This post is an essay by Michael Magoon from his Substack. Here's a link to the original. I'm a big fan of his work in general and his book Promoting Progress, which I commented on in a recent post. In this piece, he addresses an issue that has long intrigued me, namely whether economists are correct in … Continue reading Michael Magoon — Which Came First: Education and Literacy or Prosperity?
This post is a piece that has been republished as a chapter in my new book, Essays on History, Writing, and Schooling. It's about two key elements in good writing, one of which is to focus on actors and actions. Who's doing what to whom? In academic writing, the actors are often not people but … Continue reading On Writing: It’s All About Actors and Actions and Cutting the Flab
This post is a discussion of Karl Weick’s classic essay, “Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems,” which was published in Administrative Science Quarterly in 1976. Here’s a link to the original. The essay begins with this wonderful thought experiment: Imagine that you’re either the referee, coach, player or spectator at an unconventional soccer match: the field for the game … Continue reading Educational Organizations as Loosely-Coupled Systems
This post is the announcement of my new book, Essays on History, Writing, and Schooling. It's a collection of essays that I published on this blog since its start in 2019. It is the fourth in a series of books that I self-published in the last four years using Kindle Direct publishing. I produced this … Continue reading New Book: Essays on History, Writing, and Schooling
This post is an essay I wrote recently and tried to publish in several different venues, without success. So I'm publishing it here on my blog, where editorial standards are a bit more flexible. After spending many years decrying the rampant credentialism in the modern structure of schooling, I'm beginning to think about its possible … Continue reading The Upsides of Credentialism
This post is an essay about the formation of the US common school system, which was responsible for forming the American republic during a period in the early 19th century when its survival was in doubt. The essay is an extended excerpt from the second chapter of my book, Someone Has to Fail. I'm posting … Continue reading Formation of the US Common School System
Patriotism has picked up a bad reputation lately. It's associated with jingoism, right wing causes, and efforts to whitewash the bad parts of American history. Meanwhile wokeness has promoted the view that Americans have nothing to be proud of, since this is a country founded on the principles of racism and settler colonialism. But, as … Continue reading Rich Cohen: The Patriotic Wisdom of Bill Murray’s Silly Speech in ‘Stripes’
This is an essay about the historical construction of the American meritocracy, which is to say the new American aristocracy based on academic credentials. This essay is included in my new book, The Ironies of Schooling. Here’s a link to the original, which was published 2020 in Bildungsgeschichte: International Journal of the Historiography of Education. An overview … Continue reading Schooling the Meritocracy
This post is a classic paper by Peter Rossi from 1987 (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Volume 4, pages 3-20), which addresses a chronic problem in all policy efforts to change complex social systems. The social organizations of modern life are so large, so complex, so dependent on the cooperation of so many … Continue reading Peter Rossi: The Iron Law of Evaluation and Other Metallic Rules
In this paper, I explore the issue of relevance in educational research. I argue that the chronic efforts by researchers to pursue relevance is counterproductive. Paradoxically, trying to make research more relevant actually makes it less so. Drawing on an analysis by Mie Augier and Jim March, I show that this is the result of … Continue reading The Dysfunctional Pursuit of Relevance in Educational Research
