The Public Interest articles from June 1995

The Public Interest archives from June 1995

Why Johnny can't write. (teaching grammar and logic to college students)
June 22, 1995... American employers regard the nation's educational system as an irrelevance, according to a Census Bureau survey released in February of this year. Businesses ignore a prospective employee's educational credentials in favor of his work history...

Levin, Jeffries, and the fate of academic autonomy. (College professors Michael Levin and Leonard Jeffries)
June 22, 1995... Professors Michael Levin and Leonard Jeffries of the City College of New York have both been in the news - Professor Jeffries is still in the news - for things they have written and said, and for which, they have charged, they have been punished...

Towards excellence in education.
June 22, 1995... The battle lines over education reform have been drawn. Republican presidential candidates urge that the 15-year-old Department of Education be scrapped, and several members of Congress have already introduced "abolition" bills. A huge ruckus has...

The courts vs. educational standards.
June 22, 1995... Few aspects of the current school-reform effort rival the prominence accorded to educational standards. The federal government's most comprehensive and far-reaching reform project, Goals 2000, underscores educational standards' key role in a...

Intelligence and the social scientist.
June 22, 1995... Once upon a time, before science and society got into bed together, serious attention was given to the question of dangerous knowledge. First it was an issue between philosophy and the city (e.g., Athens against Socrates), later between science...

Religion's challenge to psychology.
June 22, 1995... America's therapy industry - by which I mean not only the licensed counselors in all mental-health specialties but also the psychiatric hospitals where many work and the graduate schools that train them - is currently in the throes of what is...

The decline of the American Mafia.
June 22, 1995... The American Mafia emerged during Prohibition as the wealthier and more violent successor to local city gangs involved in prostitution and gambling. It is thus a contemporary of the Soviet Union, another long-standing problem for the United...

Overcoming Law.
June 22, 1995... In the post-Bork era, when a Supreme Court nominee's strength is often measured by the dearth of a "paper trail" - at least regarding sensitive subjects like abortion, homosexuality, racial quotas, and pornography - one might expect the Chief...

Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics.
June 22, 1995... You're black, you're middle class, and you live in an upscale neighborhood. Can the GOP hope to get your vote? And if not today, then perhaps tomorrow? That, in a nutshell, is the important question Michael C. Dawson addresses in Behind the Mule:...

Greater Expectations.
June 22, 1995... I recently learned that the principal of my children's elementary school in McLean, Virginia, is reading William Damon's Greater Expectations.[dagger] This is good news. Damon is an advocate of high academic standards for young people. A champion...

Labyrinths of Prosperity.
June 22, 1995... The ongoing debate among political economists in the industrialized West over the impact of fiscal and monetary policy on economic growth has been joined by Eastern Europeans who are struggling to set the future direction of their nations'...

Generation at the Crossroads: Apathy and Action on the American Campus.
June 22, 1995... "In America," remarked Oscar Wilde, "the young are always ready to give those who are older than themselves the full benefit of their inexperience." As one might expect, this tendency manifests itself most often on America's college campuses, and...