Debate is raging this year in Mississippi about whether state legislators should agree to start public pre-k programs for the first time. They’re also arguing about school funding and charter schools. In decades of debate on school reform in Mississippi, though, one issue is ever-present but draws little public discussion: race. The state’s public schools [...]

There are some stories that appear and reappear in the media during every economic downturn. Commentators note breathlessly that students are moving away from majors in the traditional arts and sciences, and particularly away from those in the humanities—fields like literature, philosophy, history and art. Students who major in liberal-arts disciplines are having a harder [...]

Some years before I returned to my alma mater, St. John’s College, as president, one of my sons announced, “Dad, I will talk with you about my college choices, but I don’t want a liberal education, whatever that is.” This son had an interest in automobiles; his uncle was an auto mechanic, and we had [...]

Many people today are skeptical about higher education in general and the liberal arts in particular. They worry about the cost of college and the relevance of the liberal arts in the workplace. Some have a similar reaction as the gentleman seated next to me on a flight last year. When he turned to me [...]

If you’re spending any time in the company of ambitious high-school seniors or hyper-competitive parents these days, you may be reading Facebook posts with status updates proclaiming acceptances at prestigious colleges: “Dartmouth! Duke! Vassar! Swag! I’m three for three!” You may not read about rejections, but you will certainly hear plenty about them, along with [...]

Last month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed back, for the third time, his deadline for New York City to devise a new teacher evaluation system. On the surface, it seemed a benevolent move that recognized the enormity of this undertaking—one in which many school districts across the nation are similarly taking part. The truth [...]

In my second year of teaching in the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), my principal organized monthly “data meetings.” The stated purpose of these meetings was to reflect on our classroom instruction and student progress in light of students’ latest results on district-created standardized tests. I’d always start these meetings with the same comment: “We can’t [...]

For better or for worse, today’s school superintendents have become CEOs. Corporate principles and the lexicon of business are pervasive throughout American schools. Teachers work to shore up a bottom line defined by test scores. And if numbers fail to improve, the district drops the school from its portfolio. In some communities, the record numbers [...]

Like my neighbors, it wasn’t until millions of dollars began pouring into my little, local school district that I first paid any attention to the Los Angeles school board race. Most of us were too busy with common travesties in our schools, like sluggish fundraising and chronic understaffing, to notice. In short order, it became [...]

WASHINGTON ― In December, the application from the State of California for a waiver from the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was denied by the U.S. Department of Education. This, we were told, was because California disagreed with some items on the Department’s reform agenda—especially those having to do with teacher [...]