Education

Even if you don't have school-aged children, you can tell schools are about to open in many places because the airwaves, mailboxes, and newspaper inserts are stuffed with "Back to School" advertising. It's also the time of year when we hear most about research studies and serious-sounding reports about public education.

If you've noticed lately the tendency in car commercials to show the vehicle against a background of an empty city street, you can assume it's likely due to the abundance of empty city streets available in the place famous for being home to the major automotive companies -- Detroit.

When a leading conservative pundit compliments a labor union leader for getting something right, it's usually worth noticing.

Left-leaning people everywhere recently got a hoot when the Texas Republican Party declared its opposition to the teaching of "Higher Order Thinking Skills," including "critical thinking skills," in public schools.

With the glow of high school graduations still lingering in many American families, and analysts predicting that an"economic recovery" is on the way, this is a time when you'd expect to start hearing more positive news about the state of US public education.

A funny thing happened on the way to the news cycle the past two weeks when the issue of education -- specifically, public schoolteachers and student loan relief -- maintained a presence on the political stage.

In this week's round in the nation's presidential contest, education got tossed into the ring and slapped around by the opposing candidates and their spokespeople. Who won the round is anyone's guess, but poor education got mauled in the process and tossed into the spit bucket.

It was Teacher Appreciation Week this week. Unfortunately, someone forgot the appreciation part.

President Obama, for one, kicked off the week by proclaiming that from now on the week would also (instead?) be forever known as National Charter Schools Week.

Republicans in the US House of Representatives have scheduled a vote on Friday to stop interest rates on college student loans from doubling beginning July 1.

So the "general election has begun" proclaims The Hill, and the exhortations from the punditry are for candidates to either,