Education & Parenting
Education & Parenting, Philosophy
Teach Rational Morality, Not Religious Dogma
Natalie Ogle May 16, 2013
The Freedom from Religion Foundation recently threatened to sue public schools in the town of Muldrow, Oklahoma, if they refused to remove plaques inscribed with the Ten Commandments from classrooms. Unfortunately, when Republican State Representative John Bennett weighed in on the controversy in his district, he upheld the popular yet…
Education & Parenting
The Conflict Over Standardized Testing Is a Consequence of Government-Run Schools
Michael A. LaFerrara April 12, 2013
The use of standardized testing in government schools—as mandated by George W. Bush’s 2001 No Child Left Behind Act and supported by the Obama administration—has triggered “an expanding revolt against high-stakes standardized tests and the use of students’ scores to evaluate teachers, schools, districts and states,” writes Valerie Strauss for…
Education & Parenting
More Evidence of the Failure of Government Schools (and the Solution)
Ari Armstrong March 8, 2013
In his TOS article “The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of our Time,” C. Bradley Thompson argues that the “‘public’ [i.e., government] school system is the most immoral and corrupt institution in the United States of America today, and it should be abolished.” Those not yet…
Education & Parenting
Education Activist Michelle Rhee is Courageous, but No “Radical”
Michael A. LaFerrara March 6, 2013
Michelle Rhee—a former Baltimore teacher who gained national attention as Washington DC’s first public schools chancellor, and founder of StudentsFirst—has acquired a reputation as an aggressive education reformer unafraid to challenge entrenched ideas, including those of her own Democrat Party and its constituents. In describing “My Break With the Democrats,”…
Education & Parenting
FIRE Scores Victory for Wrongly Expelled Valdosta State University Student
Howard Roerig February 7, 2013
In May of 2007, Valdosta State University (VSU) student Hayden Barnes peacefully protested the university’s plans to build two parking structures at a cost of $30 million. His protest took the form of a collage of cut-and-paste photos with a caption calling the project the “Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage”—a line…
Education & Parenting
Glenn Reynolds and the K-12 Implosion
Daniel Wahl January 19, 2013
In The K-12 Implosion, Glenn Reynolds makes a commonsense argument that government-run schools are in a bubble—a bubble that is ready to pop. He notes, for example, that the government has spent ever-increasing amounts of money on K-12 education but can show for it no positive returns, only negative ones—and…
Education & Parenting
The Best Teacher Evaluation “Plan” is a Free Market in Education
Michael A. LaFerrara January 17, 2013
Teacher evaluation is all the rage today. The “central question” confronting the education establishment, writes Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post, is, “What’s the best way to identify an effective educator?” And, Layton notes: After a three-year, $45 million research project, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation believes it has…
Education & Parenting
Glenn Reynolds: Home Schooling Will Increasingly Threaten Government Education
Ross England January 11, 2013
In a USA Today op-ed Tuesday, Glenn Reynolds, author of the popular blog Instapundit, reported that government schools are seeing ever higher competition from private and online schools and homeschooling. He writes: Americans across the country—but especially in large, urban school systems—are voting with their feet and abandoning traditional public…
Education & Parenting
Instapundit Promotes Brad Thompson’s Article on Abolishing “Public” Education
Craig Biddle December 27, 2012
Hats off to Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit for linking to C. Bradley Thompson’s latest TOS article, “The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of our Time.” Thompson’s article vitally important, and Reynolds’s link is a major promotion. Thank you, Instapundit! Related: The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation…
Education & Parenting, Reviews
Review: The One World Schoolhouse, by Salman Khan
Daniel Wahl November 20, 2012
Daniel Wahl reviews The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined, by Salman Khan.