End of Year Edition Catch-Up: First Edition

Stuff that the daily workload has kept me from commenting on lately ...

» Jay Aiyer on Education:

I am an unabashed advocate of smaller schools. I believe it is the best way to deliver education. The modern school needs to be smaller and more intimate to provide the kind of attention students, particularly younger ones need. That needs to be done two ways, small communities within existing schools, and the establishment of a maximum size for schools at each level: 500 elementary, 1000 middle school, 2000 High school, and align feeder patterns accordingly.

I tend to agree with the concept that smaller schools > bigger schools. My own basis for that conclusion is that I'd much prefer to see schools given the freedom to be "laboratories of success." That, to me, means schools should have more freedom to try ideas that may work only at that one school.

In attempting my grand writing project earlier, there was one constant I've kept when it comes to education: Do what works, and if something doesn't work ... try something different. Even if it means going against the current political orthodoxies in place. The rationale for that is another guiding principle that I've held firm on. That there's not much room for patience in telling a 12-year old that if you give them 5 years, they'll make the school better. As in, after they should be graduating or matriculating to another school.

Jay touches on a number of reforms that I share an appreciation of. I'd love to see them incorporated more broadly. But I'm not married to a particular approach so much as I am in wanting to see public education succeed regardless of the approach. The saying that there's nothing new in Economics also applies in education. At the end of the day, we're all pushing for an idea that some centuries-old reformer was advocating ages ago.

» Another thing that work kept me from: UH hammering Kentucky. Didn't even get to see the dang thing on TV. This wasn't one of those Kentucky powerhouse teams (wait and see how they finish in conference play, though). But it puts a more solid win in our column otherwise filled with creampuffs. Maybe we'll at least get some votes for ranking this time around.

» Another early preview of the NYT Mag main article. This time around, it's a Matt Bai piece on Hillary, centering (pardon the pun) on the Bill Clinton/DLC legacy. There are times I think Bai tries to ram through a lot of complex ideas in a short newspaper piece. But this time, he's got the column inches to cover some detail. The jist is that there exist a cadre of Dems who utterly despise the entire Bill Clinton legacy. Yeah, it's 2003 all over again. Good read, so make some time to mull on it a bit. EJ Dionne and Richard Cohen have a few more tangential thoughts on the current Clinton campaign. With a little luck, I'm hoping to focus - and blog - on this a bit over the weekend.

» What better place for a Muslim punk band to take root in, than San Antonio? Texas Observer covers the details. I've got some web-sleuthing to do.