The National Commission on Excellence in Education’s release of a report titled “A Nation at Risk” in 1983 was a pivotal point in the history of American education. The report used dire language, lamenting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very...

In a small conference room off the main office of a large high school near Tulsa, Oklahoma, eight students gathered with a language arts teacher and a youth development specialist to identify a problem that they could tackle in their school. Students immediately talked about the mental health crisis among their peers. “When hard things...

The education culture wars on issues like critical race theory and how to teach history create a false narrative and collective illusion on K-12 issues among Americans. The stubborn fact is that voters’ opinions and governors’ statements show broad agreement on a collection of practical education issues that offers a common-sense K-12 governing agenda, according...

The latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are devastating: Nearly 60% of teenage girls report feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness. Thirty percent said they seriously considered suicide. Among LGBQ+ youth, that number rises to almost 50%. A critical aspect of addressing this youth mental health crisis is ensuring that young...

For the last six years, I have drawn up a parallel bracket that plots the winners and losers in the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament — aka March Madness — not by how the schools have done on the court, but by how well they have made upward mobility possible for their students. Now, for the first...

The vast majority of Los Angeles Unified School District employees will not be at work for most of this week, leading to the closure of schools. SEIU Local 99, which represents 30,000 support workers, called a strike because of what it calls unfair labor practices by the district. United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents 32,000...

No worker in America should succumb to poverty-wages, be denied health care, or experience homelessness. And no child should be the victim of labor disputes. But that is exactly what is happening in Los Angeles – and the temptation is to pick sides as we see the tensions play out between SEIU and LAUSD. But...

Once again, March Madness has taken hold of much of the nation as this month’s NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament gets off the ground. As we have done over the past six years, we take this opportunity, when the nation is focused on figuring out which colleges produce the best basketball teams, to examine...

Americans are skeptical of science. Public ambivalence has shown itself clearly in concerns over the safety and necessity of vaccines and in the dismissal of public health guidance designed to curtail the spread of COVID-19. None of this is surprising, given the anemic state of science education in the U.S. Far too many young people...

The nation’s schools are facing a crisis. The pandemic slowed student learning, and schools and families are eager to see academic improvement as quickly as possible. Access to trained school counselors can help students succeed in their classes, but there are too few counselors supporting too many kids with too varied challenges. This problem predates...