Filter By:
Date
Topic
- Economic Policy (2) Apply Economic Policy filter
- Energy, Science & Technology (1) Apply Energy, Science & Technology filter
- Foreign Affairs & National Security (1) Apply Foreign Affairs & National Security filter
- History (1) Apply History filter
- Law (5) Apply Law filter
- US Politics (1) Apply US Politics filter
Search
James Ceaser is the Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, director of the Program for Constitutionalism and Democracy, and was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of several books on American politics and American political thought, including...
Paul Peterson on Education Next
Senior Fellow Paul Peterson interviews James Ryan on the the legacy of desegregation policy on American schools.
Racial Controversies Are As Misleading Today As They Were When The Moynihan Report Was Written
In its Spring issue, Education Next takes note of the 50th anniversary of a 1965 publication issued by the U. S. Department of Labor entitled “The Negro Family.”
Eric A. Hanushek And Paul E. Peterson On Changes In The Achievement Gap
In 1964, as part of the Civil Rights Act, Congress authorized a national study of equality of educational opportunity. The study was conducted under the leadership of James Coleman.
Discrimination and the Ivory Tower
The Supreme Court may finally get to clean up the mess that race-based admissions have created at our universities.
GoodFellows: One Nation Under A Groove
In the final episode of the series for 2020, Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, and John Cochrane reflect on lessons learned from the pandemic, Donald Trump’s future, the ruinous state of the Golden State, how society will differ in 2021, plus what gets them through their daily routines—a mixtape of UK punk, Philly-brand funk, and the soothing sounds of “Sweet Baby James” Taylor.
School for $6 a Month
When governments abroad fail to offer decent schools, entrepreneurs rush in. By Chester E. Finn Jr.
How Affirmative Action Falls Short
Only skills improvement—starting with better schools—can begin to close racial achievement gaps.
After Michigan
In June the Supreme Court issued a definitive—if narrow—ruling that permits the consideration of race in university admissions. This may have been bad law—but was it a bad decision? By Robert Zelnick.
The Gender Refs
Federal regulators lock arms with college athletic departments to gut men’s sports in the name of equality
Free At Last
Black Americans sign up for school choice
Income Integration at School
Affirmative Action in Higher Education: A Dilemma of Conflicting Principles
As a university president in the 1970s (San Jose State) and then as a researcher and writer, Bunzel's long involvement with affirmative action in higher education has led him to conclude that the troubling issues of race and equality cannot be reduced to the easy categories of "right" versus "wrong." He objects to such moral absolutism (also reflected in California's Proposition 209) because it denies legitimacy to the inevitable complexities and nuances inherent in what he regards as a many-sided problem. Affirmative action in college admissions, he argues, must ultimately be viewed in relation to other competing principles and in light of many practical problems.
In trying to balance different claims and interests within a "theory of limits," Bunzel believes a more useful way to think about affirmative action is in terms of a "social contribution theory of universities." Thus he asks (among other questions), "Is some degree of race consciousness never defensible?" He does not think there is only one morally correct answer. Acknowledging that race has too often been considered excessively and sub rosa, he rejects both of the ideologically pure extremes--namely, that anything that overcomes the disadvantages of race is acceptable and that taking race into account is never appropriate under any circumstances.
Bilingual Education: A Critique
Bilingual education has been a subject of national debate since the 1960s. This essay traces the evolution of that debate from its origin in the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Bilingual Education Act (1968), which decreed that a child should be instructed in his or her native tongue for a transitional year while she or he learned English but was to transfer to an all-English classroom as fast as possible. These prescriptions were ignored by bilingual enthusiasts; English was neglected, and Spanish language and cultural maintenance became the norm.
Bilingual education was said to be essential for the purposes of gaining a new sense of pride for the Hispanics and to resist Americanization. The Lau v. Nichols (1974) decision stands out as a landmark on the road to bilingual education for those unable to speak English: bilingual education moved away from a transitional year to a multiyear plan to teach children first in their home language, if it was not English, before teaching them in English. This facilitation theory imprisoned Spanish speakers in classrooms where essentially only Spanish was taught, and bilingual education became Spanish cultural maintenance with English limited to thirty minutes a day. The essay discusses the pros and cons of bilingual education.
Criticism of bilingual education has grown as parents and numerous objective analyses have shown it was ineffective, kept students too long in Spanish-only classes, and slowed the learning of English and assimilation into American society. High dropout rates for Latino students, low graduation rates from high schools and colleges have imprisoned Spanish speakers at the bottom of the economic and educational ladder in the United States.
This revolt, the defects of bilingual education, and the changes needed to restore English for the Children are covered in the essay. The implications of Proposition 227 abolishing bilingual education in California are also discussed.