All in The Editorial Page

Next Article

The Editorial Page

She's back - almost

Obama's not-yet-fully-official decision to enlist Senator Clinton has been widely and rightly commented upon as being worthy of Lincoln, who took the risk of including former political opponents in his cabinet on the eve of the Civil War — a time when the nation was in even worse shape (albeit for very different reasons) than it is now.

Obama was bold when he decided to run against the odds for the White House. He would be bold and imaginative to appoint Senator Clinton.

Bolstering high-school grads
It was clearly an orchestrated one-two punch. First the bad news: two-thirds of Boston high-school graduates who go on to college fail to earn degrees. Now the welcome news: Northeastern University is establishing a one-year program to ease the transition of public high-school graduates into the more demanding world of higher education.

Select numbers of affluent students in need of further tutoring have long availed themselves of an extra year at expensive private prep schools to bolster their skills. That option has not been in the cards for the largely poor and working-class kids graduated from Boston's public schools.

Now, thanks to Mayor Thomas Menino and the school department's openness to new ideas, Northeastern's commitment, and the Boston Foundation's behind-the-scenes sagacity in helping to provide the intellectual framework in which this situation can be addressed, local families and their children will have a better shot at life.