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“Trust us” and “there’s plenty of oversight, honest!”
What does an education historian bring to the table on national security debates? Just this: When have we heard government officials assure the public that they’re competent and the public doesn’t need to have more information? When we have heard government officials assure the public that there is sufficient oversight of activities? When has security […]
“Parent trigger” as a pale shadow of community involvement
During the past two legislative sessions in Florida, I have watched debates over the so-called parent-trigger bills with a mix of disappointment and resignation. Have we fallen so low in discussing parent involvement that a petition or plebiscite is considered involvement? Maybe this is the Facebook Era’s version of maximum feasible participation, a sort of […]
“Industrial-era education” as rhetorical whipping boy
I am starting a local chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Metaphors. Part of my motivation is the release of another Dan Brown novel. But it didn’t hurt my motivation to read the awful thumbnail history in Arthur Levine’s column this week on teachers unions. Teachers’ unions are under siege nationwide…. What’s […]
Holding people accountable
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ column today is both a reminder and good discussion of the difference between labeling individuals as racists (or non-racists) and understanding that our history is one filled with racism: The idea that racism lives in the heart of particularly evil individuals, as opposed to the heart of a democratic society, is reinforcing to […]
Early childhood education, feminism, and public policy
This week the internet has apparently been exploding with meteors discussion of the president’s pre-school policy agenda. From a purely selfish standpoint, I wish the president had proposed this during the campaign. In the fall, I was teaching a graduate course in the history of childhood, and I organized the seminar around the central question, […]