Cheers to the tremendous show of courage and demand for accountability coming out of the Biggest Little State in the Union.

Central Falls is one of Rhode Island’s smallest and poorest cities, according to the Providence Journal. There, where students produce very low standardized test scores and the graduation rate is a dismal 48 percent, the board of trustees voted to fire the entire high school staff — that’s 93 people from ed techs right on up to the principal.

Central Falls High School has been a consistently underperforming school, and restructuring the education there is mandated by federal law. One of the options allowed is called “turnaround,” permitting the firing of the entire school staff, and the allowance to hire back as many as 50 percent of them for the fall term.

Other options would have been to close the school or convert it to a charter school that would require a longer school day, but teachers and trustees could not agree on how to convert the school.

As anticipated, organized labor heavily opposed the firings, but trustees dismissed their complaints, saying the action wasn’t a teachers’ rights issue. It was a students’ rights issue.

The work ahead for the trustees now is to make sure that their controversial housecleaning has not been in vain, which will mean some better connection with the parents of these underperforming children who need support in school and after school.

It’s important because the number of underperforming schools in the United States is high, and other districts will be looking to follow little Rhode Island’s lead.

Jeers to the move to add $8.5 million in federal money to Maine’s overpriced and underperforming DirigoHealth.

We’re not suggesting that it’s bad to insure more people, but does it really make sense to pour even more money into a program that has absorbed obscenely excessive dollars for little return?

It doesn’t.

We have said many times before, DirigoHealth has failed to live up to its lofty goals, and failed miserably. Adding money has never helped it, but simply enabled its existence.

More money is not going to fix DirigoHealth. It’s just going to prolong the spending. The Legislature must review and revamp the program, which was supposed to provide Maine with near-universal coverage. It never has, and pouring more money into what’s broken is not the fix that’s needed.

Rather than money, DirigoHealth needs immediate evaluation and decisive direction. 

Cheers to Harry Olin of Livermore Falls and all of his kind-hearted friends, such as Ann Foss, who helped Olin move into a new home.

In a world that seems to dish out more misfortune than good, especially in some quarters, Olin’s story is an inspiration. A former resident of Pineland Center, his pride in a humble home and his humble budget management should be instructive to all of us in a tight economy.

Also instructive is what you can give and give back, even when you have little to begin with. You start by giving of yourself.

His new home is indeed a blessing, clean and tidy, and he hopes to keep it that way. But his real blessing is the gift of true friendship.

Our hats are off to Harry.

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