I've been hearing so much about budget cuts to public education in the news lately. Last week, there were demonstrations all over the Bay Area protesting the massive budget cuts to public colleges, and secondary and elementary schools throughout California. And these protests weren't just on the college campuses of Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Davis, [...]
Recent surveys have shown that trust and regard that Americans hold for their elected officials in Washington is at historic lows. And those government officials wonder why they are aren't on anyone's Most Popular list these days. Let me count the ways: bailouts, backroom deals, tax cuts for the wealthy, extreme partisanship, election-year politics, the [...]
Race to the Top is the name given to President Obama's education-reform program that is supposed to change the education system in America. But what it should be called is Race to Nowhere, which happens to be the name of a powerful new documentary by Vicki Abeles that explores, as the film's subtitle states, the [...]
It has been shocking and bewildering to watch the behavior of some of the top banking CEOs in recent months, punctuated by the appearance of four of these executives before Congress last month. Some questions immediately pop into my mind. Do they follow the news? Have they no conscience? Do they not have public-relations people [...]
I don't know Bode Miller personally, though I know athletes and coaches who know him well. I do know alpine ski racing. I competed internationally in my youth and have worked with ski racers, ranging from juniors to Olympians, on the mental side of the sport for 25 years. And I have followed Bode's career [...]
As I described in my recent Race to the Top? series, the need for significant reform of America's public school system is great (Part II), yet the institutional obstacles preventing reform seem even greater (Part III). The challenges of changing a system that is so entrenched came to absurd light from a reader of my [...]
We have just concluded what was one of the most tumultuous and divisive decades in our nation's history. I've been thinking about what made this period so difficult. Unexpected and, in some cases, uncontrollable events certainly played a role. The 2000 Presidential election, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, [...]
A few months ago, I wrote a post titled The Blogosphere Jungle in which I described the truly uncivil nature of the blogosphere in which respect for opposing views and dispassionate discourse were out and ad hominem attacks and demonization were in. Yet, as I have followed and responded to many comments to my own [...]
My first two posts in my Race to the Top? Series (Part I and Part II) focused on the effects of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top on children at the top and the bottom of the education food chain. This post will explore several of the more sensitive issues that prevent [...]
In his insightful 2008 article in the Atlantic, Nicolas Carr asks, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" He goes on to explore how new technology has altered our reading habits and, more unsettlingly, how we process information and think. It is a cerebral piece that meets the high intellectual standards we expect of that august magazine. [...]