Commentaries Subscribe to Commentaries
The (college) kids are alright
By Stephen E. Whittaker – For three decades, I have taught rhetoric in a university honors program, so I see the academic cream of the crop. Many of my former… Read more
What teachers don’t need (but are getting anyway)
By Paul Thomas – Just days ago, I completed my 28th year as a teacher — 18 as a high school teacher of English followed by 10 years as a… Read more
Subsidized college loans are another bipartisan boondoogle
By George F. Will – Bipartisanship, the supposed scarcity of which so distresses the high-minded, actually is disastrously prevalent. Since 2001, it has produced No Child Left Behind, a counterproductive… Read more
Governor Brewer Signs Education Savings Account Expansion
by Matthew Ladner – Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the expansion of the Education Savings Account program. The first year program provides students with 90% of the funds that would… Read more
An Interview with Monica Lerma: Summer Camp at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum
Michael F. Shaughnessy – 1) Monica, could you first of all tell us your title and what you do at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum? I am the… Read more
Kelley-Williams Bolar’s Long, Winding Fight to Educate Her Daughters
by Julianne Hing – Kelley Williams-Bolar is giving a speech in the dark. The Ohio mom is rattling off the standard remarks she’s delivered in public appearances since being catapulted… Read more
Time for a Medicaid-Education Grand Swap
Let Washington handle health care and let the states handle schools. BY LAMAR ALEXANDER Staring down steep tuition hikes, students at the University of California have taken to carrying picket… Read more
Meet the ‘worst’ 8th grade math teacher in NYC
By Aaron Pallas For 10 months, Carolyn Abbott waited for the other shoe to drop. In April 2011, Abbott, who teaches mathematics to seventh- and eighth-graders at the Anderson School,… Read more
Move the minorities to the upper East Side
By John H. Jackson and Pedro Noguera If it takes a village to raise a child, the same village must share accountability when many children are educationally abandoned. In New… Read more
An Interview with Rob Lippincott: What is PBS TeacherLine, and how is it helping instruction?
Michael Shaughnessy – 1) Describe your role at PBS. As PBS Senior Vice President of Education, my role is to oversee the development and implementation of educational services for PBS. That… Read more »