Back 2 Basics
Everything that’s wrong with urban education reform in a single, bitter-tasting story
Reader: I feel that I must address the elephant in the room. I’m talking, of course, about history—the sore subject that is absolutely not being eliminated from the Boston Public Schools. And irregardless of what you may have heard, there is no truth at all to the rumor that students in the city’s schools will now receive their daily dose of history and social studies only at lunchtime, served up from the schools’ fallow salad bars by historical impersonators. I’m happy to report that a growing number of students in Boston can look forward to a rich and nutritious curriculum, if by rich and nutritious you mean *two squares* of math and English. 
Boston Ed TalksA glimpse of the menu that awaits Boston’s students, especially those of the low-income variety—which is to say most of them—was on vivid display recently at an event called Boston Ed Talks. Held at the Boston Foundation, Ed Talks featured seven teachers representing a mix of public, charter and Catholic schools. And since food metaphors are the order of the day, I will use another here: the teachers who made it through the rigorous and highly competitive Ed Talks selection process represent the cream of the crop. [Note: the following sentence was typed in a spirit of the utmost Back 2 Basics | EduShyster: