Education

The nation’s current 6.2 million high school dropouts menace freedom, liberty and enlightened government.

They are ignorant of their constitutional rights. They are incapable of distinguishing between government abuses and the rule of law. Their ignorance makes them vulnerable to demagogic appeals and inclines them toward bigotries and prejudices. Read more...

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation yesterday announced a $335 million investment in teacher effectiveness. The donation is notable not just for its largesse, but for the fact that the funds will be funneled into research on different methods for increasing teacher effectiveness.

The need for this type of research cannot be understated. Presently, America’s public schools are more segregated than during the Jim Crow era. Urban families — mostly of color — are trapped in deteriorating public schools. By contrast, wealthy families of all races have abandoned failing schools by either moving to the suburbs or opting for private education.

Read more...

Have we as a nation collectively gone insane?

I say that because, when it comes to higher education, we seem to have completely lost our way.

Clearly, getting more people to college is the best way to make America more competitive with the rest of the world.

The global economy has been really bad for those who can’t compete, because they don’t have a college education.

Read more...

Financial crises have a way of focusing the mind on price and value, especially on those things where the price has risen sharply and curiously without benefit. The health reform debate is partly about finding a way to curb the cost of rapidly increasing healthcare costs. In the Washington Monthly, Kevin Carey looks at the future of universities where, “even as the cost of educating students fell, tuition rose at nearly three times the rate of inflation.”

Read more...

A lot of veterans will be going to school now, an opportunity they earned years ago.

This might have an unanticipated benefit; see Shift in Middle East Studies?

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq may be about to change Middle Eastern studies — and not just by adding plenty of new subject material.

The incoming director of Middle Eastern studies at George Washington University last week published a post at his Foreign Policy blog that has set off a discussion about the next generation of Middle Eastern studies students and, eventually, professors.

Marc Lynch writes (and some others agree) that master’s programs and doctoral programs are starting to see an influx — one he expects to grow — of veterans, many of them military officers as well as those who worked for non-governmental organizations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The duration of the war, he writes, has led to an unusually large cohort of future thinkers about the Middle East shaped by their experiences there.

I am a Marquette man myself, but I have always liked Notre Dame, especially its football team. My dad attended Notre Dame, my brother graduated from there, my uncle is a graduate, and my grandfather played baseball back when Knute Rockne was there.

So I have some Notre Dame blood in me. I was even accepted to go to Notre Dame Law School, but decided that lawyering was not in my blood. Read more...

In the first few months of Barack Obama’s presidency, he has managed to fracture and marginalize the extreme right of the Republican Party. He might well be on his way to doing the same with the far right within the Catholic Church.

This Sunday, when President Obama receives an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame, he will have an opportunity to bridge the long political divide between Catholic pro-life voters and the Democratic Party. He does not need to come out against the criminalization of abortion on Sunday, but if he can show respect for the church’s position and commit to the reduction of abortions, he can help mend one of the great schisms in American politics. Read more...

The Washington Post is reporting that President Obama has decided to extend D.C. Opportunity Scholarships for those currently enrolled in the program.

As we've discussed before, these scholarships provide funding for approximately 1,700 District of Columbia students to afford private school. Two of those students attend Sidwell Friends school with the Obamas' daughters. Read more...

Each year, Sidwell Friends, the tony school where the Obamas have enrolled their daughters, holds a fundraising auction.

The auctions raise big money as parents try to outdo each other both in bidding and prizes donated. This year, eyebrows have been raised — as evidenced by the news report headlined "Obamas prove stingy with school auction." Read more...

Chapel Hill, N.C., is a wonderful place. Situated on a gorgeous campus and one of the finest schools in the land, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is also home to the 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball champions.

It's paradise. You live in one of the best and prettiest college towns in America, your professors challenge you, your sports teams win (and not just men's hoops; the women's soccer program is the nation's best, for example), you count Michael Jordan and Andy Griffith as fellow Tar Heels, the live music scene thrives, your graduation is held in a football stadium and, if you're a North Carolina resident, your in-state tuition is low (which has saved many a North Carolinian from having to say, "Yes, I went to Duke."). Read more...