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Education Next
How to Be the Next Emily Hanford
Journalism has driven a generational shift in how reading is taught. Similar stories are waiting to be told. Reporters love to tell “how I got that story” stories about landing an exclusive interview or being in the right place when news happens. American Public Media’s Emily Hanford, though, is hard-pressed to identify a specific moment or event that set in motion her project of the last several years—a high-profile series of radio documentaries and reports on how America’s public schools teach kids to read. Collectively, these efforts amount to the most significant body of work produced by an education journalist in the last few decades. The effects of Hanford’s reporting are undeniable: shifts in classroom practice, countless school-district curriculum adoptions, and legislation in nearly every state in the country aimed at advancing instruction grounded in “the science of reading.”
The Education Exchange: Beware of the Easy A
Brooks Bowden, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Bowden’s latest research, which looks into the effects of lenient grading and standards on student learning. “The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency,” co-written with Viviana Rodriguez and...
Why Education Increases Voting
Americans with more education vote at higher rates. In the 2020 presidential election, 77 percent of eligible voters who had attended or graduated from college and 90 percent with post-graduate studies cast a ballot compared to 54 percent of voters with only a high-school diploma and 36 percent of dropouts. These trends in turnout rates have persisted for more than three decades, suggesting a link between years of schooling and voting. But does achieving higher levels of education cause citizens to show up and vote on election day? Or do education and voting simply go hand-in-hand, because some other variable contributes to them both?
A New Hope for Higher Education
In October 2023, the University of Austin finally received permission to call itself a university. The start-up private college dedicated to the “fearless pursuit of truth” launched its effort in November 2021. Nearly two years later, the school received initial authorization from the Texas state agency tasked with oversight of higher education. That means the University of Austin, or UATX, may finally use the “university” label and begin recruiting students. But that green light is just the first step. It will be years before UATX enjoys full approval from the various regulatory entities it must satisfy.
Can the New University of Austin Revive the Culture of Inquiry in Higher Education?
Its founders seek to build a scholarly home for pluralism without creating a haven for the “anti-woke”. Socrates, who said “All I know is that I know nothing,” is a role model for Pano Kanelos, president of the new University of Austin. Socrates never stopped asking questions, even when the Athenian elite charged him with impiety and corrupting the youth of the city-state.
The Education Exchange: “It’s Not a Miracle. It’s the Result of a Lot of Hard Work.”
Dr. Carey Wright, the State Superintendent of Schools for Maryland, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Wright’s time as Mississippi’s state superintendent, as well as her current role in Maryland. Robert Pondiscio interviewed Dr. Wright in the Fall 2022 issue of Education Next.
Neville Chamberlain and “True History”
Smug self-certainty is a lousy lens through which to view history. In the past few years, there’s been much talk about the need to teach “true history.” The intuition is a healthy one (even if it’s frequently used to justify teaching politicized caricatures of America the Awful). We should teach “true history,” in all its glory. Both the good and the bad.
Is Social and Emotional Learning “Bad Therapy”?
Abigail Shrier’s wildly popular new book, Bad Therapy, is one of the latest takes on the causes of the mental health crisis occurring among youth. Shrier’s diagnosis is that society’s obsession over kids’ feelings undermines their development, hindering their ability to manage the vicissitudes of life. This problem, she says, is largely due to contemporary approaches to psychotherapy, parenting, and schooling.
Campus Thuggery Is No Way to Cultivate Citizens
Sit-ins and stomping about are a recipe for illiberal education. Columbia University canceled in-person classes yesterday after weekend protests that the Biden White House termed “unconscionable and dangerous.” The New York Police Department ultimately arrested more than a 100 protesters who’d been part of the unruly mob chanting “Hamas, we love you, we support your rockets too!” and had turned Columbia’s campus into something that looked like a makeshift homeless encampment. The chaos was striking but hardly a one-off. Similar performances have erupted across the country, usually without consequence. That made the arrests at Columbia notable. It also punctuates a recent trend in which leaders at other institutions—including Vanderbilt University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Pomona College—finally did something they should have done long ago: mete out consequences to the bullies who are occupying campus buildings, sparking violence, vandalizing property, and threatening their peers.
Doing Educational Equity Wrong
This is the final article in a series on doing educational equity right. See the introductory post, as well as ones on school finance, student discipline, advanced education, school closures, homework, grading and effective teaching. For the past several months, I’ve been pumping out posts about “doing educational equity right.”...
Fishing for Rules
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education has long been known for its tendency to overstep in its rulemaking. Many federal agencies are tempted to avoid the notice-and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by fabricating administrative law in the form of “clarifications” and “guidance”—but no agency has succumbed to that temptation more than OCR. As Shep Melnick has pointed out (see “Rethinking Federal Regulation of Sexual Harassment,” features, Winter 2018), OCR has used “Dear Colleague” letters (DCLs) to rewrite Title IX and wade into hot-button issues such as bathroom access for transgender students, school resources, and racial disparities in school discipline. In fact, playing fast and loose with administrative procedures seems to be part of the office’s DNA. When OCR was first obligated to create rules for enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it published them not in the Federal Register but in The Saturday Review of Literature.
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Education Next aims to provide news and research to bring evidence to bear on current education policy. Bold change is needed in American education, but Education Next partakes of no program, campaign, or ideology. It goes where the evidence points.
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