Commentary
Commentary
Just as sweet, by any other name
David Whitman's new book, which George Will wrote about today in his Washington Post column (see above), contains the word paternalism. Whitman uses it to describe a particular type of urban school that succeeds in teaching its poor and minority students largely because it focuses on discipline and hard work (and takes pride in both).
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State High School Exit Exams: A Move Toward End-of-Course Exams
Center on Education PolicyAugust 2008
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Guns 'n' classes
Author Charles Edward Chapel writes in Guns of the Old West, "Considerably cared for and used with skill, a gun would argue loud and persuasively for you against man and nature when both were hell-bent on your immediate personal destruction." Perhaps the chaw-spittin' school board in Harrold, Texas, has recently been reading Chapel--it just voted to allow the town's teachers to carry p
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In denial
Washington Post writer George Will is sharp as a tack, which is why he ends today's column, about David Whitman's new book, thusly: "Today's liberals favor paternalism--you cannot eat trans fats; you must buy health insurance--for everyone except children.
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Education Olympics: The games in review
With the 2008 Summer Olympic Games nearing its endpoint, there's consternation in the air about the likelihood that China will best the United States in the gold medal count, and might catch the U.S. in medals overall.
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Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality
Charles MurrayCrown Forum2008
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Big D gets a big F
The Dallas school district has decided it cannot grade students by academic benchmarks because, evaluated thusly, the pupils have a tendency to fail.
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Snug as a teacher in tenure
The Associated Press, which has been a little blue of late, tells us that the nation's trepidatious economy is affecting youngsters in the worst ways: "Children will walk farther to the bus stop, pay more for lunch, study from old textbooks, even wear last year's clothes. Field trips?
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Day Nine of the 2008 Education Olympics
Just weeks after the loss of one if its leading literary lights, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russia took two golds and a silver in three PIRLS reading events. Team USA, meanwhile, has two days left to secure its first medal. Can they pull it out? Stay tuned at edolympics.net.
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The Washington Post goes bolder though not broader
The usually sensible Washington Post editorial board sizes up the presidential candidates' education platforms in
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The Democratic Party: Back to its regularly scheduled programming
Earlier this month I argued that the Democratic Party was no longer a fully-owned subsidiary of the NEA and the AFT.
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Of rights and wrongs
The New York City program that pays students for good scores on AP exams yielded "mixed results," according to the New York Times. Education Trust President Kati Haycock, commenting on the program's philosophy,??gets the article's last words: