Education in America

Biden: “Start two years earlier and guarantee two years of college.” This is the kind of clearly stated principle — not programs — that can open up the conversation. And Democrats often get stuck on questions of college education because they forget about community colleges — the gateway to higher ed for more than half […]

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland: “Perhaps somewhere, charter schools have been implemented in a defensible manner, where they have provided quality. But the way they’ve been implemented in Ohio has been shameful. I think charter schools have been harmful, very harmful, to Ohio students.” Public charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded, can be […]

Real-life voucher programs, as Scott points out, tend to accommodate far too few students to make a difference in the systemic way we educate poor children in this country. But to respond to a point Megan McArdle made in an earlier post on vouchers, let’s imagine for a moment that every child in an underperforming […]

The question here — about foreign students attending schools for 13 more days per year than American students — is inane, but the candidates are doing their best to use it as a jumping off point to talk substantively about education. Hillary and Edwards both give a plug to early childhood education, while Edwards is […]

Ezra has encouraged me to jump in to what has become an energetic debate on vouchers for poor urban public schools, so here I go. Quick run-down: Megan McArdle seethes with rage over rich liberals who essentially practice “school choice” by picking up and moving to expensive suburbs, but who don’t support vouchers so poor […]

It’s one of the most stubborn ethical and personal dilemmas many affluent, politically progressive families face: The decision on whether to send one’s child to public or private school. There’s very little discussion in the American press of how families’ decisions on this matter affect their communities and society at large. So I was heartened […]