Education

Joseph Buffardi, of Cranston, believes that introducing the concept of merit to teachers’ career advancement is a utopian idea: In a perfect world, one could make a case for instituting merit pay for teachers. But this is not a perfect world. As a public-school faculty member for over 30 years, I will grant that not…

We have written of the educational travesty being committed against Bill Felkner by the Rhode Island College School of Social Work before. Now, similarly outraged, Brian Bishop of The Foundation for Intellectual Diversity at Brown University has produced a well-reasoned explanation as to why so many of us find the actions of those who run…

The problem of intellectual harassment in academia is so pervasive that, I am sorry to say, Where is the Moral Outrage? is now an ongoing series. This posting builds on previous postings here, here, and here. Marc has highlighted several other recent examples of a Brown University professor and Ward Churchill at the University of…

Brown University President Ruth Simmons spoke about intellectual diversity on campus at her Spring Semester Opening Address on Wednesday. After her speech. . .Simmons responded to students’ questions on. . . the impact of faculty sharing political opinions in class. . . Simmons began by telling the audience that one of the questions she receives…

A Letter to the Ed. in today’s ProJo calls to mind another example of polemics over scholarship. William Beeman is a Professor of Anthropology and Theatre, Speech and Dance as well as the Director of Middle East Studies at Brown and a long time critic of President Bush’s policies. He has been accused of having…

To dot an “i” and cross a “t”, the Lincol School System has reinstated the Spelling Bee that was once presumed to conflict with the No Child Left Behind Act. School officials, who said last week Lincoln wouldn’t participate in the state spelling bee this year, were eating their words yesterday. Lincoln’s four elementary schools…

Marc’s posting highlights another outstanding piece by Terry Moe. I would encourage you to read both Marc’s fine posting and the entire editorial by Moe, which you can access in Marc’s posting. As a former East Greenwich School Committee member, I would like to expand on several of Marc’s points: First, I agree that parents…

Terry Moe of the Hoover Institution and a Stanford University political-science professor (and winner of the Thomas B. Fordham prize for distinguished scholarship in education) has written an important piece explaining the motivation of Teachers’ Unions. The most important point is that the unions aren’t inherently “bad,” but that they are merely looking out for…

According to State Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, much of the debate on charter schools centers around the issues of power and control. Specifically, this battle revolves around which entity, public schools or charter schools, has more of a “right” to money from a finite pool of education dollars. As reported by the Providence Journal, charter…