It is convenient to blame teachers for America's education woes because it lets everyone else off the hook. Tragically, this has become the vogue opinion in the mainstream media, and I'm calling bullshit. Jonathan Alter's latest column in Newsweek pushed me over the edge. Here's the implicit argument:

Why...

Newsweek just released their much-hyped, bizarrely calibrated top U.S. high schools list . The formula, devised by Washington Post writer Jay Mathews, is a simple division of the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and Cambridge exams taken by students at the school by the number of graduating seniors....

Rethink your assumptions!

Ronald Wolk, founder and longtime editor of Education Week, has published the single best, most indispensable essay on reforming education that I have read.

On the 25th anniversary of the five-alarm "Nation At Risk" report, Wolk weighs in that America has not addressed...

Teach For America (TFA) is an innovative program that draws thousands of talented individuals into public service.

In short, the program offers top-tier college graduates the opportunity to teach in high-needs schools for two years while earning a subsidized master's degree in education. Many corps members remain in the...

Today, President Obama made a major step to expand funding and opportunities for public service by signing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act -- and he did it at my school, The SEED Public Charter School of Washington, DC!

When...

Nicholas Kristof's effusive essay on DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee left me with a sour taste. Here are a few snippets from Kristof's piece, in which he touts Rhee as gutsy and clear-eyed, and deserving of President Obama's firm support. (Marks of emphasis are mine.)

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I have to dissent from the love-fest for The Class. Considering the raves from around the world, I may be alone.

The French film's "tomatometer" score on movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is an astounding 97%, a higher rating than Oscar darling Slumdog Millionaire or any Best Picture...

Today, Barack Obama outlined his vision for reforming education in America. Speaking a the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and flanked by his Secretaries of Education and Labor, the president offered five pillars of importance and discussed his plans for strengthening each of them. They are:

1. expanding early...

What needs to be done to improve public education?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan spent 45 minutes answering that puzzler on NPR's "On Point" today. Catch the whole interview, conducted by Tom Ashbrook, here:

Some of Duncan's main points:

--Class size matters (the smaller, the better!)

--National standards are needed

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Our world has lost a literary titan; fearless publisher, editor, translator, and writer Richard Seaver passed away earlier this year. Mr. Seaver, who, with his wife Jeannette, ran Arcade Publishing for the past twenty years, was 82.

Richard Seaver was an adventurer. He earned a Fulbright scholarship, studied at the...

It's hard to take seriously politicians who want to gut school construction funds from a large-scale economic stimulus. It's even harder when those hatchetmen claim to be doing it in the name of our nation's young people. (House Minority leader John Boehner and Sen. John McCain call these investments "

The inauguration of President Obama was truly a joyous occasion. His speech was brilliant; the images were breathtaking. However, for tens of thousands of blue, silver, and purple ticket-holders, the inauguration went bafflingly and heartbreakingly unseen and unheard.

My wife and I were among this number. We had blue...

It's been a dark eight years, and I'm ready for some hope. Today, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger and Barack Obama are the delivery men.

Perhaps the beleaguering bludgeon of the Bush administration's incompetence, secrecy, and downright mean-spiritedness have compelled me to read sentimental meaning into coincidences, but this week truly...

Both David Brooks of the New York Times and the Washington Post editorial board ran eerily similar pieces on Friday about the two rival camps within the education reform movement.

Both essays categorize the two major education interests as existing at irreconcilable poles. The Post writes:

David Brooks's facile, distorted representation of the state of education reform in The New York Times made me wring my hands. In his first paragraph, he speciously outlines two distinct camps of education interests:

On the one hand, there are the reformers like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, who...

Randi Weingarten took the stage at the National Press Club on Monday to give her first major speech since becoming president of the American Federation of Teachers. The packed room featured a who's who of players in the national education scene, including NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and Rep....

(Written 11/3/2004 in Amsterdam)

Yesterday afternoon in Amsterdam, a few hours before I arrived by bus, a controversial journalist/filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, great-great-grand-nephew of our mutual friend, was shot six times and killed while riding his bike. He had received several death threats following the broadcast of his latest short...

Reforming America's inadequate public school system--a crucial priority for our country's future-- should not be undertaken with a failed ideology. The centerpiece of John McCain's education plan is to apply the epically failed deregulated free market economic principles to our schools. Very bad idea. Last week, even Alan Greenspan

According to the McCain campaign, "sharing the wealth" is antithetical to "real" American values. In the last throes of the presidential race, the Republican candidate is stamping his feet about an imagined "socialist" agenda masterminded by Barack Obama.

Barack Obama's education plan must be enacted. Throughout the presidential campaign, Senator Obama has spoken candidly and laid out workable plans to address many facets of our education crisis -- parental responsibility, early childhood education, affordability for college -- but perhaps nowhere is his aim more dead-on than his...