3+ week, 5+ day ago (327+ words) GBH announced Thursday that it is eliminating 15 positions, with some of the affected employees leaving immediately and others staying on through December 2025 or January 2026. The cuts include jobs in kids" projects, finance, marketing and technology, according to GBH President and CEO Susan Goldberg. "The loss of federal funding continues to ripple through our business," Goldberg said in a statement. In Fiscal Year 2026, which began in October, GBH was slated to receive about $18 million dollars " or approximately 8 percent of its budget " from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has now effectively ceased to exist. That loss of direct funding only represented one aspect of rescission"s consequences for GBH. Historically, GBH has produced national television programs like FRONTLINE, NOVA, American Experience, Antiques Roadshow and Masterpiece with funding provided by PBS. That funding, in turn, was drawn from dues paid to PBS…...

1+ hour, 58+ min ago (446+ words) Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday named Tara Goodhue, a science teacher at Lowell High School, as the 2026 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year. Goodhue is Lowell Public School's first teacher to win the annual award since its creation in 1960. "I am incredibly humbled and overwhelmed by this," Goodhue said. "I really attribute this honor to the fact that I teach the best students in the state." The Teacher of the Year Award is given to educators who have created a positive learning environment, built strong relationships with students and the district community and provides high quality instruction, according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Goodhue was chosen from 200 nominees across the state and automatically becomes the state's candidate for the National Teacher of the Year Award. She said she credits her win to her students' help during the application…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (666+ words) Boston Public Schools is proposing to close two high schools and one elementary school starting in 2027 as part of the district's long-term goal to decrease its physical footprint amid declining enrollment. The schools expected to be shuttered under the proposal are Lee Academy Pilot School and Community Academy of Science and Health (CASH), both in Dorchester, as well as the Another Course to College pilot school in Hyde Park. The proposed closures were presented at Wednesday's Boston school committee meeting with Superintendent Mary Skipper calling it part of the district's effort to build a better BPS for its students. "One that is optimized to match our student body while offering high quality choices for all BPS students and families across our neighborhoods," Skipper said at the meeting. "Our primary focus is expanding access to safe, healthy and inspiring learning spaces…...

1+ week, 8+ hour ago (657+ words) The Massachusetts Nurses Association is among a nationwide coalition of health care organizations criticizing a Trump administration plan that would limit some students" access to federal loans. While graduate students could previously borrow loans up to the cost of their degree, the new rules " part of Trump"s "Big Beautiful Bill" passed by Congress " would set caps depending on whether the degree is considered a graduate or professional program. Left out are nursing, physical therapy, dental hygiene, occupational therapy and social work, as well as fields outside of health care such as architecture, education and accounting. Students pursuing graduate degrees in these fields would face tighter federal student loan limits under the plan. In a statement, the Massachusetts Nurses Association criticized the loan caps, saying it would "make it dramatically harder or impossible to afford the education required to meet…...

1+ day, 14+ hour ago (1207+ words) In New Bedford, school officials renovated a planetarium at the high school to use for history and science lessons. In Lynn, city officials transformed a former bank into a place for pre-college classes that has doubled the program's ability to enroll students. And in Chelsea, the city acquired a church it plans to turn into classrooms to free up space in its high school. These urban districts all turned to unconventional learning spaces out of necessity, as years of unequal funding left them with outdated facilities. School leaders in New Bedford " one of the communities with the most deficient facilities in Massachusetts " say they want the funding system to be made more equitable, but they can't wait for that to change. "If there isn't a new building on the horizon, you have to be very creative and you have to…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago (898+ words) A unique New England college just turned 40 years old. Landmark College welcomed its first class to campus in Putney, Vermont, during a time when few neurodivergent students went to college, let alone graduated. "Most existing college programs at the time simply offered students accommodations like books on tape or a scribe to help write your papers or somebody to take notes for you," recalled founding academic dean Jim Baucom. He said when he was recruited to help launch Landmark, he was reluctant because there was no blueprint to follow. But that gap in the American higher education landscape created an opportunity. After Windham College went bankrupt in 1978 and closed its campus in Putney, the federal government proposed turning the property into a minimum-security prison. Local politicians and voters had another idea. Led by future Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, the Putney…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago (710+ words) The government shutdown is again making it it hard to answer a critical question: How is the U.S. job market doing? The impasse in Congress over funding has delayed a closely-watched report on the labor market for the second month in a row. Without that official jobs tally, the available signals are mixed. This week, a big payroll processing company reported an uptick in October hiring, for example. But a consulting firm that tracks pink slips noted a big surge in layoff notices. Policymakers typically look to monthly surveys from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the broadest and most accurate snapshot of the job market. But BLS number-crunchers have been furloughed for more than five weeks, so the September and October jobs reports have not been published. "Due to the government shutdown, this is a challenging time to give an…...

3+ week, 19+ hour ago (956+ words) Bethany Russell grew up in Bristol, Tennessee, and served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer before enrolling in a joint master's program at Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government. The 30-year-old currently studies U.S. economic competition with China and says, even though she feels welcome on campus, her peers struggle to relate to her. "It's clear that my classmates don't necessarily have the frame of reference to understand where I'm coming from," she said. "There aren't that many [veterans] here." University administrators want to change that. This fall, the Kennedy School launched the largest scholarship campaign in its history to bring more military veterans to Cambridge at a program where veterans already make up about 8% of its students. The school says the effort is a way to broaden opinions on campus amid mounting criticism that Harvard and other colleges…...

1+ day, 6+ hour ago (529+ words) Massachusetts high schoolers would be required to learn financial literacy, start planning their college or career journeys, take end-of-course tests and complete a capstone or portfolio project under a new set of graduation standards that state officials proposed Monday. The initial framework comes in response to a statewide vote last year that eliminated the use of 10th grade MCAS tests as a graduation requirement. Healey administration officials worked with a council that included educators, students, parents and business community representatives to come up with the newly proposed requirements unveiled Monday. "We're moving away from high stakes to high expectations and seizing this moment, this opportunity to reach all of our students and make a Massachusetts high school diploma more meaningful than ever," Gov. Maura Healey said as she announced the framework's details in an event at Dedham High School. As proposed…...

19+ hour, 51+ min ago (1125+ words) Between Miriam Grodin's classes, shifts at the student newspaper and work in the campus development office, she's spent part of the fall semester job shadowing staff at the book publisher tucked behind the stacks in the library. "Have you learned anything that you didn't know before about publishing?" Brandeis University Press Director Sue Berger Ramin asked Grodin in a sort of exit interview as they sat in her book-lined office three months into the fall semester. "Definitely," Grodin responded, smiling. "Having a conversation with someone who actually works in publishing and finding out the tangible things that they do is just really interesting." The 20-year-old junior from Livingston, New Jersey, is double-majoring in English and creative writing. She hopes to become an editor someday but said before job shadowing at the press, she found the process of publishing to be…...