As the Texas Legislature meets in special session to debate whether or not to empower parents with school choice, the battle lines are being clearly drawn. Those in favor of expanding school choice point advance their case on the basis of both general principles and documented results. At the level of principle, they affirm that...
The latest poll by Gallup of Americans’ attitudes toward higher education is out, and the results should come as a surprise to nobody. The number of Americans who express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education has dropped from 57% in 2015 to only 36% today. While Republicans’ trust in...
This Sunday evening (Sept. 17) will bring the end to another Constitution Day. The question facing America is whether we are also reaching the end of constitutional democracy: Do we still believe in the “self-evident truths” of equality and inalienable rights? If it seems strange even to ask such a question, consider the principles of...
Earlier this year, a concerned student at Binghamton University, a public university in New York, challenged the propriety of the school’s partnership with the China-funded Confucius Institute on its campus. Last month, the university published an imperious rebuff to the inquiry. “The campus is confident that the concerns you raise in your email do not...
Debate over “the future of American education” has reached a fever-pitch of late. But too often these debates resolve nothing, because none of the competing sides can agree even on what “education” means—or should mean. Without initial agreement on this most fundamental question, it’s less than surprising that the resulting disputes generate far more acrimony...
As an education researcher, too often I find myself compelled to report bad news: poor learning outcomes, including declining civic literacy; political indoctrination taking the place of reasoned scholarship; shout-downs depriving speakers and their intended audience their First Amendment rights; grade inflation, as well as other maladies afflicting American education. But today I’m happy to...
In April, 673 professors at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) signed a public letter attacking two bills before the state legislature. One of the bills, House Bill 96, requires teaching of the Constitution. House Bill 96 bolsters civic education through creating a new American history/government graduation requirement for all the state’s public college and university students. But this, in truth,...
Everything that’s wrong with revisionist history is summed up in the lead paragraph of Time magazine’s new piece, “We’ve Been Telling the Alamo Story Wrong for Nearly 200 Years. Now It’s Time to Correct the Record.” Authors Brian Burrough and Jason Stanford begin with a hypothetical: America opens up Alaska for colonization, and Canadians move...
Out-of-state friends frequently ask me what life is like in “Deep-Red Texas.” I answer that there are many blessings to living in the Lone Star State, to which I escaped from Chicago a decade ago. But when they ask whether the same blessings accrue in Texas public higher education, the story is mixed, for I...
The extortionate cost of higher education continues to rise and is unlikely to moderate soon. From 2000 to 2020, college tuition and fees nationwide rose more than three times faster than general price inflation and more than twice as fast as average hourly wages. Put simply, college is unaffordable to many and becoming more out...
“Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those, the art of living well.” So wrote the philosopher Aristotle in the Fourth Century B.C. Books are indispensable to a sound education, and in light last week being National Library Week, I wanted to look for...
I love Major League baseball. And not just Major League. I’ve stopped to watch High School and even Little League games in the hope of identifying the next Mike Trout. I’ve subscribed to MLB for years so that I could follow my beloved White Sox even after moving away from Chicago. I even watched all...