I’m not sure why Ezra Klein thinks it’s especially significant that studies don’t find obvious academic benefits accruing from D.C.’s voucher program in its first year of operation. Yes, the greater flexibility enjoyed by private actors is one part of the argument for choice, but the real core of the argument is about the market […]

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The New York Times reports that New York landlords are increasingly refusing to rent to tenants who receive rent subsidy vouchers from the federal government. The landlords mostly say it’s because they’re tired of dealing with the program’s cumbersome bureaucracy, though some are reported to believe that the subsidized tenants “do not take care of […]

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It may well be the case that modern American teens “do not know how to form a sentence” and “cannot write an intelligible paragraph.” It is, however, ill-advised to broach this topic in your newspaper column if you, too, seem to have some serious difficulties on these fronts.

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For all the Tom Lerher fans out there, Kieran Healy of Crooked Timber has written a hilarious little ditty about Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, to the tune of Lehrer’s classic “National Brotherhood Week.”

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Surprise, surprise, David Horowtiz is pissing off the left again—this time with a Islamofascism Awareness Week, which will be observed by way of a series of talks, film screenings, and other events at college campuses. The backlash from groups like Campus Progress has mostly centered on objections to the term “Islamofascism,” which they argue tends […]

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I’m saddened to read that Lindsay Beyerstein’s father died yesterday, less than a month past his 60th birthday. I actually hadn’t realized they were related: I was only aware of Barry Beyerstein as the best sort of skeptic, casting a critical eye on the grand claims of alternative medicine without ever lapsing into dogmatism—open-minded, as […]

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The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education does yeoman’s work drawing public attention to suppression of academic freedom on campuses around the country, but there are (sadly) so many cases each year that it’s hard to keep them all in perspective sometimes. Most university administrations make the occasional misstep, but many—sometimes with a little prodding—ultimately […]

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Via my friend Chuck in comments below, I see a school choice blog linking to Clint Bolick’s WSJ op-ed last week on Dem candidates’ (ahem) ambivalence on the virtues of private schooling. Short version: All four Democratic presidential candidates oppose school choice, with Barack Obama having gone so far as to call vouchers a force […]

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Two articles this week cite the disappointment with Silicon Valley’s grandest grand pubas with the public school system’s “factory model” and the power of teachers’ unions. Futurist Alvin Toffler kicks off an “interview at Edutopia with a properly dramatic tone: You’ve been writing about our educational system for decades. What’s the most pressing need in […]

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This seems to be getting surprisingly little buzz, but Utah’s governor just signed into law what looks to be the broadest, most sweeping voucher program in the country. The vouchers are progressive—the less you make, the large the voucher your kids are entitled to—but the plan will ultimately absorb at least some of the cost […]

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