Author Archives: Dick Startz

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. With the growing outbreak of COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, universities around the U.S. are canceling in-person classes, clamping down on travel, and sending students home. Protecting the … Continue reading →

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. “In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools received substantially less money per student than do the white schools.” – Dr. Martin … Continue reading →

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. Academics and policymakers are actively looking at creative ways to help college students succeed. While increasing college access and enrollment is an important first stage, too many students matriculate … Continue reading →

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. Presidential candidates are pushing for “free” community college for all; Douglas Harris described some of the early details here on the Chalkboard earlier this year. Greater access to community college is … Continue reading →

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. Promising free college has obvious political attraction for presidential candidates. From my perspective, free college is the right idea, but some of the promises go too far; in fact, … Continue reading →

Me in the LA Times on raising teacher pay. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-startz-teacher-raises-20190417-story.html

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. One of the great accomplishments of the late 20th century was to bring women onto a more equal footing in the labor market. Salaries became more equal. Employers opened … Continue reading →

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. Today would have been Dr. Martin Luther King’s 90th birthday had he not been taken from us in 1968. Whatever position one takes on how to deal with America’s racial … Continue reading →

Back in October I asked why universities continue to produce so many humanities PhDs in the face of the abysmal humanities job market. The flip side of that question is to ask why young scholars are willing to invest so … Continue reading →

My most recent post on the BROWN CENTER CHALKBOARD at the Brookings Institution. If you have been anywhere near a university that trains doctoral students in the humanities, you will know that the market for new Ph.D.s is abysmal. The plain fact … Continue reading →