Education

Paul Beston joins Steven Malanga to talk about the history of the American high school and making high-quality career training central in today’s high schools. This Ten Blocks episode is the second based on City Journal’s special issue, The Shape of Work to Come.

In 1910, less than 20 percent of America’s 15-to-18-year-olds were enrolled in high school. By 1940, that figure had reached nearly 75 percent. The phenomenon became known as the American high school movement, and the impetus for it came from local communities, not from federal, or even state, government.

Social Justice Enters the Engineering World

August 3, 2017

18 COMMENTS

As a recently retired engineer, I watch the growing college social engineering nightmare with at least a bit of hope because I know that universities have safe spaces from safe spaces. When my son heads off to college, I know there are colleges and majors that are largely immune from the chaos. Engineering is a […]

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Mattress Girl Discredited

Contributor

Mona Charen

August 3, 2017

64 COMMENTS

If you haven’t heard of the “mattress girl,” it’s not for lack of trying among liberal opinion shapers. Emma Sulkowicz, who dragged a blue mattress around Columbia University’s campus in 2014 to dramatize her plight as a rape victim, was profiled sympathetically in New York magazine, the New York Times and other publications. Senator Kirstin Gillibrand (D., NY) invited her to attend one of President Obama’s State of the Union speeches. Artnet pronounced her mattress stunt (for which Columbia awarded her course credit as an art project) “one of the most important art works of the year,” and she was honored by the Feminist Majority Foundation and other groups.

Her story is this: A consensual sexual encounter with a male student named Paul Nungesser suddenly turned violent. Without warning, he choked her, struck her, and anally penetrated her while she cried out in pain.

Israeli Nationalism and African Pose-Striking; and A Little More Ivy League Reminiscence

August 2, 2017

7 COMMENTS

Finding something rare or unique, rare or unique to me I mean, I can’t be sure it really says something about the place or time in which I find it. For example, the one eatery where I ever saw on the menu (and, naturally, ordered and devoured) a “Man-Sized” burger was in North Little Rock […]

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Dispatches from the Kakistocracy

July 31, 2017

6 COMMENTS

It’s always something. Having passed a budget that doesn’t balance over the Governor’s veto (I voted “No”), the big issue now is a poison pill that was buried in the budget bill requiring that schools be funded using an “Evidence-Based Model”. Otherwise, it’s being said they can’t open. The Evidence Based Model is contained in […]

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Entomology, and Engineering Math; and More Ivy League Reminiscence

July 30, 2017

3 COMMENTS

Splitting the rent with somebody in Austin, Texas will save you money but it may cost you in other ways; but whatever the expendability of your dignity, you could do worse (and I did do worse) than with an entomologist. Not that he brought around bugs. He brought around his ex-wife (who was nice) and […]

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Education Spending and Results: An Idaho Story

Member

Locke On

July 26, 2017

36 COMMENTS

So does spending more per student improve outcomes in Idaho? In a word, no.

I have a graduate-level background in statistics. I was asked by a local conservative think tank to see whether increased spending on secondary education on Idaho has a meaningful effect on student outcomes. Idaho periodically administers its own ISAT achievement tests to elementary and secondary students. The 10th grade science test from 2014 was the latest set of results that I could obtain with a broad sampling of students with the longest exposure to public schooling. Public schools in Idaho also submit their annual budgetary information on a standardized set of accounts, 2013 was the latest available. I extracted the operating portion of districts’ budgets (educational and overhead expenses) and scaled that by the average daily attendance (ADA) in each district, showing how much was being spent per student.

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The Mindset and the Frame

Member

Martel

July 22, 2017

86 COMMENTS

Both @susanquinn and @henryracette have written responses to my last post, one more favorable than the other. After reading these and many of the comments, I would like to clarify my intentions and proposed strategy.

First, I do not advocate merely some enraged, scorched earth, wild, and unfocused assault on “the enemy”. I emphatically propose that we fight, but we need to do so intelligently. Indeed, we should “choose our battles”, only proactively choosing to actually battle from time to time instead of perpetually using “choose your battles” to rationalize postponing the battle for another day that never comes.

