Where’s the Laid-Back Fun in Kids’ Summer Vacations?

Pricey Camps and Erratic School Calendars Are Spoiling Our Seasonal Break

My grade school summer vacations seemed to last forever, pairing well with the Beach Boys’ Endless Summer double album I wore out on the record changer.

During those hot and humid Northern Virginia summers, I headed each weekday to the summer camp held in my elementary school’s nearly-abandoned cafeteria. It was a low-key affair—ping pong and table hockey on the cafeteria lunch tables, kickball and football on the playground, key chains and macramé in arts and crafts—while mix tapes with Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” in heavy rotation played over the school’s …

By David Gershwin | April 5, 2017

PTAs Are the Opposite of Community

How the Former Champions for All Kids Devolved Into Self-Serving Fundraising Machines

By Joanna Weiss | December 15, 2016

Here’s a quick quiz for anyone who has ever had kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews in school: Can you name all of the fundraising items you’ve purchased from …

A Hungry Child Cannot Learn

Buying Shoes, Growing Lettuce, and Treating Tooth Decay at a San Bernardino Elementary School

By Larry Elwell | October 19, 2016

Eric had multiple cavities and several abscesses. His younger sister Madeline was not in much better shape.

“He has something wrong with each tooth,” the dental student said in amazement. “He …

California’s New Education Architecture Is Already Failing

The New System Is So Incoherent That We May Not Know If It's Helping Poor Students

By Joe Mathews | October 6, 2016

Is California abandoning its poorest students?

That question would be dismissed as absurd by our state’s education leaders, especially Gov. Jerry Brown and the State Board of Education. For years, they …

California’s Bad Bet on School Finance Leaves Too Much to Chance

It’s the Already-Fortunate Who Are Most Likely to Luck Out in the State’s Public Education System

By Joe Mathews | September 15, 2016

Californians may think we have a system of public education. But what we really have is a state system for rationing public education.

I got a personal taste of this …

In the Segregated 20th Century, Schoolchildren Embodied Black Uplift

How a Leading Portraitist Captured Their Refinement and Restlessness

By Sara Catania | September 1, 2016

For much of the 20th century, the Scurlock family of portrait photographers—first Addison Scurlock and his wife Mamie and then their sons Robert and George—were the premiere chroniclers of the …

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