I recently wrote two review articles for the New York Review of Books about the teaching profession. The first was a review of Pasi Sahlberg's Finnish Lessons, about the exceptional school system of Finland, which owes much to the high professionalism of its teachers.

The second of the...

I am a secular Jew. I don't belong to a synagogue. I seldom attend religious services, yet I feel Jewish. I understood what Daniel Pearl said before he died. Being Jewish is part of my identity, not a choice or decision.

Recently I traveled to Germany for business and some...

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin has taught the nation some very important civics lessons. The price is high, but we should pay careful attention to what he teaches by example.

The first lesson: Citizens should not be hoodwinked by rhetoric. Governor Walker said that the state was...

Last year I exchanged emails with a high-ranking official at the US Department of Education. I complained that the accountability movement had gotten out of control, that too much time was spent preparing to take tests, learning to take tests, and taking tests, especially in low income districts. I said...

President Obama spoke to the National Urban League this week and defended his "Race to the Top" program, which has become increasingly controversial. Mr. Obama insisted that it was the most important thing he had done in office, and that critics were merely clinging to the status quo.

Mr. Obama...

Congressman David Obey is trying to save the jobs of tens of thousands of public school teachers who have received pink slips. As chair of the House Appropriations Committee, he proposes to shift money from President Obama's "Race to the Top" program to keep teachers employed.

Specifically, the Obey plan...

Imagine that you are a teacher in a high school in a high-poverty district. Many of your students don't speak English. Some don't attend school regularly because they have to earn money or babysit with their siblings while their parents are looking for work. Some come to school unprepared because...

There is something distinctly unsettling about seeing people invoke Martin Luther King Jr.'s name to support the current effort to privatize large swaths of American public education. It has recently become customary to claim that "education is the civil rights issue of our time." True enough, for no one can...

Last week, the nation's press reported something that most teachers found unbelievable: Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that teachers should be evaluated by their students' test scores.

Teachers hate this idea because they know that teachers are not solely responsible for their...

No group had greater hopes for President Obama and his promise of change than the nation's teachers. Poll after poll showed that they despised President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law with its demand for testing, testing, testing. When asked, teachers said that NCLB was driving out everything except...

I have been studying and writing about the New York City public schools since the late 1960s. My first book was a history of the school system. I have followed the changes of the past several years with more than ordinary interest.

When Mayor Bloomberg first proposed to take control...

The great mystery of education policy today is why the Obama administration is embracing the Bush program. I recently wrote in Education Week (June 10) that it is time to kill the Bush-era No Child Left Behind program. The overwhelming majority of teachers agree with me. Those who...

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been traveling the country urging mayors to take control of the public schools in their cities. He points to Chicago and New York City as places where mayoral control of schools has led to big improvements.

It is sad to see the Obama...

Of course, no one but Caroline Kennedy knows the real reasons she withdrew from consideration as Senator from New York.

But there are two likely explanations:
1. She realized that Governor David Patterson had decided not to appoint her so she took her name out of the ring...

Fifteen months ago (August 23, 2007), I wrote a post about my dog Molly called "Can This Dog Be Saved?" Molly, a 10-year-old Tibetan terrier, had been diagnosed with lymphoma and had received the most advanced diagnostic treatment that modern veterinary medicine can offer. I was advised by a veterinary...

It has been a cardinal rule with me over many years never to respond to Gerald Bracey's attacks. I know that he will always reply with invective and name-calling, and that is not a mode of argument with which I am comfortable. I usually accept the wisdom of a maxim...

In a recent item on Huffington Post, Gerald Bracey claimed that I should atone for having "suppressed" the Sandia report in 1991. Bracey has achieved a certain notoriety for his insistence over many years that American schools today are better than ever and that anyone who dares to criticize...

Carol Gotbaum died on September 28 in police custody at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. She was traveling from New York City, where she lived with her husband Noah and three young children, to Tucson, where she was supposed to enter a month-long rehabilitation program for alcoholism. She missed...

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times printed an adulatory interview of Sir Michael Barber about what needs to happen in American education. Mr. Barber was at one time a close educational advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair. As best I can make out, he advised him...

If you love animals as I do, read on. If not, don't.

In 1998, my dog Molly saved my life. I was stuck at my desk all day, poring through my cluttered financial records in response to an IRS audit, trying to justify every single deposit to my account from...