Yesterday, the Globe spoke with a woman--let's call her Belinda Snotskill, married to Thurston Snotskill the Fourth--who is upset at the prospect of the state funding all-day kindergarten. What could possibly be wrong with all-day kindergarten, which would help parents balance work and home and help kids get a jump start on learning? It appears that the unwashed herd has forgotten something, Mrs. Snotskill's little darling. Let's call her Sloan Snotskill. Mrs. Snotskill can take......

The Globe reports that many Massachusetts high school graduates are going on to take remedial classes in college, which may be contributing to high college dropout rates. These assertions are based on a multiyear study from the Massachusetts Department of Education. The study followed nearly 20,000 students who graduated from Massachusetts high schools and went on to study at public colleges and universities in the state. Out of all the Massachusetts high schools surveyed, 27......

More reason for cash-starved college students, especially those in the UMass system, to cultivate the taste for ramen. WBZ reports, "The university's trustees finance panel approved a 3.1 percent increase in fees Wednesday." The hike applies to all UMass campuses, including UMass-Boston. However, UMass-Amherst will see the greatest rise in fees. A press release from the school points out that, compared to the private schools, public education is still a bargain: Last year, the average......

Whatever your thoughts on presidential candidate/political rock star Barack Obama borrowing a few points of Deval Patrick's rhetoric, you have to think it's good for the Governor. He's getting nation-wide press and it's not his fault that his speeches are so catchy and profound that Obama can't help copying them. Meanwhile, even a new gubernatorial haircut can lead to a stretch of publicity. In more substantial news, the House and Senate passed Patrick's plan to......

With over 20 million accounts, Second Life has become a pop culture phenomenon. An Internet-based virtual world, the metaverse in which we can be the person we've always wanted to be (without putting in the hard-work of exercise or educational training) have very few competitors. Currently, there is an exhibition going on in Boston called Mixed Realities - an exploration of real and synthetic places made possible by computers and networks. There's an exhibition......

We can't forget the porn 'stache Patriots receiver Wes Welker tried to rock earlier this season, much as we'd love to. We know it was a fashion failure and we have to hope that Welker knows it too -- and never tries to pull that look off again. Ever. But our Young Wesley is making up for that faux pas by rocking off a different moustache, one that we're digging much more than that earlier......

Governor Deval Patrick testified this morning at the State House about his plan to create an Executive Office of Education. This would consolidate authority and responsibility for the commonwealth's education system from pre-kindergarten to higher education to one cabinet-level position in the State House. Patrick referenced his recent trip to China, saying that Massachusetts is known throughout the world for its educational institutions. Education is "our calling card." In addition, as home to America's......

--Yet another explanation for why you should have a sinking feeling in your tummy any time you go over a bridge in Massachusetts. [Boston Herald] --Another storm is expected for Friday, but it's not prompting the mass freakout that the last storm did. [WBZ] --The city of Boston will build a statue that honors Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King. [AP/Boston Globe] --The Committee on Children, Families, and Individuals With......

The Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC) is fighting off accusations that its practice of skin-shocking children with serious psychological issues is barbaric. Yet those accusations seem justified after several JRC staff members at a home in Stoughton listened to a prank caller and shocked one of its residents 77 times, sending that student to the hospital for first-degree burns. Why would a parent submit a child—no matter how disturbed the child may be—to that kind of......

Those responsible for giving two students skin-shocks--one 77 times and another 29 times--at the request of a prank caller at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center (JRC) in August have been fired. The AP reports that seven people are out, including a video surveillance worker. The Globe did a lengthy story yesterday on how the employees at the home, which was in Stoughton, had plenty of reasons to stop before giving the skin-shocks, which are used......

Two people received skin-shock treatments at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center (JRC) in Canton after a former student made a prank phone call requesting the treatments. The incidents happened in August but are being reported now. The prank phone call led a frightening number of skin-shock treatments. According to the Globe, the school had delivered "77 shocks to one student and 29 shocks to another." The skin-shock treatments aren't the same as the shock therapy......

Evolution is on trial again. A former postdoctoral fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has sued the Cape Cod research center, claiming his 2004 dismissal resulted from his religious beliefs. Nathaniel Abraham was dismissed from Mark Hahn's research lab after refusing to work on the "evolutionary aspects" of his assigned project, according to the Globe. Hahn is a senior research scientist known for studying the effects of toxins on aquatic animals, using a hybrid......

With Boston as perhaps the world’s foremost college town, a large part of our population is staring down Fall Semester’s final exams. For some, this period is little more than another opportunity to display a sharp mind. For others, however, exam period is one of struggle, frustration, and pain. To this latter group we suggest an alternative: Just go back to high school. It’s been done before… A twenty-five-year old Kenneth Lickiss took a Greyhound......

In October, Boston University threw down the gauntlet and declared plans to expand. Now, Boston College is one-upping BU with expansion plans of its own. BC's expansion plan rivals that of BU. BU said it would put in $1.8 billion, and BC has announced that it will spend $1.6 billion. The BC Heights reports that the money will go to construction and renovation, and 100 new faculty members will be hired. The rest will go......

--Screenwriters, get your pens. A boy finagled his way into becoming an exchange student at the all-female Wellesley College. Ready … set … go! [Boston Globe] --Barack Obama and his supporters didn't let the weather stop their gathering at the Park Plaza Castle. He joked that "the name of my cousin, Dick Cheney, will not be on the ballot.” Now when's Oprah coming? [WCVB, Harvard Crimson] --Dr. Ruth was in town. Laurel Sweet describes her......

