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Blog 3 Columns

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Blog 3 Columns

Happy 150th Birthday, Laura Ingalls Wilder 0
- Culture
- February 7, 2017
Laura Ingalls was born on February 7, 1867, in a log cabin in Pepin, Wisconsin. The family’s trip from Pepin to their ultimate destination in DeSmet, South Dakota would take less than seven hours today; for Laura Ingalls and her family – Pa, Ma, Mary, Carrie, Baby Grace, and the faithful bulldog Jack – the
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Battling Porn With Virtue Education (and Common Sense)0
- Culture
- February 7, 2017
For more than four decades, my work as a developmental psychologist and educator has focused on helping schools and parents develop good character in youth. I direct a character education center at the State University of New York in Cortland, New York. Among many things, our Center’s work includes teaching young people how to respect
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America’s Public Schools Are No Longer Serving the Public 0
- Education
- February 7, 2017
Betsy DeVos, the new U.S. Education Secretary, is an advocate of school choice. As such, her confirmation hearings have generated warnings that Trump wants to “destroy” public education. The very adjective “public” is a marketing advantage for those who support the current government-run school system. For many Americans, it still connotes a non-elitist form of
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The Civics Lessons They Never Teach Anymore 0
- Culture
- February 6, 2017
Following Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court, my morning commute was wall-to-wall with it, including plenty of weasel words (e.g., Senator Schumer’s fixation on tarring him as “outside the mainstream”) and heat (e.g., Congresswoman Pelosi’s assertion it was “a very hostile appointment”). One talking head quipped that the acute divide was because Americans weren’t
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Should we Subsidize Universities that Restrict Free Speech?0
- Culture
- February 6, 2017
Trump has threatened to cut-off Federal aid to the University of California, Berkeley, after protests and property destruction on and around the campus blocked right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking. The University of California system “receives billions of dollars from the federal government to fund a variety of programs, notably research, student aid and healthcare programs.”
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Should Teachers Have a Working Knowledge of the Constitution?0
- Culture
- February 6, 2017
Given that only 1 in 4 American high school seniors are proficient in civics and 1 in 10 are proficient in U.S. history, one would think that schools would sense an urgency to beef up their offerings and emphasis in these areas. But while that may be the case in some states, it doesn’t seem
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Reagan Biographer: Trump is Last Hope of Reaganism 0
- History
- February 6, 2017
Republicans today idolize Ronald Reagan more than any historic figure with the possible exception of Jesus. He is the gold standard of GOP politics, quoted on the stump by would-be lawmakers at the local, state, and federal levels, wonks at policy centers, and Bible-toting evangelicals. In the Washington Post on Monday, on what would have
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Our So-Called ‘Tolerant’ Society Is Actually Very Dogmatic 0
- Culture
- February 6, 2017
The Book of Daniel tells us that the three Jewish youths in Babylon were cast into a “white-hot furnace” for not falling down and worshipping the king’s golden statue. Thousands of early Christians were reportedly martyred for refusing to deny Christ and affirm the divinity of the Roman emperor. Of course, this kind of thing
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Liberals Have Become the New Confederates 0
- History
- February 6, 2017
“The South will rise again.” How often did that rallying cry echo throughout a certain portion of the country following the Civil War? A lot. Actually, the South has risen in any number of very positive ways in the century and a half since that terrible, but terribly necessary, war. This is especially true in
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