Category: Education

The New York Federal Reserve Bank released an impressive amount of research earlier this month on the present state of student debt. Total student debt levels are around $870 billion. Average student debt stands at $23,300, but the median debt — a more telling figure — stands at $12,800. At the same time, those with… Continue reading On the politics of student debt

Imagine watching a man try unsuccessfully to unlock a door for 20 minutes. He keeps putting the same key into the keyhole and turning, but to no avail. Then imagine standing behind him are a number of people who keep telling him that his key obviously does not work, and that he should try another… Continue reading On Wendy Kopp, poverty pimp

As regular readers know by now, I am fairly skeptical of the Education Reform Movement. I am not convinced that the reforms advocated by this well-funded movement will actually work because I suspect that the real problem is economic inequality, not bad schools or bad teachers. But even if one believed that the policies pushed… Continue reading Education reform will not fix poverty or inequality

In the United States, education is deeply stratified, leading to a very significant achievement gap between rich and poor students, as well as white students and students of color (although the latter gap is shrinking). Responding to this problem, a whole set of well-funded Education Reformers have put forward a platform that includes the widespread… Continue reading Doug Henwood on the United Stated educational system

More and more I turn to political blogs to find interesting information, data, and analysis — not newspapers. There are many reasons for this: blogs are more targeted to the issue areas I track, they are often shorter, and their analysis is usually deeper. On top of all of that, the way journalists are taught… Continue reading Frustrations with traditional journalism