Tag: Education

Teachers of Color: When More Is Never Enough
As nice as it sounds to spend millions of dollars to recruit more teachers of color, some pesky demographics and arithmetic get in the way. My latest in the Duluth News Tribune. P. A. Jensen (@RuralityChecker) lives in
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Losing the Race in College Sports (Part 1 of 3): The Myth of Overrepresentation
Discussions of race in college sports often rely on faulty statistics. One recent, high-profile example comes from The Atlantic, where sports columnist Jemele Hill offered an intriguing thought experiment involving black student-athletes and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Unfortunately,
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Losing the Race in College Sports (Part 2 of 3): Race Is Just Part of the Story
The first installment in this series examined whether black, male student-athletes, and black students generally, are fairly represented on campuses of universities that participate in major-conference athletics. This part of the series focuses on their performances in the classroom compared
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Losing the Race in College Sports (Part 3 of 3): Big-Money Sports vs. the Classroom
The first installment in this series examined whether black, male student-athletes, and black students generally, are fairly represented on campuses of universities that participate in major-conference athletics. The second installment analyzed the effects of race on classroom performance, both among
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Schools? Blame the Parents.
We needn’t harken to the days of Laura Ingalls to remember when going to school was a privilege. Much more recently, children still walked to school, in the winter, trudging through the elements with slates and books and literal lunch
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College Students Are Adults, Right? [Kernel]
This is a new, shorter format: the Kernel (hence the picture). Feedback is welcome, especially on our editor’s Twitter account (@RuralityChecker). As always, thanks for reading. A local car salesman recently offered up this tidbit in casual conversation: “High school
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Mind the Gap: Four Solutions to the Education Achievement Gap
C. N. Hughes, Ed.D. Director State Agency on Trends In Race and Education State of Minnesota St. Paul, MN 55155 Dear Dr. Hughes, This letter summarizes the findings of our grant (“Closing Minnesota’s Race-Based Educational Achievement Gap at All Costs,”
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Oh, the Humanities: The STEM of the Problem
A recent bit in the Chronicle of Higher Education highlights one “tortured” fellow’s failure to get any job security in higher education. (Yes, “tortured” is the Chronicle’s word, not mine.) As discussed in a previous article (“Adjuncts Go Marching”), this
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A Professor’s Letter to Small-Town Graduates
Going to college can be the single most expensive decision of your life, but it won’t be the most important. You might want to reconsider why you’re going to college. Next, reconsider where you’re going afterward. And why you’re going
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Good Discrimination: Why Feminists Should Oppose Gender Identity in Athletics
She went skittering across the floor. Or, maybe I’m over-remembering a traumatic event. But she did slam into the decades-old, brightly colored vinyl pad against the brick wall, and hard. And the coach did call off practice. Immediately. I was
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Adjuncts Go Marching
In theory, higher education is in crisis. In practice, don’t be alarmed. Higher education may indeed be in crisis, and for a variety of reasons, but one reason that gets a lot of attention is the hiring of faculty. Specifically,
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