Scrutiny
Do Boston’s Russian Math Programs Hold the Equation for Success?
In a school system still in recovery from pandemic learning loss, RSM and programs like it may push the students who can afford them further ahead, leaving others on the edge of a widening educational gap.
Volume XXXVI, Issue XIII October 17, 2025
Dear Reader, This week, our issue opens with a Camberville double feature. First, we turn to an outgrowth of Cambridge's competitive parenting culture. SAB and AJPL take an in-depth look at the Russian School of Mathematics, an after-school math program with 15 centers in Massachusetts alone. So many students have enrolled in the program that it's begun to change the inner workings of Cambridge classrooms. What does it mean for Cambridge students when the center of learning moves beyond the school day? In our second scrutiny, RCG and CJ examine polyamory in Somerville. In 2020, Somerville became the first U.S. city to allow groups of more than two partners to register for a domestic partnership. At the time, the ordinance received national media attention. Five years out, this story asks: What is it actually like to be polyamorous in Somerville? Elsewhere in this issue: KJK's column on corecore, SG's 15Q with Benjamin L. Bivort, SG's conversation with Taylor Swift scholar Stephanie Burt, HGL's review of the grand opening PopUp Bagels, MAB and VO's venn diagram about turkey terrorism, and MEL's lovely endpaper about unseen sickness. FMLove, YAK+MTB
Love and the Law: A Look at Polyamorous Camberville
In 2020, 11 Somerville city councilors drafted an ordinance for domestic partnerships, previously nonexistent in the municipal code. As they were finalizing the legislation that would define domestic partnerships between two people, city councilor J.T. Scott asked a modest but far-reaching question: why only two?
Suzi Grossman Portrait
Suzanne wrote thank you letters to the Somerville City Council after the passage of the ordinance on domestic partnerships.
Haley Slavick Portrait
Haley J. Slavick met one of her partners at a non-monogamous speed dating night.
Volume XXXVI, Issue XII October 11, 2025
Dear Reader, In this issue, MK, CS, and AJBS profile eight international students caught in limbo. Among these students, no shared narrative emerges: Some become high-profile activists. Others feel ambivalent. One is set on returning to his home country. Another has dreamt of America since she was a child. Through beautiful storytelling, MK, CS, and AJBS bring you eye-to-eye with the students at the heart of the national headlines. Elsewhere, AS imagines an AI addict going a day without his beloved chatbot, while AA, CSB, and NG report live from the sudden, sprawling line outside of BerryLine. JPL profiles John M. Muresianu, an Adams affiliate who claims to possess the "Messiah gene," and MBF speaks to Jim MacArthur on the eve of his retirement. KHL closes us out with an endpaper on how a cross-country road trip gave her a new understanding of her mother. FMLove, YAK+MTB
Eight International Students at Harvard, Watching America Close Its Doors
A freshman debate champion wakes up to news of his peers marching the streets of Nepal. A trio of friends become high-profile activists. A sophomore from Jakarta searches for the America she idealized as a child.
