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
This post is an essay by Clay Shirky that was recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's a link to the original. Here's the case that helped him crystalize his thoughts about the impact of AI on student learning: Earlier this semester, an NYU professor told me how he had AI-proofed his assignments, only to … Continue reading Clay Shirky — Is AI Enhancing Education or Replacing It?
Below is a piece I wrote for a book that was published by Teachers College Press in 2022 -- Public Education: Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy, edited by David Berliner and Carl Hermanns. Here’s a link to a pdf of my piece. I republished the essay in my 2024 book, The Ironies of Schooling. Here's … Continue reading Public Schooling as Social Welfare
This post is a piece by Boaz Barak that was recently published as a guest essay in the New York Times. Here's a link to the original. In it he explores what I consider to be an important issue about how higher education has in some ways contributed to the declining faith that the public has … Continue reading Boaz Barak: How About We Don’t Bring Our Whole Selves to the Classroom
This post is a short piece I just published in Insider Higher Ed. Here's a link to the original. Scholarship Thrives on Peripheral Vision Don’t be limited by what’s straight ahead, David Labaree writes The problem with scholarly focus is that it leads where you intend to go. And this is a problem because … Continue reading Scholarship Thrives on Peripheral Vision
This post is an essay by economist Branko Milanovic from his Substack Global Inequality and More 3.0. Here's a link to the original. In it he explores a fascinating historical question, which is why the Balkans have always been underdeveloped. And, as he points out, I do mean always. It was as true in Roman times … Continue reading Branko Milanovic — Why Were the Balkans Underdeveloped?
This is my first ever Pollyanna post. I wrote it last year in order to cheer myself about the world we live in. I think it still stands up. We Live in the Best of Times We seem to be in a world … Continue reading We Live in the Best of Times — Really
This post is an essay by Christopher Mims, which was published recently in the Wall Street Journal. Here's a link to the original. He's presenting an argument I find compelling about how artificial intelligence is not really thinking -- at least not in the way that humans actually think. Here's how he puts it: There’s something … Continue reading Christopher Mims — We Now Know How AI “Thinks” — And It’s Barely Thinking at All
This post is the text of a lecture I gave in 2009 at the University of Berne. It was originally published in the Swiss journal Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Historiographie and then found its way into my 2010 book, Someone Has to Fail. Here is the link to the first published version. It’s about a longstanding problem in American … Continue reading What Schools Can’t Do
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 