Stop sensationalizing the stories of recent college graduates who can’t find work—or can only find work as baristas or bartenders. A new Pew study shows why “it’s all largely a myth,” writes Jordan Weissmann. (The Atlantic)

To lock or not to lock? Classroom doors, that is. (Los Angeles Times)

Crystal clear. Rick Hess lauds a transparency initiative in Clark County School District,Continue Reading »

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is starting a series of roundtable discussions focused on revamping higher education in his state. The first question, he says, should be to the business community: “What are you not getting from us that you need?”

While that question is important, it’s really what follows that counts. Communication between community colleges and their local businesses is vitalContinue Reading »

It’s happening.

Erie, Pa., a town struggling to keep hold of its manufacturing prowess, is losing its grasp. General Electric, the county’s largest employer, announced last week that it will move its global headquarters from the small lakeside city to Chicago, where the company can “more efficiently reach and serve customers around the world.”

While Lorenzo Simonelli, Continue Reading »

Within six years, two-thirds of all American jobs will require a postsecondary degree or certificate. The bad news? Less than one in three Americans currently has a bachelor’s degree. The good news? Community colleges can fill much of this gaping hole in educational attainment—and they plan to. The American Association of Community Colleges, which last month recommended an overhaul of the commuContinue Reading »

When I wrote a piece for The New Republic a couple of months ago noting that the New York Times and Washington Post have an ignoble decades-long history of writing essentially bogus articles about the woes of unemployed college graduates, I didn’t mean to create a blueprint for future such articles. And yet, here are some excerpts from the TNR piece, published in June, and a Times piece, Continue Reading »

Checker Finn describes my critique of his neo-Hooverite views on education policy and the stimulus bill as a “particularly dated defense of Keynesianism,” and asserts that borrowing money to prevent pro-cyclical mass layoffs and deep cuts in state and local education spending amounts to “Stalin-style job creation.”

This is a case of conventional wisdom failing to Continue Reading »