Texas and reality
Despite what I promised a few hours ago, this entry is not about coeducation, but current events in Texas are pushing my thoughts away from the value of college, at least for now. The rolling disaster that is the lame-duck-infested Texas Board of Education is both agonizing and fascinating, or one step above the formerly-creationist […]
The value of college I
Over the past week, I had been collecting a number of references to recent online discussions of the value of education when the New York Times column by Jacques Steinberg highlighting the views of Richard Vedder and Charles Murray appeared. Claus von Zastrow (among others) has already pointed out that given the fact that the […]
Crabby comments from a higher-ed union activist
I’m in a slightly cranky mood from spending most of the last two days’ work hours on copyediting. This says little about the material I was copyediting and more about the nature of the task (and why I did not get a job to spend all of my time copyediting). So I’m ending the day […]
The Thursday’s-child research design
This morning’s St. Petersburg Times is reporting on a working paper on the Florida class size initiative by Harvard researcher Matthew Chingos. This paper is now available on the PEPG website, and the Times asked me to read it and comment, and there are a few things I can say: It’s stronger technically than a […]