Exxon Mobil is concerned about U.S. math and science education, so it has decided to pay kids to study. The company is pouring $125 million (a bit more than one day's profits) into the National Math and Science Initiative, which will reward students by paying them cash for each English, science, or math AP test on which they receive a score of 3 or higher.
This month's Atlantic includes a thoughtful article by Jonathan Rauch about how to end the culture wars: "slug them out state by state." He points to the cautionary tale of Roe v. Wade, which nationalized an intensely controversial issue:
The Beastie Boys once spurred angst-ridden teens to fight for their right to party.
Call it what you want--buyer's remorse, reverting to form, Hoekstra's rebellion--but Congressional conservatives aren't going to accept NCLB version 2.0 without a fight. Rather, they're bent on emasculating or repealing it.
When Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa decided to reform his city's schools, he likely didn't know what all he was getting into. An incident last week, when the mayor took a cadre of journalists to visit an L.A. high school and a student spray painted his bus with graffiti, is representative.
Mitchell B. PearlsteinCenter of the American ExperimentJanuary 2007
Martin R. West and Paul E. Peterson, EditorsThe Brookings Institution2007
