The 19th century (Age of Enlightenment/Romanticism) and the early 20th century (Progressive Era) saw the ascendancy of the academy, colleges, universities, higher education. With the academy came its attendant associations where the intellectual class, especially since the 1950s and 1960s, increasingly sought to cement its newly exalted position as the controller of society and dictator of culture.

JONATHAN Kozol has a new book out, which means that he hasn’t been eating lately. Let me explain: According to his publisher, every Kozol book is a “courageous expose” of racism in America’s inner-city public schools, and the PR campaign always paints the author suffering physically alongside the families and children he writes about. But he knows his audience - the media, and the education academies, continue to eat it up.

At the end of September the school district in Oak Lawn, Illinois announced it was considering eliminating holiday celebrations like Christmas in its schools. Oak Lawn has seen increasing numbers of residents that identify with the Muslim faith who are naturally sending their children to the public schools there and school board members are afraid that Christian holidays are “offensive” to Muslim students.

Schools have become Progressive/Socialist training camps!

College attendance is a myth created by Progressives, Colleges and Universities.  Most BA degrees have no practical application to the real world and the graduate is saddled with great debt while facing few prospects for gainful employment.

What has Campus Watch, a project to critique and improve Middle East studies in the United States and Canada, achieved since it opened its doors this week in 2002?

A growing number of Americans believe that the US government school system has declared war on white, male students. In fact, many believe that young boys are treated more harshly than teachers who sexually exploit children.

This complaint is mostly based on the fact that the Progressive idiots running the edukshun machine are just blood sucking bureaucrats.

A Northern California junior high school history teacher is telling angry parents the letter to President Bush he sent home with their children for them to sign may have said they wanted to renounce their U.S. citizenship, but he never was going to mail them and he only meant for them “to start a discussion.”

A school that had ordered students not to wear representations of the U.S. flag on their clothing has rescinded the ban, after word of the order that prevented a student from recognizing the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks became public.

A coalition of parents and concerned citizens has filed a motion in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Md., seeking an order halting a public school sex curriculum seen as “gay” indoctrination, because it provides “scientifically flawed and politically biased” information.

Nestled in a redwood glade on cliffs above the Pacific Ocean, the University of California at Santa Cruz is one of the most picturesque campuses in America. Its 15,000 students attend classes in 62 majors at 10 colleges, in an environment that would seem an ideal locale for the contemplative life. In the hard sciences, it can be said that Santa Cruz handsomely fulfills its academic expectations.

New York City’s Arabic-language public school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, opens its doors this week, with special security, for 11- and 12-year-old students. One hopes that the prolonged public debate over the school’s Islamist proclivities will prompt it not to promote any political or religious agendas.

Passed by Congress in late 2001 and signed by President George W. Bush one year after his inauguration, NCLB is the most ambitious federal education statute ever. It overhauled and expanded Washington’s role in education; rewrote the rules; and set out to boost pupil achievement, narrow a host of “learning gaps,” and assure every student a “highly qualified teacher.” Its hallmark is an historic attempt to impose a results-based accountability regime on schools nationwide.

In 2003, the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) ranked the United States 18 out of 24 competing developed countries in educational effectiveness. In the face of such negative results, one would—mistakenly—expect to hear American teachers passionately call for systematic reform of our public schools. After all, education is about the students, right? Apparently not. Four years later, the National Education Association, the professional educator’s largest lobby in Congress, seemed more intent on pursuing partisan agendas en masse at the expense of student performance. The 2007 NEA Convention, held June 30 through July 5 in Philadelphia, PA, highlighted many social and political considerations ranging from gay rights to global warming to amnesty, but opposed school choice or tax credits for home-schooling parents.