Resilience in the Face of Climate Change and Epidemic: Ancient Rome and...
Tell me if you think this sounds familiar: in its latter years (500-700 ace), the roman empire faced a formidable challenge from two devastating environmental forces — dramatic climate change and...
View ArticleDoctoral Dysfunction
This piece was published in Inside Higher Ed in June, 2020. Here’s a link to the original. It speaks for itself. The argument here seems particularly pertinent in light of the current conflicts on...
View ArticleFrank Bruni — The Best Sentences of 2023
This post is a Frank Bruni column from the Times — a tribute to the best sentences in the press in 2023. Let us all aspire to be on the list next year. It reminds me of a quote I like that comes from...
View ArticleHow Not to Defend the Research University
This post is a piece I published in 2020 in the Chronicle Review. Here’s a link to the original. It’s about an issue that has been gnawing at me for years. How can you justify the existence of...
View ArticleThe Burden of Needless Bureaucracy
This post is a recent column by David Brooks of the New York Times about the price we pay in service to senseless bureaucracy. Here’s a link to the original. Bureaucracy is not necessarily a problem....
View ArticlePublic Schools for Private Gain
This post is a piece I published in Kappan in November, 2018. It’s about the declining American commitment to schooling for the public good. Here’s a link to the original. PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR PRIVATE...
View ArticleMichael Lewis: Don’t Eat Fortune’s Cookie
In the last few years, I’ve been reading and writing about the American meritocracy, and I’m going to be posting some of these pieces here from time to time. But today I want to post a wonderful...
View ArticleLuck and Pluck — Alternative Stories of Life in the Meritocracy
This post is a piece I published five years ago in Aeon. Here’s the link to the original. I wrote this after years of futile efforts to get Stanford students to think critically about how they got to...
View ArticleThe High Cost of Playing the Status Game in Elite Higher Education
This post is an essay by Scott Carlson about the high cost of staying competitive at the top of the higher education pyramid, which recently appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here’s a link...
View ArticleThe Chronic Failure of Curriculum Reform
This post is about an issue I’ve wrestled with for years, namely why reforming schools in the U.S. is so difficult. I eventually wrote a book on the subject, Someone Has to Fail: The Zero-Sum Game of...
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