Arts education on the ropes
Last week, the National Endowment of the Arts released a new analysis showing a sharp decline in participation in arts education nationwide, with particularly bad news for African-Americans and Hispanics.
Last week, the National Endowment of the Arts released a new analysis showing a sharp decline in participation in arts education nationwide, with particularly bad news for African-Americans and Hispanics.
In the new Washington Monthly Steven M. Teles, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins, reviews Frederick M. Hess's recently published book The Same Thing Over and Over. Teles is particularly attentive to ?Hess's argument?
Columnist David Brooks has a new New York Times blog that, he writes, will ?be about who you are and why you do what you do.? His description is not a promising start.
?If what we want to do is help our neediest children get ahead ?we need to find opportunities for them to do the things that privileged families do?solid academic programs combined with an engaging array of enrichment experiences.'' *
Today, education leaders from across the nation (including our own Checker Finn) came together to endorse the idea of creating a national, voluntary, common curriculum that would be designed to supplement the national, voluntary, Common Core ELA and math standards.
Reading yesterday's New York Times editorial about the Empire State's fiscal crisis, I couldn't ?help but think of the last days of the USSR. I'm sure there were many Soviets scrambling to move the deck chairs around while that?ship was sinking.
Almost fifteen years ago, I was sitting in the main auditorium at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, getting ready to start my sophomore year at a public, residential magnet school that billed itself as a "pioneering educational community." What I remember most is how much the dean of students talked about the possibility of failure during that or