CHEERS
Ben Sasse extols the virtues of football as “a character-forming institution that channels strength” during a time when boys struggle with factory-model schooling and the temptations and distractions of the digital world.
In a world of instant gratification, it teaches perseverance through early practices and aching muscles. In an era of isolation, football creates community. It forms brotherhood through both misery and joy. In a culture of passivity, football privileges action. In times of peace, football prepares us for war.
JEERS
“While national test scores have largely stagnated or declined in key subjects like math and reading, graduation rates continue to creep up nationally,” writes Lily Altavena. “The use of credit recovery to help students graduate could be playing a role.” Lily digs into the data and talks to Johns Hopkins’s Samantha Viano, who says schools and districts are often “very blasé about their credit recovery enrollment,” and may “not really understand who’s in those classes, what they’re doing in those classes, how long it takes them to work on them.”
Editor's note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli's Substack, SCHOOLED, a free Substack and email newsletter restarting the education-reform conversation. Click here to subscribe for sharp analysis of the week’s biggest K–12 debates, curated commentary from across the ed-policy world, and lively discussion—including reader reactions and pushback.
