November 14, 2024
The Rotting of the College Board
n 1947, the College Board opened an office in Berkeley, California. Previously, from the turn of the century onward, the organization had been administering entrance examinations for schools in the Northeast, and in 1926 it created and began using the original Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT. The Board’s western expansion after World War II was…
October 16, 2023
Serve Students, Not Institutions
More than 20,000 physical therapists left the profession in 2021 alone, notes a recent report. It’s therefore hard to imagine why anyone would want to discourage universities from offering more physical therapy programs to help renew the ranks. Unfortunately, that’s just what the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) did recently when it voted to stop…
September 21, 2023
How Health Policy Laws Are Hurting College Students and Their Families
In the midst of all our discussions about what is causing the youth mental health crisis, it might be worth examining the public policies that are making it worse. One such policy is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or at least colleges’ interpretation of that law. A recent article in The New York Times documented the…
September 21, 2023
How Health Privacy Laws Are Hurting College Students and Their Families
In the midst of all our discussions about what is causing the youth mental health crisis, it might be worth examining the public policies that are making it worse. One such policy is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or at least colleges’ interpretation of that law. A recent article in The New York Times documented the…
September 18, 2023
West Virginia Budget Cuts Are a Taste of Higher Ed’s Future
Gordon Gee thinks higher education is at a “crossroads.” If it takes the wrong turn, it will head over a demographic and financial cliff. To save West Virginia University, of which he is president, in February he announced significant cuts, including the elimination of 169 faculty positions and some 30 academic programs and departments that were…
August 14, 2023
The Narcissism of Small Diffidences
Catherine, a mother living in the New York City suburbs, has a son who flunked out of college. Her story is one of the cautionary tales offered up in Jennifer Breheny Wallace’s Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—And What We Can Do About It. Catherine left the workforce to raise her two children. The…
August 13, 2023
‘The Death of Public School’ Review: Find a Place to Learn
What is a public school? Is it an institution that is paid for by the public? One staffed by government employees? One that teaches a publicly approved curriculum? One that educates a broad swath of the public’s children? In the view of Cara Fitzpatrick, the author of “The Death of Public School,” it possesses all…
July 15, 2023
Yonkers’ Only Charter School Illustrates Just How Broken the System Is
To what lengths will teachers’ unions and their allies go to destroy charter schools? Eduardo LaGuerre and Sobeida Cruz are in the process of finding out. The couple raised their three children in Yonkers. It wasn’t the best public school district, but they hired tutors to fill in the gaps. Two decades ago — when…
July 8, 2023
Why the End of Affirmative Action Is Good for Black Science Students
“Corporate diversity in the crosshairs.” That was a typical headline after last week’s Supreme Court decision declaring the use of racial preferences in college admissions unconstitutional. Panic has set in among the chattering classes about what will happen to “workplace diversity” as a result of the ruling. Not only do observers fear that the court — whose majority…
May 4, 2020
How To Educate an American
In the years after A Nation at Risk, conservatives’ ideas to reform America’s lagging education system gained much traction. Key items like school choice and rigorous academic standards drew bipartisan support and were put into practice across the country. Today, these gains are in retreat, ceding ground to progressive nostrums that do little to boost the…