Boston Herald

By Edward Moscovitch
Physicists do not ignore relativity, nor do biologists ignore genetics. But, Reid Lyon suggests, all too many schools get along by sheer guesswork and the crudest sort of empiricism.

A Boston city councilor is raising concerns about a pilot school’s proposed curriculum and its ties to an arm of Scientology, while a prestigious Hub charitable foundation is taking a second look at its grant to help launch the controversial school.

By Dave Wedge
A proposed taxpayer-funded pilot school linked to an arm of the controversial Church of Scientology has scored a $20,000 grant from a blue-chip Hub charitable foundation, the Herald has learned.

According to her job description, West Roxbury’s Kathleen Colby is the YMCA’s liaison to the classrooms of this city, charged with assuring parents that Boston public schools offer “good and valid options” for their children.

By Mike Underwood / Sunday Focus: Budget Woes
The cost of school meals is set for a meaty hike next fall, turning up the heat on already cash-strapped education chiefs and struggling moms and dads.

By Philip Mallory and Colneth Smiley Jr.
Bay State students are reeling in the wake of news that the hard, expensive slog of higher education may get even harder thanks to economic threats to the student loan business.

Five months after taking over as Boston public schools superintendent, Carol R. Johnson last night proposed a shakeup in her administration to close the achievement gap among students and ensure “graduation for all.”

By Joe Fitzgerald
Realizing they were too old to write letters to Santa Claus, Jonathan Mihal came up with a better idea, much more in keeping with the religion class he teaches at Cathedral Grammar School here in the South End of the city.

by Peter Gelzinis
It used to be when you heard the word “lockdown,” you thought of places like Cellblock 10 at MCI-Cedar Junction, the prison yard at Attica in upstate New York or perhaps our own local dungeon, the venerable Charles Street Jail.

They’re key to state’s educational reforms
Two recent reports document the success of important education reforms.
One shows that Boston’s pilot high schools - which feature more autonomy and teacher input than regular district schools - outperform their counterparts in traditional Boston public high schools, while another indicates that MCAS scores have improved in 10 Massachusetts schools that implemented longer school days last year.

by Peter Gelzinis
Banning spanking in one’s home is a lot like compelling people to wear seat belts in their cars. As well-intentioned as both notions...

by Laurel J. Sweet
Parents who spank their kids - even in their own homes - would be slapped by the long arm of the law...

Facing declining enrollment and deteriorating school buildings, the Archdiocese of Boston plans to shutter...

By Rachelle Cohen
Remember that dreadful time in the early days of the Clinton administration when the then first lady brought teams of experts on health care to meet behind closed doors at the White House? The results were, of course, as hideous as the process that brought forth those results.

Oprah personally gave the girls her personal phone number, e-mail and home address so that they could contact her day and night. Aside from the matron accused of fondling a student,