Search results for: progressive reform

Moderates would respond to a Democrat willing to slip the ideological stranglehold of a liberal interest group. Original Source by Jonathan Alter One of the best things about the democratic primaries was that horse-race-obsessed reporters rarely asked the candidates about education. Why was that good?…

Will Houston's charter school expansion revolutionize urban education? Original Source by Jay Mathews It all began with the waiting lists. At Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, long waiting lists are seen as evidence of high standards and prestige. But long waiting lists were the cause of…

When I arrived in Austin, Texas, the day after Labor Day in 1984 to take up my post as Executive Director of the Texas state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, a 30-year old Yankee who’d never set foot in the state before my…

One evening last spring, as a fierce north-easter tore through the New York region, Gara LaMarche settled in to watch The Sopranos and bake batches of muffins. The next morning, baked goodies safely stowed in Ziploc bags, he set off for the offices of The…

By Jay Matthews FOR MANY AMERICAN PARENTS, MIDDLE SCHOOL HAS BECOME SOMETHING TO DREAD. They hear that even the fancy private middle schools that charge $20,000 a year will be one of two things: a lockdown prison or an anything-goes playpen. Educators have mostly given…

US Senator Edward M. Kennedy plans today in Washington to tout Massachusetts' push for longer school days as a national model, saying students need additional time to master 21st-century skills in a new global economy. Massachusetts is the first to undertake a state-sponsored initiative to…