Rick Hess’ new book title, Cage-Busting Leadership, invokes images of Hulk crushing bars designed to hold him back. But as Tuesday’s panel shows, school leaders can learn just as much, if not more, from Hulk’s alter-ego, the reserved, bookish and determined Dr. Bruce Banner: The first and perhaps most important action a leader can take is to learn the rules of the game.

For Principal AdrContinue Reading »

Rick Hess is one of education policy’s most original thinkers. But, every once in a while, perhaps after too long a lunch in AEI’s dining room, he veers chaotically off-course, venturing into sky-is-falling conspiracy land. This seems to be one of those weeks.

First there was Wednesday’s DC’s Mayor Gray Throws Schools Chief Under Bus (Andy Rotherham, aka Eduwonk, Continue Reading »

Quick Hits is a daily compilation of essential education news stories, blog posts, and video clips that Education Sector team members are reading or viewing.

Quick Hits is a short compilation of question-raising news stories, blog posts, and video clips that Education Sector team members are reading or viewing each day.

Quick Hits is a short compilation of question-raising news stories, blog posts, and video clips that Education Sector team members are reading and viewing each day. The content of these Hits is not necessarily endorsed by the organization or any particular team member.

What do you do when you’re over $100,000 in debt from law school but can’Continue Reading »

Creative Destruction: Will the UC system reform itself or be reformed? (CBS Money Watch)

What new RTT trends has straight shooter Rick Hess discovered during his recent cross-country book tour? (Rick Hess Straight Up) 

Higher education in England is currently facing many of  the same challenges that trouble American colleges—namely financing and equity.  How are debates ovContinue Reading »

At the National Review, Rick Hess and Checker Finn denounce the Obama administration for using stimulus funding to save the jobs of 400,000 teachers and college professors on the grounds that…this was a bad idea. Really:

It’s a fact that employment was an explicit purpose of stimulus funding — Congress said as much — and with today’s jobless rate over 10 percent, only a churl wouldContinue Reading »

One of the problems with college student loans is that students assume nearly all of the risk of default. Colleges have no risk — they get paid up-front — while lenders participating in the federal student loan program (which controls a large, albeit shrinking, majority of all loan volume) get bailed out by the taxpayers if students don’t repay. That means the taxpayer assumesContinue Reading »

Rick Hess writes about the Duke Lacrosse player contretemps at the National Review Online. He recounts how after the incident 88 faculty members quickly sponsored a full-page advertisement in the student newspaper, which declared: “These students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and themselves” and “the disaster didn’t begin on March 13th and won’t end with whContinue Reading »