On School Time

Labor Day – the final summer holiday and what used to be, the day before school starts. Believe me, I’m not clamoring for schools to return to that outdated approach to a school calendar. Nonetheless, most schools will have started by now. Since this is a four-day workweek (for those with traditional hours), instead of [...]

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On Connecting Egypt and Schools

With the power of instant news, we watched the events in Egypt as they happened. Whether the peaceful gathering of the masses or the few days of violence, there were and still are so many stories intertwined into this overthrow of a long-standing regime. These two thoughts repeatedly played in my mind: the desire of [...]

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On Linking a Pulitzer to a Fulbright

Education is always a popular topic. Besides, all of us can share a thoughtful story about a teacher in their life. As I have noted many times, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker is one of my favorite columnists, so I was thrilled to hear that she recently won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Then she [...]

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On Opinions in the Shorts: Vol. 39

On a Longer School Year President Obama and others want to lengthen the school year by 40 days. Although I favor such a move as part of educational reform, let me pose these questions. Should the Feds mandate something that is primarily controlled by state and local entities? How much the public and the travel [...]

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On School Reform: The Difficulties

The topic of school reform has been around for some time. A Nation at Risk served as the focus in the early 1980s. National standards came forward as a result in the late 80s, to be followed by state standards and state-mandated tests. Today, school reform still gets focused air time from presidential candidates every [...]

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