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 favorite piece by an old friend and terrific scholar, Harold Wechsler, who sadly died a few years ago. Here’s a link to the original, which appeared in Teachers College Record in 1981. In this paper, Wechsler explores a longstanding issue in American higher education. How do students and colleges respond when the initial core … Continue reading Harold Wechsler — Group Repulsion in the History of US Higher Ed
This post is an essay by River Page about how we don't need more Tiger Moms, which appeared recently in The Free Press. Here's a link to the original. The point is that it's very unhealthy to promote a social and educational system that stresses high academic achievement over other competing values. Education is important but … Continue reading River Page — We Don’t Need More Tiger Moms
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
My new post is an essay by David Brooks that provides one of the best analyses I've read about the Trump victory. It appeared right after the election in the New York Times. Here's a link to the original. It explores some of the themes that I developed in my slide-show post 10 days ago. Voters … Continue reading David Brooks: Voters to Elites — Do You See Me Now?
This post is about how the last election can be understood as a rebuke to America's leaders in the Democratic Party. As David Brooks put it in the headline of his first column after the election: Voters to Elites: Can You See Me Now? I want to explore this issue at two levels, arguing that: … Continue reading Voters Give a Big Thumbs Down to America’s Leaders
This post is focused on an excerpt from a recent essay by Walter Russell Mead, which appeared in online magazine Tablet. Here's a link to the original. To me, it captures something important about the presidential election -- the way in which the contest turned out to be a referendum on the character of America's … Continue reading Walter Russell Mead: American Leadership Has a Versailles Problem
This post is an essay by Jennifer Morton that recently appeared in the online magazine Aeon. Here's a link to the original. I have been posting every Monday and Thursday on this blog for four years, but I feel the need to stick in this post out of sequence because the election date is so near, … Continue reading Jennifer Morton — The Specter of Insecurity
This essay by Steve Lagerfeld was published in 2021 in Hedgehog Review. Here's a link to the original. This brief piece is a striking reflection on the evolving meaning of privilege over time. In the current period of meritocratic privilege, people acquire status by getting exclusive degrees. This gives them the right to high level … Continue reading Steve Lagerfeld — A Different Sense of Privilege
This post is a recent piece by A. O. Scott from the New York Times about the muddled way in which we have long treated the concept of being "middle class." Here's a link to the original. The ‘Middle’ Is a Muddle Everybody loves the middle class. Nobody wants to be mid, or middling. “Middle” … Continue reading A. O. Scott: On the Muddle of the Middle Class
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 