By Benjamin Breen. Does hindsight matter in history? From one perspective, the answer must always be a resounding "yes." We pay more attention to the education of a schoolboy in Switzerland named Albert, even before he himself had performed any calculations of note, than to that of his peers. Without this awareness of future significance, the actual labor of doing history would be frustratingly haphazard: endless errands into the wilderness of the past, searching for meaning amid the flotsam of forgotten lives. More...

By Stephanie Bower. Every spring the guests enter our classroom looking a little ill at ease, aliens in the world of whiteboards and podiums. Coaxed to sit in the front of the class and to turn their chairs to face our students, they find their voices as, one by one, they begin to tell versions of crime and punishment, stories of the decades they spent behind bars and the months, weeks, sometimes even just days since their release. More...

By S. Alan Ray. Larycia A. Hawkins, a tenured professor of political science at Wheaton College of Illinois, was recently placed on administrative leave following statements she made about Muslim and Christian relations. More...

By Kevin Carey. This month Florida Atlantic University fired a tenured professor of communications named James F. Tracy, citing his failure to file routine paperwork. This fact is both technically true and essentially false. Tracy was actually fired for bringing shame and embarrassment upon his university by publicly and vocally insisting that the massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 did not occur. More...

By Rebecca Zwick. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court considered "Fisher II" — the court’s second hearing of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Abigail Noel Fisher, a white applicant who was denied admission to UT-Austin, sued the university in 2008, arguing that its admissions policy was discriminatory because it allowed consideration of race. In 2014 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the university’s policies for a second time, leading Fisher to petition the high court once again. More...

By Charles Clavey. Theodor Adorno, Hans Morgenthau, Billy Wilder, and Arnold Schoenberg were among the hundreds of intellectuals and artists who escaped the horrors of Hitler’s Reich by fleeing to America. Many of these refugees ultimately returned to Europe. But others remained in the United States, adapting to and, in some cases, adopting America. More...

By Michael Hansen. In early January 2016, Dr. John B. King Jr. stepped into the role of acting secretary of Education, following Arne Duncan's resignation last month. More...

By Susanna Loeb. When we think of elementary and secondary schools, many of us picture students in classrooms taught by lone teachers, overseen by a principal. In reality, many adults work in schools other than teachers and principals. It may be surprising to learn that there are as many non-teaching adults as there are teachers in U.S. public schools. More...