It took a devastating World War and the threat of domination by an expansionist Communist empire to propel the government of the United States past its prejudices. It was in 1943 — when the country desperately needed every competent mathematician it could find — that Dorothy Vaughan, a black female math teacher in Virginia, went...

Back when Hillary Rodham Clinton was still an education innovator, the Democratic nominee, then the young first lady of Arkansas, brought to her adopted home state an inspired program called HIPPY, which coaches less-affluent parents who want to prepare their preschoolers for first grade. Former President Bill Clinton gave the program a much-deserved mention in...

This is graduation season, when an anticipated 3.3 million high school seniors will cross a stage and receive an elegant sheet of paper that announces their completion of an important phase of formal education. For the last few years, public school districts have proudly announced their increasing graduation rates: In the 2013-14 academic year, the...

How to explain the baffling rise of Donald Trump, the bullying, narcissistic real estate mogul dominating the Republican presidential primaries? How did a celebrity talk-show host with so little grasp of public policy — or good manners — come so close to becoming the GOP nominee? Economic anxiety is clearly a big part of the...

Bernie Sanders isn’t the only progressive who is confused about charter schools. On the left, misunderstandings and mischaracterizations about non-traditional public schools abound, many of them spread by an educational establishment that fiercely guards its turf. One of the most popular misconceptions is that charter schools represent “takeovers” by wealthy corporate interests or rich conservatives...