This blog post is a still salient 2013 article from the New York Times about credential inflation in the American job market. Turns out that if you want to be a file clerk or runner at a law firm these days, you're going to need a four-year college degree. Here's a link to the original. … Continue reading Rampell — It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk
Month: August 2020
The Central Link between Liberty and Slavery in American History
In this post, I explore insights from two important books about the peculiar way in which liberty and slavery jointly emerged from the context of colonial America. One is a new book by David Stasavage, The Decline and Rise of Democracy. The other is a 1992 book by Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness … Continue reading The Central Link between Liberty and Slavery in American History
Public Schooling as Social Welfare
This post is a follow-up to a piece I posted three weeks ago, which was Michael Katz's 2020 essay, Public Education as Welfare. Below is my own take on this subject, which I wrote for a book that will be published in recognition of the hundredth anniversary of the Horace Mann League. The tentative title … Continue reading Public Schooling as Social Welfare
Farnsworth on Balancing Saxon and Latinate Words in Your Writing
This post focuses on the value of using an apt mix of Saxon and Latinate words in your writing. It draws on a book by Ward Farnsworth called Farnsworth's Classical English Style. English has a wonderfully polyglot heritage to draw upon -- starting with an ancient form of German brought by early Saxon invaders, then … Continue reading Farnsworth on Balancing Saxon and Latinate Words in Your Writing
Are Students Consumers?
This post is a piece I published in Education Week way back in 1997. It's a much shorter and more accessible version of the most cited paper I ever published, "Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals." Drawing on the latter, it lays out a case of three competing educational goals that … Continue reading Are Students Consumers?
Agnes Callard — Publish and Perish
This post is a recent essay by philosopher Agnes Callard about the problems with academic writing. It was published in The Point. In this essay, she explores the way that professionalization has ruined scholarly writing. The need to sound professional and publish in the kinds of serious journals that are the route to tenure and … Continue reading Agnes Callard — Publish and Perish
How NOT to Defend the Private Research University
This post is a piece I published today in the Chronicle Review. It's about an issue that has been gnawing at me for years. How can you justify the existence of institutions of the sort I taught at for the last two decades -- rich private research universities? These institutions obviously benefit their students and faculty, … Continue reading How NOT to Defend the Private Research University
Clare Coffey — Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies
This is a lovely essay by Clare Coffey from the summer issue of Hedgehog Review. In it she explores the extremes in contemporary American life through the medium of two recent books: those who have been shunted aside in the knowledge economy and destined to deaths of despair, and those who occupy the flashiest reaches … Continue reading Clare Coffey — Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies
Michael Katz — Public Education as Welfare
In this post, I reproduce a seminal essay by Michael Katz called "Public Education as Welfare." It was originally published in Dissent in 2010 (link to the original) and it draws on his book, The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State. I encountered this essay when I was working on a piece of … Continue reading Michael Katz — Public Education as Welfare
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 