This post is an essay by Frank Fukuyama that was published recently in Persuasion. Here's a link to the original. And here's a link to a PDF of the original. Here he explores an argument I strongly support, namely that liberals have forgotten that we used to deploy the powers of government to build things. More … Continue reading Francis Fukuyama — Our Hamiltonian Moment
This post is a piece of mine that was published three years ago in Inside Higher Ed. Here’s a link to the original. It's also included in my newish book, Being a Scholar. It’s about an inherent tension in the act of writing between arrogance and humility. AN EXERCISE IN ARROGANCE AND HUMILITY TO BE A … Continue reading Writing as an Exercise in Arrogance and Humility
This post is an essay by Peter Wei published in his Substack Ecumene. Here's a link to the original. In this piece he explores an issue I've talked about here from time to time, one of the core problems that the current academic meritocracy poses for the meritocrats themselves. It's not just the losers in the … Continue reading Peter Wei — The Professional-Managerial Class Has No Future
This post draws on a discussion I participated in that was published in Comparative Education Review in 2009. It brought together a variety of scholars to comment on a new film about schooling produced by Bob Compton called 2 Million Minutes. The film draws its title from the number of minutes that students around the … Continue reading Schools Should Focus on Producing More Hustlers than Scholars
This post is an essay by Ilana Horwitz recently published in Times Higher Education. Here's a link to the original. It draws on her new book, The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond. It explores an argument that I came to develop over the years of working with doctoral students -- … Continue reading Ilana Horwitz — PhD Students Should Think Like Entrepreneurs
This post is an op-ed written by Deborah Malizia and me that was published on December, 2022 in the Mercury News. Here's a link to the original. It's about how the pressure for rigor and high academic achievement in American schools has been damaging the mental health of students. Another example of schooling's role in … Continue reading Schools Are at the Root of the Youth Mental Health Crisis
This post is a speech that Stanford's former provost, John Etchemendy, recently gave to the university's board of trustees. Right now, the threats to universities are coming fast and furious from the outside, with the new administration canceling research grants, threatening to cut indirect cost reimbursement, and to tax endowment income. But in this speech … Continue reading John Etchemendy — The Threat from Within
I don't know about you, but I love reading brutal book reviews. It's a lot of fun to watch a skilled writer skewer someone else's work with surgical precision (see here and here). In the interest of balance, I thought it would be right and proper to present a review that eviscerates one of my … Continue reading A Brutal Review of My First Book
This post is a brief essay by Charles Mann that appeared recently in The Free Press. Here's a link to the original. His argument is about how we don't appreciate all of the great benefits of the civilization we currently inhabit, which is grounded in the enormous collective accomplishments of our ancestors. Here's how he … Continue reading Charles Mann — We Live Like Royalty and Don’t Know It
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 