I am in favour of schools in principle, with some reservations about what schooling can achieve. Schools cannot compensate for individual differences. From time to time, children have to be excluded from school because their behaviour makes it very difficult to teach other children. Under the current rules, a pattern of disruption has to be... Read More

Perhaps the most successful myth that has been foisted off on a gullible American citizenry is that the education of our children, from kindergarten through high school, is the responsibility of the government. And implicit in that assumption is that the natural rights and duties of the family over the education of its offspring must... Read More

I'm having a fire sale on education stories this week. Also a parallel fire sale on quotes from my 2009 book We Are Doomed, because the education chapter of that book was the most fun to write and it's pertinent to this week's stories. Here's a sort of keynote quote from that chapter: Education story... Read More

Today’s America is a world of solutions and it is almost un-American to even hint that our most pressing problems are intractable and must be endured as one might suffer terrible weather. Even tribulations that have perplexed societies for millennia will be solved if we just do the research, roll up our sleeves and spend... Read More

I have a secret hope that one day one of my readers will write a psychology textbook, and that intelligence will be mentioned in an up-to-date and accurate manner. Years ago, when reading a new UK textbook that took an apologetic and partial view of racial differences in intelligence I planned to look at the... Read More

If one compiled a list of massive cultural engineering projects, America’s effort to close race-related academic achievement gaps would be the most ambitious. For over a half century we have spent tens of billions, devised scores of remediation schemes, and pursued legal solutions galore, all to no avail. Even conservatives normally hostile to social engineering... Read More

If a prize were awarded for the worst policy idea, one that would waste billions in some futile quest for the impossible, the indisputable winner would be uplifting the academic bottom by fixing their “bad schools.” It is a seductive idea that never seems to die despite repeated failures; it even seduces free-market conservatives infatuated... Read More

In looking for a piece I seemed to remember in which John, a prolific internet presence, advocates abolishing public education, I came across his overall diagnosis of schooling in America, well worth reading and a marvel of concision and accuracy. On its strength I hereby nominate him as SecEd, as one says in the as-yet... Read More

When I'm driving, my car radio is invariably tuned to KOIT, the leading "easy listening" station in the San Francisco Bay area. My tastes are humdrum and unsophisticated, so the songs merely provide some pleasant background music, occasionally punctuated by commercial ads, mostly annoying but occasionally amusing. One of the better ones began running only... Read More

Some time ago I read a column on the schooling of blacks written by Walter Williams, the black economist at George Mason University, who grew up in the black housing projects of Philadelphia in the Thirties. I have read Williams for years. He is an absolutely reliable witness. He reports that all the kids could... Read More

The following anecdote I hope will demonstrate some disturbing pathologies in our culture at present. What kind of effect might different colored paper have on Hispanic students in terms of their schoolwork? This was the worthy academic query posed by my former colleague in the world of education, a world the Derb described as the... Read More

The specter, on the nation’s campuses, of frightened, middle-aged white educators, mostly men, resigning in fear of a mob rising in rage against hurtful words and gestures—all constitutionally protected speech—is an organic extension of the American educational project, down to your child’s school. If your kids are in the country’s educational gulag—primary, secondary or tertiary—however... Read More

Pain is inescapably part of life and a pre-requisite to accomplishment (“no pain, no gain”). But, that said, fortunes await those who can promise all the benefits sans any pain—think miracle weight loss pills. Most of these schemes just waste money but when it concerns helping the African American underclass, the consequences of eliminating discomfort... Read More

One wearies, or I weary anyway, of the endless news stories reporting that children can barely read or not at all, can’t add, and don’t know anything. This in the United States? The exceptional nation, shining city on a hill, guiding light of mankind? On and on it goes: the national toleration of the stupid,... Read More

Looking back on my time as a teacher, I note with irony that there is a special breed of stupidity which only manifests in those who purport to transmit knowledge to others. Rest assured, it is they who are now in charge. There is no reasoning with them, there is no Socratic dialogue to discover... Read More

Come morning, I receive emails from friends documenting the curious social transformation coming over the US. These missives usually accompany links to some new tragicomic antics. E.g., Harvard, once a university, lets students invent odd pronouns to promote gender equity. “He” and “she” represent oppression and lack of inclusion. Recently a friend, a Harvard PhD,... Read More