Jim Geraghty of the National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud Claremont McKenna College in California for defending free speech rights and punishing students who attempted to prevent a guest from speaking on campus. Reports claim that President Donald Trump has asked for specifics on his powers to pardon aides, family members, and even himself, leading Jim to ask when the president will stop making life more difficult for himself and allow the investigation to run its course. They call into question the genuinenss of OJ Simpson’s contrition after he was granted parole on Thursday and Jim makes a bold prediction about OJ’s future.

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Washington Examiner columnist Salena Zito welcomes Dr. Laura Brown, Director at George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management to the show. Much like Salena, Dr. Brown has an obsessive passion for history and politics. With this joint passion, the two discuss how the 2016 election and current administration has affected the younger generation in pursuing education and careers in politics.

Harvard’s Assault on Freedom of Association

Contributor

Peter Bonilla

July 13, 2017

16 COMMENTS

Whether you follow the work of my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) or not, you may be aware of the ongoing dispute over Harvard University’s single-gender social organizations (e.g., the “Final Clubs”), which the university has been trying to drive to extinction through increasingly unsubtle means.

Last May, Harvard announced that members of these social organizations would be ineligible for recommendation for prestigious scholarships, chief among them the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships, and also be ineligible for leadership positions in student organizations. It’s been a dark comedy of errors ever since. Perhaps sensing the backlash to come from the recommendations of the policy’s implementation committee, which recommended making the policy even harsher, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced the formation of a new review committee in January 2017. But Khurana then turned right around and said he would accept “nearly all” of the implementation committee’s draconian recommendations, and then appointed himself the head of the new review committee.

Higher, Later, Remoter Education

July 12, 2017

2 COMMENTS

Someone must have dug up an e-mail I sent about a decade and a half ago, because someone figured out how to invite me to a retirement luncheon for a professor he and I both worked for almost three decades ago. I think the last I had been in touch with anybody from that lab […]

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A Place for Military Science in Academia?

July 6, 2017

11 COMMENTS

Susan Quinn’s (@susanquinn) excellent post about Hillsdale College’s new journalism (https://ricochet.com/441208/journalism-at-hillsdale-college-its-a-start/) program prompts me to pose a related question: Is there a place in modern academia for a military arts & sciences program that is separate and independent of the Reserve Officers Training Program (ROTC)? More

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Why study history?

July 6, 2017

12 COMMENTS

I am working through the Great Courses Series A History of the United States, 2nd Edition. Something that I didn’t realize / never thought about was how complex the political environment was before the Revolutionary War. The Loyalist population (in my wonderful education, both in material presented and retained) was little more than acknowledged. More

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Welcome to the Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast for July 5, 2017 it’s the “Podcast of Record” edition of the podcast with your hosts Mike Stopa and Todd Feinburg. On this celebratory weekend of America’s birthday we bring you two stories from the Grey Lady herself, the New York Times, (who says it’s all fake news???) describing (1) how liberals are segregating America and (2) how they are attempting to invoke sympathy for Central Americans who are forced to cancel their well laid plans for trekking with human smugglers across the desert, children in tow, to enter America illegally.

First, the august NYT describes the current state of the “Fair Housing Act” (from 1968) and how these days what it is doing is offering tax exempt funding for low income housing that builders can only find already impoverished communities to build in (Program to Spur Low-Income Housing is Keeping Cities Segregated).The result: more segregation. Who could have imagined such a well-intentioned government program having consequences that, well, nobody thought of???

Free Speech on Campus

July 1, 2017

19 COMMENTS

I had an anxiety dream the other night – mine are always about the start of new semester. Usually I don’t have the syllabus done, or I’m being randomly told to teach a class I know nothing about or some such. This one was a little different. In the dream, I had two classes. I […]

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Bill discusses Pres. Trump’s big win before the Supreme Court after it upholds most of his travel ban. Bill also weighs in on the latest news regarding Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. Then, foreign policy expert Michael Del Rosso joins Bill to discuss the war against ISIS abroad in Mosul and Syria as well as at home in the fight against the spread of radical Islam. Finally, he talks with David French about the legal and political implications of the Supreme Court upholding the travel ban and what comes next for Trump’s immigration plan.

