, 2009

One tough lady

Roberta Hawkins
Roberta Hawkins
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | December 18, 2008

Adam Bock is a good listener

Talking the talk
When Adam Bock first came to Providence in the late '80s, after a friend told him there was this great playwriting teacher at Brown, he was busting with unstoppable aspiration
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 19, 2008

Last of the Redskins

What can sports mascots teach us about Native American relations today?
The Scarborough School Board changed from “Redskins” to the “Red Storm” eight years ago, at a time when high school and college teams around the country were trending away from using Native American mascots.
By RICK WORMWOOD | December 02, 2008