“Parents cried out. Alumni threatened and launched lawsuits, and a few current students protested. Lowell, once a meritocratic beacon, had become something else: a bellwether for the uncertain future of selective public education.” Nathan Heller covers a very interesting educational battle in The New Yorker: What Happens When an Elite Public School Becomes Open to All?

+ And a very different school story. Last of its kind: Vermont town weighs future of one-room schoolhouse.