Adventures in Scholarship

This piece is an essay about my life in scholarship and some of the lessons I learned from it.  It was written in mid career, after publishing The Trouble with Ed Schools, and it first appeared in print as the introduction to a 2005 book called Education, Markets, and the Public Good: The Selected Works of David …

Jorgenson and Abram — The Dark Side of Rigor

This post is a lovely essay by Olaf Jorgenson and Percy Abram about the harmful consequences that follow from the kind of academic rigor imposed on students today in the name of raising standards.  The emphasis is more on hard work than on effective learning.  The motto is "no pain, no gain."  As a result, …

School Gave Me the Creeps

This post is a piece I wrote recently, something I’ve been meaning to write for years.  An alternative title is: “School — Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It.”  Here’s a link to the Word document. See what you think. School Gave Me the Creeps David Labaree             Did you like school?  I didn’t.    …

Larry Cuban — Timelessness of Teacher-Centered Instruction

This post is a piece by Larry Cuban, which he recently published on his blog.  Here's a link to the original. It's all about how some things never change in schools.  Despite the enormous disruption of Covid shutdown and Zoom classrooms, American classrooms remain in the age-old format of teacher-centered instruction.  SKIP TO C Timeless …

Schools Are at the Root of the Youth Mental Health Crisis

This post is an op-ed written by Deborah Malizia and me that was published on December 2 in the Mercury News.  Here's a link to the original.  It's about how the pressure for rigor and high academic achievement in American schools has been damaging the mental health of students.  Another example of schooling's role in …

Kevin Carey — The Incredible Shrinking Future of College

This post is a chilling analysis by Keven Carey about the collapsing demography of US higher ed, which was recently published in Vox.  Here's a link to the original. An overview of his argument: In four years, the number of students graduating from high schools across the country will begin a sudden and precipitous decline, …

How Not to Defend the Private Research University

This post is a piece I published in 2020 in the Chronicle Review.  Here's a link to the original.  It’s about an issue that has been gnawing at me for years.  How can you justify the existence of institutions of the sort I taught at for the last two decades — rich private research universities?  …

Larry Cuban’s Confessions of a School Reformer

This post is a brief promo I wrote for Larry Cuban's wonderful book, Confessions of a School Reformer, which was just published in Kappan.  Here's a link to the original.  They ask Kappan authors to recommend a book in every issue and this was my contribution.  You'll love this book! David Labaree recommends Confessions of a …

The Fraught Connection between State and School

This post is a new essay of mine that was just published in Kappan. Here's a link to the original.  And here's a link to the pdf.  The essay focuses on an issue I've been thinking about for years, the tight interrelationship between states and schools. Here's an overview of the argument: The nation state and …