Although it’s only seven years since Caroline Minter Hoxby received her Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the brilliance of her subsequent research at Harvard University into the effectiveness and cost of public education has...
Many simply shake their heads in confusion and disbelief at reports of peace rallies on college campuses from coast to coast. At such an unprecedented time of pro-American sentiments, and in light of the magnitude of horror of September 11, it seems almost impossible...
When her daughter Susan started kindergarten in Virginia in 1972, Jessie Wise quickly heard complaints from Susan’s teacher that the child would become a social misfit because she wanted to read during free time instead of playing. This was not good news for...
The settlement of the Microsoft anti-trust case got interesting this week — and developments revealed the laughably absurd nature of much of the suit against the company. Reports in the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere revealed that...
Nothing is an outrage when the reigning fad is being non-judgmental. So perhaps it is not surprising that there has been no nationwide chorus of condemnation of Bill Clinton’s anti-American speech at Georgetown University. According to the former president,...
In a world where the media are ready to magnify innocuous remarks or a minor problem into a trauma or a disaster, there is remarkably little attention being paid to cruelties routinely inflicted on children by our laws and our courts. That cruelty is ripping children...
The events of September 11 have been the primary subject of discussion on college campuses across America. A patriotic fervor has been revived, with flags popping up in virtually every yard and on every car. However, after reading the editorials that appeared in last...
When the new school year begins, Deena Esteban will not be among the legions of educators welcoming students back to class. That’s because Mrs. Esteban, a 43-year-old art teacher in Prince William County, Va., lost the job she loved after being convicted of a...
A 4-year-old boy died last weekend at the Malibu home of rock star Tommy Lee. How any right-thinking parents could entrust their child to a drug-addled celebrity who pled no contest to kicking his ex-wife (actress Pamela Anderson) while she held their newborn baby is...
American education will never be improved until we address a problem seen as too delicate to discuss. That problem is teacher philosophy and incompetency. If we were serious about efforts to improve public education, we’d shut down schools of education. Why?...
On Friday (June 29, 2001), ABC news correspondent John Stossel aired a hard-hitting report challenging the environmentalist movement and suggesting that “tampering with nature” makes human life better — that such “unnatural” phenomena as...
Q : My wife and I want to teach our four-year-old son to have self-confidence. How can we teach him? A: This is too vast a subject to appropriately answer in a short column. I can, however, give you some general principles. Here they are: Make sure you are confident...
There’s nothing like stiff competition to bring out the worst in government. Nowhere does this prove more true than in the battle between home-schooling parents and public school bureaucrats. In Maryland, local prosecutors are moving forward with a...
If we had to single out one American institution that stands at the forefront of modern-day racial discrimination, deception and contempt for fundamental principles of liberty, it would be America’s universities. Under the euphemisms of affirmative action,...
No wonder the California Teachers Association was howling. Ray Haynes actually wanted them to practice what they preach. Haynes, a Republican state senator from California, recently introduced legislation in Sacramento that would have required public school teachers...
Our colleges are losing touch with reality. The padded grades they’re giving out don’t help our students. Harvey C. Mansfield teaches political philosophy at Harvard University. And if there were a class in “how to get yourself into trouble with your...
Test scores are not the only things that tell us how bad our public schools have become. In San Francisco, the school board voted unanimously to have the city’s students take Friday, March 9th, off to go to Berkeley, in order to stage a protest demonstration,...
After every tragic school shooting — and many other shocking murders — the question gets asked: “How could he do such a thing?” This has become the centerpiece of a whole set of rituals. Another part of these rituals is the appearance of...
Say you’re accused of a sexual offense and you’re forbidden to confront your accuser, have an attorney present or cross-examine witnesses. Where are you? A) IraqB) IranC) CubaD) Columbia University If your final answer was “D,” you’re...
YOU MAY NEVER HAVE HEARD of the University of Phoenix, but it has more students than Harvard, Yale or Notre Dame —- combined. There is a reason you probably have not heard of the University of Phoenix. It represents a new development in higher education and one...
This Christmas season, take a moment to say a prayer for the many innocent people sent to prison by injustice. You can safely say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” because the myriad causes of well-intentioned people have made it possible for...
“Breast is best.” No, it’s not the new slogan for Hooters restaurant. It’s the mantra of breast-feeding advocates who promote their cause with a cult-like fervor around the world. Their extremism must be condemned. I have nothing against...
For almost a century the Soviet Union preached the doctrine of service to “the people.” Toil, sacrifice, and suffer, the Soviet propagandists told their subjects; it is all being done for the good of “the people.” As time went on, of course,...
A new poll claims that a large majority of American parents are very happy with their child’s public school. This is certainly not my experience. I am a family therapist in Montgomery County, Maryland — the location of one of the “best” public...
All politicians come out 200 percent in favor of education, especially when an election is coming up. What that usually means is that they are prepared to dump more billions of taxpayer dollars down the bottomless pit of our failing public schools, whether or not that...
Al Gore promises that, if elected, he will make it illegal for all teens to drop out of high school before age 18. (Currently they may drop out at 16). In other words he wants to use the guns and threat of police force to physically force students to not drop out....
Many people hear only one side of the story of our public schools, because only the teachers’ unions have both the incentives and the millions of dollars required to produce sustained advertising campaigns about education. These campaigns intensify during an...
It is amazing how many people who are “pro-choice” when it comes to abortion are against choice when it comes to education. Indeed, that is the official position of the Democratic Party. Despite Al Gore’s rhetoric at the Democrats’ convention...
To counteract the damage caused by Progressive Education, Woiceshyn put together a rigorous program of core academic subjects designed to motivate learning, build a solid foundation of essential knowledge and basic skills, and train logical thinking.
It was painful to watch. Our bright 9-year-old son was rapidly losing his love of learning. Dissatisfied with his private school, the best we could find, I decided to postpone my second career as a writer and home-school him–a choice many Americans are forced to...
“Unable to deal with words or with numbers — having no means of knowing, but only of guessing — the child loses confidence in his mind.”
When I began to write this review, I hemmed and hawed about where to begin. Flipping through the meaty 764 pages, I was amused to note that the authors began the section entitled, “Using The Well-Trained Mind Without Losing Your Own” with the upfront...
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