A resume is a fine way to document professional accomplishments, from academic degrees to job titles. A resume falls short, though, when it comes to issues of challenge, perseverance and accountability, the curve balls that life can throw at us. A resume can summarize a career, but it cannot tell much about a person’s character.…
Author: David Potash
Casualties From A Forgotten War
In Jack London’s dystopian 1908 science fiction novel, The Iron Heel, the threat of socialists gaining power stirs oligarchs to mobilize the power of the state to crush opposition. They use propaganda and force, along the ways making sure to differential the “good” unions from those that might cause problems for those in power. The…
American Higher Education – A History of Racial Inequity
Public higher education in the United States has a long and problematic legacy when it comes to issues of racial equity. In fact, the history is profoundly inequitable. The State Must Provide: The Definitive History of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education is an accessible, non-academic treatment of the topic with a focus on Black…
The Upper Middle Class Striving Squeeze
Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It is a thoughtful critique of an American upper middle class problem. We think that we live in a meritocracy, we hope that we know the rules, and we have faith that ticking the right boxes for our children will lead…
Authenticity in Education: Modeling Good Men
Widely considered one of the best preparatory private schools in the United States, Deerfield Academy is located in a scenic small town in central Massachusetts. Slated tuition and fees are nearly $75,000 a year for boarding students. The school’s endowment, almost $1 billion, helps students with financial aid. Admissions is difficult and exclusive. Many think…
Education Scholar on Higher Education
David Labaree is an emeritus professor of education at Stanford University. A prolific and influential scholar with a host of honors and accolades befitting a lengthy and influential career, Labaree remains active – with or without any teaching responsibilities. He has begun writing for the popular press (think The Atlantic) and recently made a collection…
Class For Whom?
Several years ago Stephanie Land published a fascinating memoir of her work as a house cleaner, struggling to be a college student, mother and writer. Maid was very well-received for good reason: it tells a compelling story of a smart woman struggling with poverty. Land writes well and her observations, coming from a place that…