Bullying has been in the news a lot lately, unfortunately due to a teen’s suicide in a small Massachusetts town and the ensuing prosecution of some of the kids who were involved for statutory rape and civil rights violations.
That particular case is a tragedy all the way around. The behavior of the kids involved [...]

Okay, we talked before about the Texas curriculum fiasco. To reiterate my basic belief, and my primary problem with what those people are doing: curriculum ought to be set by teachers based on the needs and interests of their students, not on the political whims of elected officials.
But after reading some of the specific [...]

I apologize for my extended absence. I could tell you a story about taking care of a two-year old, getting the flu, and then working on a book (all of which are true), but the greater reality is that I simply allowed myself to get out of the habit of posting here. But [...]

Charter schools have become extremely popular over the last decade, to the point that they are one of the few areas in education where politicians of virtually all types seem to agree. After all, a charter school sounds like a great idea. Scratch that, charter schools are wonderful ideas. The idea is [...]

Check out this article written by Judith Warner, who writes for the New York Times mostly on family and gender issues. I found it to be an extremely thought provoking piece on the lack of compassion that many upper-middle class suburbanites feel towards the truly needy. In particular, I found the following passage [...]

It’s always dangerous to tell a chatty cab driver that you study Political Science. I learned that one the hard way when I was an undergraduate. The driver in question proceeded to spend most of my thirty minute ride from the airport explaining to me how the country has gotten away from the [...]

It’s a headline designed to scare: Study Finds 1 in 4 US Teens Has A STD. And it’s true, at least according to a recent federal study, which included a survey about adolescent women’s sexual practices and clinical testing. The article then goes on to describe “shocked” health experts, advocates stressing that more [...]

Lately I’ve been comparing the different primary debates. I was originally prompted by criticism about the CNN/YouTube GOP debate last week, in which CNN took heavy criticism for having biased questions and biased questioners. (In case you are curious, yes some of the questioners themselves had loose connections to Democratic campaigns, but the [...]

The last few days I’ve been reading Come On People, by Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint.  The book, and the extensive book tour that they’ve been doing to support it over the last week, is a call to action for black community leaders, teachers, and parents, among others.  I’m only about half-way through it, [...]

Mitt Romney is an idiot.
In 2004 Barack Obama supported a bill in Illinois that allowed for the teaching of age appropriate sex education to elementary school students as young as Kindergarten. The bill specified such topics as knowing about the body, understanding basics about sexual harassment and abuse (as in, it’s not ok to [...]