Are colleges engines of upward mobility? The preeminent expert on upward mobility, economist Raj Chetty of Stanford University, has a new paper out that seeks to answer that question. Along with coauthors John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan, Chetty created a one-of-a-kind dataset to track college attendees’ ... Read More »
Among the myriad of objections leveled at Betsy DeVos, US president Donald Trump’s pick to lead American public education, the most stark is the fact that she’s never actually attended a public high school or university. Nor have her four children. The criticism becomes all the sharper when looking at ... Read More »
A mass movement is required to arrest the growing educational inequity and falling standards of education in India. Shaheen Mistri, CEO and founder-trustee, Teach For India, explains her vision for transforming the educational sector and helping the country achieve its true potential. On January 26, 1950, the Constitution of India ... Read More »
Ruby Rai made headlines last year when she termed political science as prodigal science, and claimed the subject involved cooking. Rai had topped the higher secondary examination in Bihar in 2016. Students like Rai are just the tip of what is probably a giant iceberg comprising poorly educated school students ... Read More »
Human intelligence quite obviously has some genetic component. Genes do constrain our fate, as does luck, even if development matters more. The way that our capacities develop is profoundly influenced by the environment and by the social situation in which a child grows up. Genetic influence is not genetic ... Read More »
In a powerful and passionate speech, a Detroit student expressed why she doesn’t think Betsy DeVos should be Secretary of Education. In a video the American Federation of Teachers posted on Facebook, Dannah Wilson (whose name was spelled incorrectly in the video and later corrected in the comments) explained that 119 parents, ... Read More »
As chancellor of the state Board of Regents, Betty Rosa is as well informed as anyone on issues affecting education in New York. But when it comes to the shape of national policy under President Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos, his nominee for secretary of education, she knows as little as anyone ... Read More »
Asked whether Christian schools should continue to rely on philanthropic dollars—rather than pushing for taxpayer money through vouchers—Betsy DeVos replied, “There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education … [versus] what is currently being spent every year on education in this ... Read More »
Democratic senators tried their best to rattle Betsy DeVos at her confirmation hearing to be Education Secretary on Tuesday, but she glided serenely through the process. “Nothing in life is truly free,” she sweetly said to Bernie Sanders (I-VT) when the former Democratic presidential candidate brought up his proposal to ... Read More »
WASHINGTON, D.C.—It was not a hearing. It was the mere burlesque of a hearing, rendered meaningless by a preposterously accelerated process that rendered all questioning perfunctory and that left all cheap evasions hanging in the air of the committee room the way cigarette smoke used to canopy the proceedings back ... Read More »
Democrats sliced holes in billionaire Betsy DeVos’ credentials to be the next U.S. Education Secretary at a confirmation hearing on Tuesday, raising doubts whether President-elect Donald Trump’s pick will win approval in the full Senate. The nomination of DeVos to head an agency that sets policy for younger children and ... Read More »
Senate Democrats hit Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, on all sides at her confirmation hearing Tuesday night. But the question that made her look worst required her to demonstrate a basic understanding of education policy — a test DeVos failed. Sen. Al Franken asked DeVos to explain ... Read More »
