By Sherman Dorn on January 7, 2018
A quarter century ago, the History of Education Quarterly accepted my first article, on when and why people in the United States began to use dropping out as the dominant term for people who left school without a high school diploma. Spoiler: we started using the term not because dropping out was a growing problem in the 1960s […]
Posted in Education policy, History, Research
By Sherman Dorn on December 29, 2017
This afternoon my wife, daughter, nephew, and niece toured Taliesin West, the Scottsdale campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, where Wright set up shop for the winter months in the 1930s through his death. I’ll have some things to say about it in a post I want to write, and it reminded […]
Posted in History
By Sherman Dorn on June 8, 2017
I was sorry to hear earlier this spring that my former colleague Erv Johanningmeier had died. As the chair of a search committee in 1996, he was responsible for Barbara Shircliffe, Chris Ogren, and my coming to the University of South Florida.1 In my job interview I found a gruff, intellectually curious future colleague who […]
Posted in Florida, History, The academic life
By Sherman Dorn on January 26, 2017
My thoughts on this start with education policy but is more general: Whether elected Republican officials can reverse a slew of Obama administration policies may depend on whether each policy area is more like a pendulum or more like a ratchet. Elite Republicans hope that by the end of 2018, federal health care, environmental, tax, and […]
Posted in Education policy, History, Politics
By Sherman Dorn on November 11, 2016
This Veterans Day, many of my fellow Americans are worried about their vulnerability after a hate-filled national campaign. Or, rather, not worried but justifiably anticipating attacks, if not having witnessed/experienced them directly. So today, I’m remembering the Double-V campaign in World War II, pushed by the Pittsburgh Courier, as Black soldiers, veterans, and their families committed […]
Posted in History, Politics
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