February 14, 2024
Four States That Are Leading the Charge for Conservative Education
It’s looking like this year’s election will feature a Trump-Biden rematch — a pairing that’s especially frustrating for education, where the nation is wrestling with a raft of real problems: dismal student achievement, chronic absenteeism, chaotic classrooms, plunging confidence in higher education, and more. The Biden administration makes clear that a party beholden to the teacher unions can’t do much…
February 14, 2024
Want To Slash Your Risk For Divorce? Start Going To Church
Faith is bad for families. That is often the message that comes out of our pop culture, corporate media, and social media. A Daily Beast headline tells us “Religious Kids are Jerks.” The Nation asks, “Is Conservative Christianity Bad for Marriage?” and offers this answer: “Research Says Yes.” Online influencers like Pearl Davis suggest Christianity does little to stabilize marriage. Put…
February 14, 2024
Valentine’s Day Marred By Loneliness Crisis
This Valentine’s Day, the news is awash with stories of loneliness and atomisation among adults across the West. Though clinical attention has focused on this brewing crisis, the remedies are often misplaced. Last year, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on this new national problem, which was exacerbated by the Covid lockdowns. Following his appointment to the…
February 14, 2024
Why You Should Get Married
Isn’t marriage a trap, mostly for men? Don’t most married couples end up getting divorced? And aren’t most men happier when they’re single? These are the kind of questions I get from young men whenever I make the case for marriage at speaking events at colleges and high schools across the nation—recently in North Carolina,…
February 13, 2024
The Awfulness of Elite Hypocrisy on Marriage
“Is it morally wrong to have a baby outside of marriage?” “No” is the answer I received from about two-thirds of my sociology-of-family class at the University of Virginia last spring, when I put that question to them in an anonymous online poll. The class of approximately 200 students was diverse geographically, racially, and ethnically. But…
February 9, 2024
Resolving to Learn Lessons from Record Pandemic Fraud
Congress doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions, but if it did, digesting our new report on pandemic fraud would be a good one. Released last week, the new report (“Pandemic Unemployment Fraud in Context: Causes, Costs, and Solutions”) details the how and why of record unemployment benefit fraud during the pandemic. Enacting even some of our policy resolutions…
February 9, 2024
Don’t Buy the Soulmate Myth
Taylor Swift’s hit song “Lover” is the perfect anthem for this Valentine’s Day, especially since she is in the midst of a very public romance with her latest boyfriend, Travis Kelce. “There’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you,” she sings to her “magnetic force of a man.” This gets the start of a…
February 9, 2024
The Upside of the College Enrollment Downswing
Enrollment in education after high school peaked in 2010, with 21 million students enrolling in two-or four-year degree programs that fall. Since then, enrollment has steadily declined, and even projections that predict a modest increase in the coming years top out at 20 million enrollees in 2031. The steepest declines in enrollment were seen at two-year colleges,…
February 7, 2024
Elite Colleges Need to Offer Less Affirmation. And Insist on More Work.
Recently, I offered a not-so-sophisticated explanation for the histrionics we’ve seen at elite colleges: too many students are simply aimless, lonely, and bored. Well-meaning concern about the mental and emotional state of college students today has fueled a lot of affirmation and hand-holding. But much of this may ultimately be counterproductive, exacerbating fragility rather than supporting well-being….
February 7, 2024
The Past and Future of Education Reform
When the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand was asked for his thoughts on the Bourbon royal family in exile, he replied, “Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié.” They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. The Bourbons hadn’t learned the lessons of the French Revolution or grasped what it revealed about their nation. Worse, they carried…