Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
As cultural issues and free-speech battles dominate headlines, another fundamental problem infects America’s schools: the watering down of academic standards. During the pandemic, grade inflation ballooned in both K–12 and higher education. Even after students returned to in-person learning, lenient grading persisted. Recently, the New York Times reported that 79 percent of grades given at … Read more
Back in the 1980s, when Mary Pat Donoghue completed her bachelor’s degree in elementary education, “Units of Study for Teaching Reading” was a popular new program that celebrated children as natural learners and downplayed the need for strong phonics instruction in K-2 classrooms. Today, Units of Study is reportedly used in about one-quarter of U.S. … Read more
John Karr isn’t a priest. He’s a teacher. Most teachers are dedicated, hard-working people who wouldn’t dream of hurting a child. The same is true of priests. If the suspect in the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey were a priest, there would be a fresh outcry about a decades-long cover-up in the Catholic Church. Commentators … Read more