Tom K. Lindsay, Ph.D., is a distinguished senior fellow for Next Generation Texas at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He has more than two decades’ experience in education management and instruction, including service as a dean, provost, and college president.
A Texas program aims to improve civic literacy in underserved communities. At a time when we Americans routinely worry about the health of our civic culture, the U.S. Department of Education has made a notable investment. Earlier this month, the department approved a $1.9-million grant for The American Civic Tradition at 250, a joint initiative of Texas...
This is a good-news, bad-news tale for American higher education. The good news: A top-tier university has finally taken serious aim at the epidemic of grade hyperinflation. The bad news: We have fallen so far that even elite institutions must now devise entirely new, parallel evaluation systems just to deliver what straightforward, principled grading should...
The Declaration of Independence proclaims that “all men are created equal” and endowed with “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” This foundational American creed demands a meritocracy—a system in which talent, effort, and achievement determine outcomes, not birth, wealth, or group identity. Yet Texas’s Top 10% rule, enacted in 1997, subverts...
George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking...
I never thought I’d see the day. Grading standards in college have grown so lax (nearly 50% of all college grades nationwide are A’s) that now even the students—the students!—are demanding that professors grow a spine and grade them honestly. In August, a letter was sent to President Donald Trump by the student body presidents...
A recent letter from eight deans of Texas’ American Bar Association (ABA)-accredited law schools is urging the Texas Supreme Court to maintain the requirement that attorneys graduate from ABA-accredited institutions. However, viewed through the lens of our Founding principles—natural rights, individual liberty, and limited government—the deans’ defense of the American Bar Association’s monopoly on accreditation...
In a recent statement, Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, asserted that individual rights do not originate from God but are granted by the government. Adding insult to injury, he went on to dismiss those who believe otherwise as akin to “Iranian religious fanatics.” Here’s his full statement: The notion that...
I was two years into college when I picked up the book “Real Education” by the much-maligned conservative Charles Murray. Even after the roughly 17 years since its publication, I found that the book surprisingly offered an educational perspective more conducive to student success than the more recent “College for All” movement I was surrounded...
Thomas Jefferson—author of the Declaration of Independence, our third president, and the founder of the University of Virginia—believed deeply in the power of education to serve a free society. For him, a university was not merely a place to learn facts—it was a training ground for citizens and leaders, guided by reason, liberty, and the pursuit...
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered an infamous decision, Dred Scott v. Sandford. By declaring that Black Americans could never be citizens and stripping Congress of the power to restrict slavery in the territories, Chief Justice Taney both misinterpreted the Constitution and kindled a conflagration. Abraham Lincoln, still years away from the presidency, saw...
In 1790, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, to present his vision for America as a country where “bigotry finds no sanction” and “persecution no assistance.” He celebrated a nation where all citizens, including the “Children of the Stock of Abraham,” could dwell securely under their own “vine and fig tree,” free...
For years, would-be higher-education reformers have warned that America’s higher education crisis—soaring tuition, crippling student debt, and weak learning—was rooted in a dangerous myth: every high school graduate should go to college. In 2025, the proof is glaring. Public confidence in colleges has crashed to 36%, down from 57% in 2015. The college-for-all dream, though well-intentioned, has inflated...