Boston University is willing to spend big bucks--$1.8 billion, to be exact--to be an academic powerhouse. Linda Wertheimer at the Globe reported Thursday that BU wants to "add 150 professors, dramatically lower the school's student-faculty ratio, and pour money into salaries to allow BU to vie for the nation's top professors." Not bad. You go, BU. President Robert Brown has visions of US News & World Report college rankings dancing in his head. However, if......

Nothing's better than a good college crime blotter because college students are so free with the booze. And they're creative. (Northeastern, you get an A-plus!) That's all well and good as long as the college kids aren't in your backyard. The Globe ran a story about Somerville residents who are fed up with students "screaming in the streets in the wee hours, jumping on cars, and urinating and vomiting in residents' yards." One resident complained......

Keggers and CliffsNotes Grub Street Headquarters 160 Boylston Street Sunday, September 23, 7:00-9:00 pm More info Sunday night: a time for football, Extreme Home Makeover, and staying in, right? You couldn't be more wrong. Sunday night--at least this Sunday night--is a time to don your favorite college sweatshirt, put on your thinking and drinking caps, and head out to Keggers and CliffsNotes, the latest installment in the Dirty Water Reading Series. Co-hosted by Redivider, Quick......

"Authorial Intent" is Bostonist's attempt to bring you the best readings in the area, all tied up with a shiny bow. Diane Ackerman, Wednesday, September 19, 7:00 pm, Harvard Book Store. More info. In The Zookeeper's Wife, fiction writer, nonfiction writer, and poet Ackerman returns with the true story of zookeepers in Poland during World War II who hid Jews from the Nazis. The LA Times calls the novel "a shining book beyond category." Jonathan......

John Kerry just can't catch a break. First there was that whole losing the presidency to G.W. thing, then the lack of education lands you in Iraq comment, and now this. A local Florida news station is reporting that a University of Florida student was tasered after asking John Kerry possibly controversial questions that included whether Kerry was in the "Skull and Crossbones" society with George W. Bush. That's the short story. Upon reviewing the......

It's college-ranking time. Of course, these rankings are about as scientific as a game of pin the tail on the donkey, but schools have a lot of fun learning about how other campuses see them. For example, the University of New Hampshire was named one of the top party schools. UNH is no West Virginia University, which appears to have abandoned the pretense of higher education altogether, but UNH was number seven on the party-hearty......

No, not that kind of hedge. Harvard lost $350 million by investing in a hedge fund. Maybe they thought the hedge fund would rake in the cash because it was run by a man who used to manage Harvard's foreign stock holdings. They were wrong. When Jeffrey Larson left the confines of Harvard to run his own firm, Harvard gave him a parting gift of $500 million. Larson lost the $350 from that and sold......

Former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney is in a full-scale Battle Royale with former Harvard hotshot Democrat presidential aspirant Barack Obama about the subject of sex. In the Atlantic piece Obama, Romney, and Sex, Sex, Sex, which appears to be titled for maximum search-engine optimization, Marc Ambinder writes about Romney's "shock" at Obama's proposal to teach sex-ed in kindergarten. Romney said, "I heard a quote today from Sen. Barack Obama which puzzled......

So many car insurance commercials on TV, so little relevance to Massachusetts drivers. This is the only state in the country where insurance rates are set by a government panel, which has worked out well for some folks (bad drivers and insurers willing to play ball) and not so well for other folks (good drivers in bad neighborhoods, big-time out-of-town companies). Now Insurance Commissioner Nonnie Burns wants to shake things up, proposing a limited shift......

We can't get the image of the neon red lights invading Kramer's apartment in the episode of Seinfeld when Kenny Rogers Roasters opened up a joint right outside his bedroom window. The affliction for Northeastern University residents in the proposed building wouldn't be the sleepless nights, apartment trading, and addiction to rotisserie chicken, rather perverse Village People nightmares as the YMCA sign flashes into the evening. If approved, the GrandMarc, a proposed 34 story......

MIT Professor James Sherley ended his 12 day hunger strike in mid-February, hoping that the attention he'd gained in the effort would bring some resolution to his quest to expose and eliminate systemic racism at the university. His faculty appointment ends on June 30 (the end of the fiscal year) and he's said that even though he doesn't have tenure he doesn't have any plans to leave. It's a different story for Frank Douglas, executive......

Last week UMass-Amherst faculty and librarians got together and took a vote. 214 stood, one remained sitting. The resounding message was that the faculty of the flagship campus in the university system was none too pleased with the recently released plan by system president Jack Wilson. The hometown team, UMass-Boston faculty, had scheduled their at bat against Wilson and the Trustees for today – but that vote has been postponed. The Globe reports that after......

Academia never seemed like the kind of setting for straight-up catfights, but UMass appears to be the exception. Not everyone is happy with the shakeup of the state's education system, which involved UMB chancellor Michael Collins moving to U-Mass-Worcester to be interim medical school chancellor and Keith Motley taking his spot. Yesterday, at the UMass medical school, physiology professor John Walsh and deputy medical school chancellor Richard Stanton let off some steam. Walsh had said......

Boston’s major public university made history yesterday by appointing the first black chancellor to a UMass campus. J. Keith Motley was appointed by UMass President Jack Wilson to the post, as part of a flurry of announcements yesterday that sent the current chancellor, Michael Collins, to the UMass Medical School in Worcester, where he will direct health-sciences initiatives for the university. Well known as an inspirational and charismatic leader, the exiting Chancellor’s new appointment likely......

Bostonist was walking past the hustle and bustle of Fenway Park on Friday afternoon when we finally identified that nagging feeling that had been with us ever since the Park Street station. We had seen more Baltimore Orioles jerseys, hats and T-shirts in an hour than we saw all day when we traveled to Camden Yards last season! What was going on? Everyone knows that the orange-accented Baltimore ballpark is known fondly in Red Sox......