Finger-pointing 101
Charles Barone responds to news of the delay of NCLB reauthorization with a lament that (at least in his view) unions are crowing over a political victory. He broadens the field a tiny bit and then engages in a touch of nostalgia for times that never were: …in the education arena, there was a time […]
Who will defend faculty on a non-ideological basis?
Erin O’Connor has rightly criticized the assignment of an associate provost to watch a class in a blog entry titled How to destroy a teacher. She frames it as “a caricature of how the campus thought police destroy the learning environment for both students and teachers.” In a comment I left on the entry, I […]
Janie’s mother endorses cliff-diving
“You’re too young for make-up, Sweetie. Wait ’til you’re sixteen.”“I’m not Janie’s mother. I don’t do this to be mean.”“If those clothes fit any tighter, you would bust out every seam!”When did my mother slip inside of me?— Brenda Sutton, Mama’s Hands For those of you who truly wanted a test of the famous parental […]
Assistant provost, or ad hoc class observer
When I wrote a few weeks ago about the dangers of ad hoc investigations of student complaints, I didn’t know that I would have a specific case from Brandeis to illustrate my concerns. Accordingto the IHE article, an assistant provost is sitting in on Donald Hindley’s political science class (or maybe classes) after students complained […]
The Bloomberg-Klein attack on Diane Ravitch
The key clause from Diane Ravitch’s reflections on the smear campaign aimed at her recently: … if they could silence me, I would serve as an example to anyone else who criticized them. Ravitch is is right: as a well-known, respected, and outspoken critic, she is the safest of Klein’s critics. A visible attack on […]