This post is an essay by Simon Sarris that recently appeared in the magazine Palladium. Here's a link to the original. I can't say that I buy the argument Sarris is making here, but I sure find it illuminating. He's saying that we used to induct young people into productive activity at a much younger age, … Continue reading Simon Sarris: School Is Not Enough
Schools are a great topic for cartoons, and here are some of my favorites. Enjoy.
This is an op-ed I published in the New York Daily News in 2020. It’s on the things we miss about schools when they close – a reminder about the nonacademic functions of school that are closer to our hearts than its academic functions. What Kids Miss When They Go Without School David F. Labaree … Continue reading What Kids Miss When They Stay Out of School
In this post, I reproduce a seminal essay by Michael Katz called "Public Education as Welfare." It was originally published in Dissent in 2010 (link to the original) and it draws on his book, The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State. I encountered this essay when I was working on a piece of … Continue reading Michael Katz — Public Education as Welfare
This post is a 2012 piece I published Journal of Curriculum Studies, which draws on my book Someone Has to Fail. Here’s a link to a PDF of the original. An overview of the story I’m telling: The USA is suffering from a school syndrome, which arises from Americans’ insistence on having things both ways through the magical medium … Continue reading School Syndrome: Understanding the USA’s Magical Belief that Schooling Can Somehow Improve Society, Promote Access, and Preserve Advantage
This post is a piece I published in Kappan in November, 2018. Here’s a link to the original. Public schools for private gain: The declining American commitment to serving the public good When schooling comes to be viewed mainly as a source of private benefit, both schools and society pay the consequences. By David F. Labaree … Continue reading Public Schools for Private Gain
This post is a lovely essay by Olaf Jorgenson and Percy Abram about the harmful consequences that follow from the kind of academic rigor imposed on students today in the name of raising standards. The emphasis is more on hard work than on effective learning. The motto is "no pain, no gain." As a result, … Continue reading Jorgenson and Abram — The Dark Side of Rigor
This post is a piece I wrote recently, something I’ve been meaning to write for years. An alternative title is: “School — Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It.” Here’s a link to the Word document. See what you think. School Gave Me the Creeps David Labaree Did you like school? I didn’t. … Continue reading School Gave Me the Creeps
This is an essay about the historical construction of the American meritocracy, which is to say the new American aristocracy based on academic credentials. Here's a link to the original, which was published 2020 in Bildungsgeschichte: International Journal of the Historiography of Education. An overview of the argument: Modern systems of public schooling have transformed … Continue reading Schooling the Meritocracy: How Schools Came to Democratize Merit, Formalize Achievement, and Naturalize Privilege
This post is a piece by Meira Levinson and Daniel Markovitz that was published recently in Atlantic. Here's a link to the original. It's an astute analysis of the harmful effects of the pandemic on American schooling. They argue that only part of the damage was done by school closures. A lot of the harm … Continue reading Levinson and Markovitz — The Biggest Disruption in the History of American Education
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 