Quote of the Day – College

June 29, 2017

15 COMMENTS

You send your kids off to college. They love you. You walk away with a Cornell mom T-shirt. You are walking away going this is great, and come Thanksgiving, your kid tells you that you are an imperialist and a racist and a homophobe. That is not worth $120,000. Andrew Breitbart More

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Today on the Daily Standard podcast, Preston Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute joins host Eric Felten to find out why, whether good times or bad, the price of college tuition keeps going up.

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In this AEI Events Podcast, AEI’s Gerard Robinson hosts Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who addresses the bipartisan Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 he cosponsored with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and several other lawmakers. This aims to cut mandatory minimums, grant judges greater sentencing discretion, and help prisoners successfully return to society.

Following Chairman Grassley’s remarks, Hayne Yoon (Vera Institute), John Huffington (Living Classroom Foundation), and the Pat Nolan (American Conservative Union Center for Criminal Justice Reform) discuss how to prepare prisoners for life after prison, reduce recidivism, provide opportunities for returned citizens, and reform the criminal justice system to create safer communities and more stable families. The panelists also address improving prison conditions for women, introducing prosecutorial discretion in sentencing, and funding and operating correctional education programs.

Between My Daughter And Me

June 24, 2017

6 COMMENTS

Daughter, Soon you will be heading off to your first year at college, a school which has already given you an assignment for summer reading: the non-fiction, epistolary cri de coeur titled Between The World And Me, by author Ta-Nehisi Coates. I gather that the idea is for you and other incoming freshman to have a common […]

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In this AEI Events Podcast, AEI’s Nat Malkus welcomes Elizabeth McGhee Hassrick, Stephen Raudenbush, and Lisa Rosen, the authors of “The Ambitious Elementary School: Its Conception, Design, and Implications for Educational Equality,” to AEI to discuss school design, personalized instruction, and educational equality.

The authors open the event by describing their theory of school reform and its implementation at the University of Chicago Charter School. Their efforts have reduced racial inequality and improved reading ability among elementary school students. In short, the authors advocate for increased collaboration among teachers, administrators, and parents and for systemic approaches to school turnarounds.

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Group Writing June 9 School: The Snowflakes Have Come Home to Roost redux

June 9, 2017

125 COMMENTS

Due to the clamoring of hundreds of you, I have written this post on the topic of American Education. Well okay, it wasn’t hundreds of you. Okay it was my mom. Recent news stories and Ricochet discussions about all the little Special Snowflakes falling like a blizzard on every college campus have made me think […]

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Is college worth it? Increasing numbers say no

June 8, 2017

49 COMMENTS

I freaking love this. …the costs of higher education keep rising while the returns for a college diploma are getting worse. Tuitions and fees rose 74 percent, adjusted for inflation, from 2000 to 2016, while the earnings differential between high school and college graduates fell 10 percent. More

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“We Take Our Pronouns Very Seriously”

June 2, 2017

35 COMMENTS

I was talking with a friend yesterday who is the mother of a freshman at UC Berkeley. My friend and her daughter attended orientation together last fall. A group of parents and freshmen met at the iconic Sather Gate as orientation commenced, and they were addressed by a current student, an orientation team leader who was responsible for […]

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12 3 ›»

Education

Vocational Education and America’s High Schools

Social Justice Enters the Engineering World

Mattress Girl Discredited

Israeli Nationalism and African Pose-Striking; and A Little More Ivy League Reminiscence

Dispatches from the Kakistocracy

Entomology, and Engineering Math; and More Ivy League Reminiscence

Education Spending and Results: An Idaho Story

The Mindset and the Frame

College Fights Back, Trump Pursuing Pardons? OJ’s ‘Conflict-Free Life’

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Salena Zito: Is There a Shift in the Pursuit of Political Education?

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Harvard’s Assault on Freedom of Association

Higher, Later, Remoter Education

A Place for Military Science in Academia?

Why study history?

Ep. 129: The Podcast of Record

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Free Speech on Campus

President Trump’s Travel Ban Is Vindicated

Quote of the Day – College

The High Cost of College

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Criminal justice reform and reducing recidivism: Remarks from Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

Between My Daughter And Me

The ambitious elementary school: Rethinking school design for educational equality

Group Writing June 9 School: The Snowflakes Have Come Home to Roost redux

Is college worth it? Increasing numbers say no

“We Take Our Pronouns Very Seriously”

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