This post is an essay by David Brooks published recently in the New York Times. Here's a link to the original. It's about the fierce competition that students face in the academic rat race. First they fight to get into a highly selective college that only admits 5% of the people who apply. Then when they … Continue reading David Brooks — We Are the Most Rejected Generation
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 piece I wrote recently about an issue that's been on my mind for a while. Here's a link to the article, and here's a link to the slide talk I gave on the subject. The story is in the title. You Don’t Need to Kill Yourself Trying to Get into the Ivies: … Continue reading You Don’t Need to Kill Yourself Trying to Get into the Ivies
This post is an op-ed that Deborah Malizia and I just published in the San Jose Mercury News. Here's a link to the original. It follows up on an earlier op-ed we did on the subject. Schools’ shift from community to competition harms our youth U.S. education system created in the 19th century to serve the … Continue reading School’s Shift from Community to Competition Can Harm Our Youth
This post is a reflection on some of the insights I culled from Irena Smith's new book, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays. The book is a memoir a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, who got a PhD in comp lit, taught college, became an admissions reader at Stanford and then … Continue reading Irena Smith — The Golden Ticket
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 