During the past four years, we have witnessed a dramatic erosion of norms, ethics, and civility, under the reign of a president who prided himself on having no allegiance to any of those requirements of life in a democracy. Norms, ethics, and civility were cast aside as encumbrances, like nuisances. Nancy Flanagan writes here about the role of these unspoken , assumed practices in our lives. How
Dr. Carol Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that works to strengthen and improve public schools. Nearly 400,000 people in every state support its activities. Burris was a teacher and an award-winning principal in New York State. This summer, the Network for Public Education reported that charter schools had received between
This article by the superintendents of New York City (Richard Carranza), Chicago (Janice Jackson), and Los Angeles (Austin Beutner) appeared in the Washington Post. For those too young to know, the Marshall Plan was a massive American investment in foreign aid package to rebuild Europe after World War II. It was proposed by General George Marshall. President-elect Joe Biden has described the cris
Nancy Bailey, writing with her usual perspicacity, calls out the consultants McKinsey and Company for a recent report encouraging schools to get tough with students to make up for the time “lost” during the pandemic. For years McKinsey & Company has had a premier seat at the school reform table for the U.S., England, and worldwide, despite faulty reporting. Because of Covid-19, plans are being pu
This is a fascinating article written by Paul Peterson of Harvard University about the origin of the charter school idea. Many people credit the idea to Al Shanker and Ray Budde of the University of Massachusetts, but Peterson sets them straight. Peterson is the foremost proponent of school choice, charters and vouchers, in the academic world. He has trained many of the other prominent academics
The Wall Street Journal is one of the most conservative editorial voices in the nation. Today its editorial says that the Electoral College has decided the election. Biden won. Trump lost. Trump should concede. The Electoral College meets Monday to cast its votes for President, officially marking Joe Biden as the election winner. President Trump’s legal challenges have run their course, and he an
There has never been an election in the United States like this one. Donald Trump continues to insist that the election was stolen and that he is the rightful winner, even though his opponent Joe Biden has 6-7 million votes more than Trump does and even though Biden will register 306 votes in the Electoral College today, the same as Trump called “a landslide” when he won in 2016. In every preside
Essayist Joseph Epstein wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal insisting that Dr. Jill Biden should stop calling herself “Dr.” He objected to the use of the term “Dr.” for anyone who is not an M.D. The article reeked with condescension—towards her, towards educators, towards community colleges, towards women. His essay set off a furor in the media. The topic “trended” on Twitter (meani
For most of Trump’s term, he failed to appoint enough members to the National Board for Education Sciences, which has not had a quorum to meet since the end of Obama’s term. Suddenly he announced a flurry of names for the board, and the education research world was shocked to see that Trump’s list included no bona fide education researchers . The board is supposed to advise the director of the In
Mike Klonsky writes that his blood began to boil when he saw the pictures of thugs and fascists marauding in the streets of the nation’s Capitol, expressing the allegiance to their defeated leader, who happens to be the President of
