Universities Give Away Knowledge and Sell Degrees

This post is a piece that is included in my new book, Being a Scholar: Reflections on Doctoral Study, Scholarly Writing, and Academic Life. In it I focus on an issue that I’ve been thinking about for quite a while:  How to understand the core business model that governs American universities.   The answer is in …

Walter Parker — Democracy Dies without Trust or Truth: Shore Up Civics in Schools

This post is a lovely op-ed by Walter Parker, which appeared recently in the Seattle Times.  Here's a link to the original.  Walter is an emeritus professor of civic education at University of Washington.  This essay draws on his forthcoming book, Education for Liberal Democracy.   The topic could not be more timely. Democracy dies without …

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, …

Let’s Measure What No One Teaches

This post is a piece I published in Teachers College Record in 2014.  Here’s a link to the original.   It’s an analysis of two major players in the world movement for educational accountability:  OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the US No Child Left Behind law.  The core argument is this: Both PISA and NCLB, I argue, …

Johann Neem — A Usable Past: Providing a Narrative to House the Facts of American History

This post is an essay by one of my favorite historians, Johann Neem, which appeared recently in Hedgehog Review.  Here's a link to the original. His topic is the critically important question of how we can create a shared narrative for the  American people -- one that incorporates the bad parts without denying the good parts.  …

Resisting Educational Standards

This post is a piece I published in Kappan in 2000.  Here’s a link to the PDF. It’s an analysis of why Americans have long resisted setting educational standards.  Of course my timing wasn’t great.  Just one year later, the federal government passed the landmark No Child Left Behind law, which established just such a system of standard mandates.  Oops. This …

Universities Give Away Knowledge and Sell Degrees

This post is a piece I just wrote.  I tried unsuccessfully to publish in five different venues and gave up, so I'm posting it here.   I focus on an issue that I've been thinking about for quite a while:  How to understand the core business model that governs American universities.   The answer is in the …

The Chronic Failure of Curriculum Reform

This post is about an issue I’ve wrestled with for years, namely why reforming schools in the U.S. is so difficult.  I eventually wrote a book on the subject, Someone Has to Fail: The Zero-Sum Game of Public Schooling, which was published in 2010.  But you may not need to read it if you look at this …

Releasing Poor Kids from Preschool Prison

This post is a piece from NPR summarizing the recent Tennessee study about the negative effect of preschool programs.  Here's a link to the original. The study showed that the preschool program in Tennessee aimed at disadvantaged students was no only ineffective at improving the academic performance of these students but actually put them at …

Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire — Parents Don’t Have the Right to Shape their Kids’ School Curriculum

This post is an op-ed by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire recently published in the Washington Post.  Here's a link to the original. They're responding to the efforts by parents and by Republican legislators to give parents veto power over what they're children are taught in public schools.  Schneider and Berkshire argue that American law …