“School leaders have more power than they think.” Rick Hess talks about breaking through the “culture of can’t,” or the idea that something can’t be done because it hasn’t been done before, in schools. (Education Next)

Learning in more ways than one. A district-museum partnership in California melds English instruction with science lessons to give English-language learners exposure to thContinue Reading »

People in Washington rarely like to admit they’ve been surprised. “I heard that last week,” they will often say when some bombshell hits the newspaper.

Denizens of think tanks also don’t like surprises. After all, their job is to stay in close touch with what’s happening and what’s on the horizon.

Still, there were some surprises for our WashingContinue Reading »

George Washington is known as the Father of His Country. But here in his native state of Virginia, Washington often takes second billing to the man who served as his Secretary of State.

Thomas Jefferson designed the state capitol. He was the author of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. And, as everyone in America surely knows by now, he founded an “academical village”Continue Reading »

Andrew Delbanco has written a thorough and fair-minded article in the New York Review of Books about how the current economic crisis is exposing the way our higher education system is one “in which ‘merit’ is the ubiquitous slogan but disparity of opportunity is often the reality.” He makes one point, however, that deserves some scrutiny:

These institutions—long bContinue Reading »

The Post reports a huge influx of highly-qualified students from China applying as undergraduates to elite American universities. At the University of Virginia, the number grew from 60 in 2005 to 816 in 2009. At Brown University, 166 to 500, and so on. This shows, once again, the huge advantage we have in being home to lion’s share of the world’s top-notch colleges and universities Continue Reading »

It’s too bad the Washington Post reporter covering a new piece of higher education legislation in Virginia didn’t read the bill’s fiscal impact statement. If she had, she might not have portrayed the it as evenhandedly as she did. The legislation, which would force Virginia institutions to enroll at least 80 percent of their undergraduates from in-state, would impose almost $2Continue Reading »

Stanford Univeristy is rolling out a new policy whereby students with family incomes of less than $45,000 will pay no tuition. Announcements like this have become a mini-trend in recent years, as some high-profile institutions have reacted to critics who note that students at the nation’s most selective colleges and universities are 25 times more likely to be from the top income quartile Continue Reading »