Usually not a huge fan of the books that explain the fall of Western Civilization but I did like this argument, as put forth by Susan Jacoby (or at least by the reviewer):

anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Usually pundits/scholars base the latter portion of the argument on the rise of relativism. I like this characterization better. Oftentimes, high school teachers fight a losing battle in trying to get students to appreciate multiple points of view without allowing the “everybody has their own perspective so nobody is really right or wrong” stance.

When I first moved to Philadelphia, I worked for an organization that often helped out at City Hall. A rickety elevator carried you to up to an observation deck that was open in all weather. The ride was free and the view was cool.

Now, after extensive renovations, the city has elected to charge adults five dollars for this experience. Do we have so many tourists stopping at City Hall that we can afford to discourage them from coming?

Weird article here, where Ms. Snyder seems to be offering the “turnaround” story while simultaneously describing a baseline of trouble that hasn’t really changed.

I guess what bothered me is that a few students doing a few interesting assignments — something that has always been going on at West an every other comprehensive high school — is somehow evidence of a turnaround. Each of these schools has a staff where somewhere between twenty and forty percent of the faculty is doing a good job. Some of them collect media backers who return to their rooms every year or so for a piece; others toil on with minimal recognition.

“Today was a special day. I broke my nose, I have stitches, I score four goals.”

Hockey player Alex Ovechkin

Cool RFA report here.

Only critique — and it’s minor ’cause these folks are heroes to me — is there appears to be a false dichotomy within the report between “neighborhoods” and “middle-class families”, one that elides the presence of Northeast Philadelphia.

These generally conservative neighborhoods are not particularly concerned about schools in North Philadelphia or whether young urban professionals move to the suburbs.

They have the newest schools in the city.

They have politicians like John Perzel who adeptly defend their interests.

North of Cottman lies nearly thirteen percent of the city’s population; North of the Pennypack nine percent of the city lives. Not a huge proportion, but enough to influence the educational landscape.

Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, Please Read the Letter, Violin solo btwn 3:01 and 3:06.

Bruce Springsteen, Girls in their Summer Clothes, beginning of third verse, right at 2:31, when the Phil Spector back-up singin’ wall of sound kicks in…I love two verses of precise details about what it means to be young and living near the beach followed by the real reason why that spinning wheel seems so clear — the heartbreak of departure laid out right at…2:31.

I don’t know much about the three candidates.

I’m struck, though, by what they chose to highlight during their initial public interviews. (Caveat: this may just be what the reporter elected to stress in her piece).

Professor Ackerman: she “supported paying teachers at different rates based on performance and other factors.”

Professor McGuire: “praised the Philadelphia district’s standardized curriculum,” but “said it hadn’t been implemented as well as it should have been.”

Mr. Nunery II “emphasized his background in business.”

Sigh. Hold that ball still, Lucy, I’ll run up and kick it.

Wonderful New Yorker article.

Favorite passage:

At some point, as a child progresses from decoding to fluent reading, the route of signals through her brain shifts. Instead of passing along a “dorsal route” through occipital, temporal, and parietal regions in both hemispheres, reading starts to move along a faster and more efficient “ventral route,” which is confined to the left hemisphere. With the gain in time and the freed-up brainpower, Wolf suggests, a fluent reader is able to integrate more of her own thoughts and feelings into her experience. “The secret at the heart of reading,” Wolf writes, is “the time it frees for the brain to have thoughts deeper than those that came before.” Imaging studies suggest that in many cases of dyslexia the right hemisphere never disengages, and reading remains effortful.

In a recent book claiming that television and video games were “making our minds sharper,” the journalist Steven Johnson argued that since we value reading for “exercising the mind,” we should value electronic media for offering a superior “cognitive workout.” But, if Wolf’s evidence is right, Johnson’s metaphor of exercise is misguided. When reading goes well, Wolf suggests, it feels effortless, like drifting down a river rather than rowing up it. It makes you smarter because it leaves more of your brain alone. Ruskin once compared reading to a conversation with the wise and noble, and Proust corrected him. It’s much better than that, Proust wrote. To read is “to receive a communication with another way of thinking, all the while remaining alone, that is, while continuing to enjoy the intellectual power that one has in solitude and that conversation dissipates immediately.”

This story details the way that CBT/McGraw-Hill uses children to field test their exams.

Aren’t enough days given to testing already? Should children be used as lab rats for a for-profit institution?

I shall not stress the contrast in buildings or the physical facilities, though they are startling enough. For, to be frank, I am not at all convinced that in terms of education the dazzling attractiveness of the spacious buildings of some suburban school I know are as much of an asset as they seem, though I hasten to add that many large city schools should be torn down and replaced by modern structures. The real contrast is evident only to a visitor who will take the time to visit classes, talk to the principals and teachers in both schools, examine the relevant statistics, and ascertain the completely different educational aspirations of the families.

James B. Conant, Slums and Suburbs (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 80.