I don’t often disagree with George Will, but I must take issue with parts of his recent essay (“Unlike China, U. S. has a future rooted in the past”) that closes with the following: “While China increasingly invests in its future, America increasingly invests in its past, the elderly…………America’s destiny is demographic, and therefore is […]

I hope at least my Texas readers will be interested in an update on the efforts by many of us to advance standards and accountability based reforms in Texas K-12 education.  We made good progress on our objectives during the 82nd Texas Legislature this spring and are hard at work in assisting with the implementation […]

The Texas Legislature is now in full swing and, of course, the Texas Institute for Education Reform (TIER) is at every table on every significant public education issue at stake, hopefully providing meaningful policy advocacy leadership.  We have a comprehensive agenda for the session, but I am often asked–if I could get only one major thing […]

It comes as a surprise to many that there is currently much more substantive policy work underway in Texas than during the legislative session.  In fact, someone sent me a list that indicated a total of over 20 appointed or elected boards, commissions, and committees, not including the interim legislative committe work, have been authorized by […]

During the past couple of weeks, there have been a number of articles and features marking the 25th anniversary of “A Nation at Risk”, the groundbreaking 1983 report on the dismal status of American public education, wherein the most famous line was the one that served as the national wake-up call:  “If an unfriendly power had attempted to […]

Having just completed a brutal round of jousting in the interest of public education reform during the Texas legislative session, I have a renewed appreciation for the obstacles we face in achieving meaningful systemic change in our education delivery system. I am reminded of a recent quote from Rice University President David Leebron, which he […]

As heavily involved as I am in education reform, and as committed as Texas has been to top-down standards and accountability based reform of education, I was struck (but not surprised) by this passage in Forbes magazine from Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute, with whom I have spent some time discussing education strategies: “…there […]

Recently I commented on one of my favorite thinkers, Peter Drucker, who died late last year. More recently, I read a review essay by Adrian Wooldridge on Drucker’s thought as described in a new book on his life and was struck by the following fact: 7 of the 10 companies that have seen the biggest […]

It has been almost a year since we announced the founding of the Texas Institute for Education Reform, and I thought you might have interest in a progress report. In December, we completed our statewide road show, which consisted of presentations and other speaking engagements to opinion and community leaders in 22 cities, along with […]

In my current speaking travels on education reform around the state, I am often asked about the purpose of the phrase in our organization’s mission statement that, in addition to college and workplace readiness, our high schools should produce graduates fully prepared for “responsible citizenship”. In a recent research report commissioned by the Intercollegiate Studies […]