Teaching and curriculum at their best rest on the twin pillars of enlightenment and liberation, knowledge and human freedom. Teaching in a democracy is geared toward participation and engagement, and it's based, then, on a common faith: every human being is of infinite and incalculable value, each an intellectual, emotional,...

Carlo Rotella's flattering portrait earlier this year of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in the New Yorker ("Class Warrior," February 1, 2010) makes a remarkable claim: in today's school reform battles, he asserts, "there are, roughly speaking, two major camps." The first he calls "the free-market reformers," people "who...

On March 30, 2010, officials at the University of Wyoming, citing "security threats" and "controversy," canceled two talks I was invited to give in early April, one a public lecture entitled "Trudge Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action," and the other, a talk to faculty and graduate students called...

Of course I would have loved to have seen Linda Darling-Hammond become Secretary of Education in an Obama administration. She's smart, honest, compassionate and courageous, and perhaps most striking, she actually knows schools and classrooms, curriculum and teaching, kids and child development. These have never counted for much as qualifications...