Recently, The University of Texas System’s Board of Regents enhanced its free speech policy for all its member schools. No longer will Texas public universities be able to offer official political statements on matters that only tangentially affect their campuses. The new policy announces that it is not “the role of the UT System or...
Texas has instituted an historic education effort to rescue its students from lackluster learning. “Lackluster” may be a euphemism, hiding the frightening reality that the majority of Texas K-12 students are not reading at grade-level. In response, Texas approved the Open Education Resources (OER) project, which will provide free, online, high-quality instructional materials to Texas...
“These Trump supporters say America isn’t a democracy. And they’re okay with it.” So reads the breathless headline from a story last week by CNN. Apparently, CNN thinks that this view is anathema to the American way of life. But a closer look reveals the truth about what America was founded to be. It also...
Texas is on the cusp of implementing historic reforms that could prove to be the most significant improvements in education in the state’s history. Last year, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1605, which, in part, required the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to develop high quality instructional materials and provide them at no cost to...
It seems that virtually every year around Independence Day, we are told by some in the media that we really shouldn’t be celebrating after all, because the Declaration of Independence, source of the American Creed, is, in reality, “a beautiful lie.” I have written about this rejection of the Declaration previously, but I must repeat...
A recent Inside Higher Ed article (IHE) on the college accreditor, SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) reveals—albeit, unintentionally—a great deal about the disconnect between the higher-education establishment and the rest of the country. Half puff-piece, half press coverage, the article anguishes over “the political trials of a Southern accreditor,” and especially its longtime...
As someone who has spent most of his life working in American universities, my subsequent writing about it in these pages has been for the most part negative. And not without reason: My on-campus experience, coupled with my research, has led me to agree with the assertion that constitutes the subtitle of Allan Bloom’s “The...
The false, violence-promoting headline above, from the Oct. 17 New York Times, raises again an old question and, with it, an old word—calumny—as in, what is the role of government in preventing calumny? Calumny is the making of false and defamatory statements about others in order to damage their reputation. When written, such false, defaming statements are...
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...