Some issues just won’t go away. Despite two hundred years of debate, Americans still don’t agree about the proper relationship between government and religion. Pity poor James Madison who after writing the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights still had to take quill in hand and argue against the establishment of a state religion. But even his mighty quill was not enough. There remains a movemContinue Reading »

Over at This Week In Education, John Krupa, an education reporter from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, questions my recent criticism of the Wall Street Journal’s alleged trend story($) about how more parents are supposedly uprooting their entire lives so their kids can attend private school. Here’s John’s take, in its entirety:

I agree we need to be mindful of turning isContinue Reading »

One of the basic tensions in journalism comes between what’s news and what’s a good story. The best journalism combines the two, using the power of narrative to communicate vital, relevant information about the state of the world. Sometimes, however, journalists find good stories that aren’t really news. Unfortunately, they frequently try to make news out of them anyway, by prContinue Reading »