The squeeze continues. Since the financial crisis hit, spending cuts have forced officials and planners at all levels of government to trim their budgets, often carving off whole swathes of worthless lean meat in order to conserve and protect that vital bureaucratic fat. One of the latest casualties in Texas may be school field trips, […]

The revolution in American education is moving much faster than most of us understand. Now the Chronicle of Higher Education is singing the praises of a new trend toward achievement “badges” modeled on those earned by Boy Scouts as an alternative to the expensive and cumbersome degree system that could provide education credentials to make […]

The erosion of civil liberties in Turkey continues. Via Meadia recently pointed to the government’s increasingly heavy-handed prosecution and imprisonment of members of the press. A recent Financial Times (registration required) piece brings word that the country’s prosecutors have begun going after the chief opposition leader on very shaky grounds: The move came in response […]

“Head Start” has been the poster child of federal aid to education ever since the Lyndon Johnson administration introduced it as part of the Great Society. And for decades liberals have pointed to it as one of the great advances that the federal government has brought to education, and as evidence that creative social engineering […]

Last week Via Meadia reported on the possibility of enlisting key Asian states to bolster the Iranian oil embargo effort. China chickened out, while Japan announced it is committed to taking “concrete action as soon as possible to further reduce” its imports of Iranian oil. This may take some time, Japan’s spokesman conceded; as Treasury Secretary […]

This is a continuation of the extract of the talk I gave at the University of Geneva in Nov. 2011 on “European Identities.” This part deals with the failure to create an identity at a European level:Let me turn to nation building at the EU level. When we pass from the level of these individual […]

From California, yet another case of fraud in the education system: As the L.A. Times reports, a Beverly Hills superintendent gave his assistant “a $20,000 stipend” and an enhanced car allowance without even so much as asking the school board. And his malfeasance won’t affect his pension benefits, which will kick in when he turns […]

Pakistan’s Supreme Court is conducting an investigation into the memogate scandal that erupted months ago and has since created serious tension between Pakistan’s civil and military leadership. Earlier today, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani fired his defense secretary, Naeem Khalid Lodhi, a retired general. What’s more,  reports the WSJ, Mr. Gilani upped his attack on […]

Think online education is limited to the traditional trio—reading, writing and ‘rithmetic? Not anymore. The New York Times reports that music teachers are also taking to the internet to peddle their expertise via Skype: Students who used to limit the pool of potential teachers to those within a 20-mile radius from their homes now take […]

Where better to set up solar panels than California’s Death Valley? The sun’s always shining and from May to September the temperature doesn’t stray much below a whopping 100 degrees Fahrenheit.Yet even in Death Valley government-funded solar projects are floundering.  The L.A. Times has the story: A new $800,000 solar project at Death Valley National […]