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Berkeley middle-schoolers march on Jewish preschool
My granddaughter will start day care in a few months at a Jewish community center. It was my daughter's first choice, but she also...
Joanne Jacobs
May 14, 20242 min read
6 comments


As college costs near $100k per year, Biden pledges to forgive more student loans
Is a year at Vanderbilt worth $100,000? At a few dozen elite universities, the list price for tuition, room and board and other expenses...
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 9, 20242 min read
9 comments


Backlash: Professors reject DEI 'loyalty oaths'
Universities should stop requiring diversity statements, writes Randall L. Kennedy, a Harvard Law professor, in the Harvard Crimson....
Joanne Jacobs
Apr 5, 20242 min read
1 comment


A 'Colorblind America' sees race, but tries to treat people the same
"Anti-racism" is a kind of "neo-racism," argues Coleman Hughes in his new book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind...
Joanne Jacobs
Mar 29, 20243 min read
3 comments


Classical ed -- seen as 'a white child's education' -- is thriving in the Bronx
Are the liberal arts conservative?, asks Emma Green in a New Yorker story about the revival of "classical education." A growing number of...
Joanne Jacobs
Mar 25, 20242 min read
3 comments


The 'party of education' must value merit, get ideology out of classroom
Democrats used to be the "party of education" in voters' minds, notes Education Next. Now voters are split on who they trust most, with...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 28, 20242 min read
2 comments


Minnesota adopts woke-centric social studies standards
Minnesota have approved "the most ideologically progressive and intellectually vapid social studies standards in America," writes Max...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 27, 20242 min read
1 comment


'Black Lives Matter' coloring book is light on black history
Brooklyn students got schooled on radical politics during Black History Month, reports Francesca Block on Free Press. Students at P.S....
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 26, 20241 min read
1 comment


'Don't say gay' when you're supposed to be teaching fractions
One out of three classroom teachers are working under "gag orders" that limit their speech on gender, sexuality and critical race theory,...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 26, 20242 min read
1 comment


Sympathy for the devil: What's the bad guy's point of view?
Novelist Rachel Kadish tells her creative-writing students to write a first-person monologue by a character with "abhorrent" views that...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 20, 20242 min read
5 comments


Teaching Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mary Wood is teaching Ta-Nehisi Coates' memoir, Between the World and Me, in her AP English Language and Composition class in Chapin,...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 7, 20242 min read
13 comments


$250K for 'woke' training: Reading, math scores fall even lower
Training teachers to "disrupt whiteness" isn't helping children learn at a Bay Area school, reports Jill Tucker in the San Francisco...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 5, 20242 min read
5 comments


Transitioning kids: 'I expected it to change everything, but I was just me with a deeper voice'
Silencing critics of transitioning children is a mistake, writes Pamela Paul in a New York Times commentary based on interviews with...
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 3, 20243 min read
2 comments


The shelves tilt left: School libraries have no McWhorter, but lots of Kendi
For all the talk about school libraries under pressure to "ban books," the real issue is lack of balance, argues James Fishback in The...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 26, 20242 min read
11 comments


The new Irish: Hispanics are upwardly mobile Americans
Hispanic immigrants are a lot like Irish immigrants who came to American in the 1800s, writes Noah Smith. They are working-class folks...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 7, 20242 min read
3 comments


The Great Renaming: Adios to DEI, hello to 'Belonging' bureaucrats
Is DEI dead -- or just disrupted? Texas' state colleges and universities were forced to close diversity, equity and inclusion offices...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 5, 20242 min read
8 comments


LA celebrates 'blackness' while black students fail in reading, math
Black students are "disastrously behind" in math, reading and attendance in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), writes Heather...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 3, 20242 min read
3 comments


Activism gives bored, lonely students something to do
Students who've worked hard to get into prestigious colleges don't seem to have enough to do once they get there, writes Rick Hess,...
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 2, 20243 min read
6 comments


Gen Z: Whites are 'oppressors' -- especially Jews
"White people are oppressors," say 79 percent of young Americans 18 to 24 years old in a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. "Nonwhite...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 17, 20232 min read
8 comments


The young and the senseless
Ignorance rather than malice could why one fifth of young Americans think the Holocaust is a "myth," and another 30 percent aren't sure,...
Joanne Jacobs
Dec 11, 20232 min read
4 comments
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