Education
Its Boxing Day
For a ten-year stretch in my life I was fortunate to spend every Christmas in Jamaica. In Jamaica, Christmas is a far more modest affair than it is here in the US. For sure, during the days leading up to “the Christmas,” the markets are packed with shoppers and the...
When Lessons From Education Reform Go Unlearned
One good thing you can say about 2011 is that it is a year in which lots of wrong-headed undertakings finally came to their ignominious conclusions -- including, among others, the Iraq War, the Gadhafi regime, the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, and "The Oprah...
No Country For Young Children
When you call yourself a "historian," you create the implication that you can speak authoritatively about, well, history. But last Friday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich defied that common sense. Speaking at one of America's top institutions of...
What Happens When The Edu-Bubble Bursts
Heard the term "edu-bubble" yet? Chances are you will soon. No doubt you've heard of the "dot-com bubble." And if you're like millions of Americans, you may be currently experiencing the ravages of the "housing bubble." But the edu-bubble? During the dot-com bubble,...
Republicans Reformers Open New Fronts In The War On Childhood
Normally, it would be apparent to all that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich forgot the first rule of holes when he recently doubled-down on his proposal to solve the problem of poor urban schools by recruiting impoverished children into the janitorial...
Republicans Resuscitate Dead Education Talking Points
Getting a Republican presidential candidate to extend a compliment to Barack Obama is about as rare as getting an economist to admit he miscalculated the housing bubble. But late last week, the education trade newspaper Education Week noted that a reporter from...
NCLB Dies Zombie Education Reforms Live On
With the collapse of the No Child Left Behind policy that has driven American education policy for at least the past decade, one would think that our nation's leaders would pause to consider the faulty thinking that brought this erroneous policy to life to begin with....
Nations Report Card Distracts From Real Concerns For Public Schools
Imagine you’re a parent of a seven-year-old who has just come home from school with her end-of-year report card. And the report card provides marks for only two subjects, and for children who are in grade-levels different from hers. Furthermore, there's nothing on the...
Dont Just Get Rid Of NCLB Get Rid Of The Thinking That Created It
Now that the mandate to run our nation's schools according to No Child Left Behind has utterly collapsed, and many of the best minds are suggesting that we move on, there is still a prevailing contingency seeking to not just prop up but expand many of the tenants of...
Starving The Schools Of The 99
Last week's release of the report Starving America's Schools: How Budget Cuts and Policy Mandates Are Hurting Our Nation's Students set the stage for this week's chorus line calling for the U.S. Senate to pass a bill to fund teachers' jobs across the country. We know...
