Articles of Note: Week of August 17, 2026

Saving the humanities the right way – Gary Houchens, Schools, Souls, and Civitas

The humanities are the collection of academic subjects focused on human culture and creative expression. In my opinion, they are the core of a good education. History, literature, philosophy, theology, and the arts help us understand what it means to be human and how to pursue and achieve a life worth living.

Into the Light: What Orthodox Christianity Offers Classical Education – Kyle R. Hughes, ClassicalEd Review

Given the rapid growth of Orthodoxy in the United States, and particularly its influence within the classical Christian education movement, the publication of a volume such as Into the Light: Classical Education and Orthodox Christianity is long overdue. Taking for granted that this collection of essays will prove invaluable for the Eastern Orthodox audience the book assumes, in this review I want to explore it through a different lens: what can classical Christian educators who are not Orthodox take away from this volume? In other words, what might Constantinople have to offer Rome or Canterbury, Wittenberg or Geneva?

The Western way of reason – Victor Davis Hanson, The New Criterion

All cultures accumulate knowledge of the natural world and the people around them. In the ancient Near East and the pre-city-state Hellenic world, collective wisdom accrued through oral tradition, epic poets, royal edicts and archives, and priestly myth and astrology.

By contrast, the modern notions of systematic and logical thinking, of the scientific method, and of unfettered inquiry are owed to the discoveries of the Greeks and Romans, who founded the long Western tradition of rationalism and empiricism.

Learning Ancient Languages in the Age of AI – Spencer A. Klavan, National Review

When Winston Churchill was a boy at school, his teacher — like all good British teachers in those days — made him memorize Latin declensions. To do this, as I vividly recall, you have to write up a list of the different endings (“cases”) a noun can have depending on its role in the sentence. It’s dominus, “master,” if the master is beating his slave, but dominum if the slave turns around and hits the master back. Serves the master right, you might think, but that’s his concern. Your concern is the list of endings, twelve in total, all of which can technically be attached to any noun that fits the pattern. The noun Churchill’s teacher gave him to practice with was mensa, table.

Can virtue be taught? – Jessica Hooten Wilson, The Scandal of Reading: Uncovering Holy Wisdom

At our Great Books faculty retreat last week, one of my colleagues noted that students don’t seem to understand what a Great Books class even is until we get to Plato. That comment compelled me to change up my first day routine. After teaching for a couple of decades, I rely on Socrates’ advice to give students “torpedo shock” by which we assist them “to the discovery of truth” by their first recognition of their own “ignorance,” lack of knowledge (Meno, 79e-80c). This year, I’m asking them to read Plato’s Meno before the first day of class. The dialogue opens with this essential human question:

“Can you tell me, Socrates, whether arête is acquired by teaching or practice…or whether it comes to humans by nature or in another way?”

And the search for truth is on.

We Are What We Do: Christian Classical Education and Artificial Intelligence – Craig Bouvier, Circe Institute

Growing up in a small town, I often found myself playing alone. One day, I started throwing an old tennis ball at a large flat rock in my yard. To my delight, the rock bounced the ball right back to me. I spent hours throwing that ball at that rock, fantasizing I was a major league baseball player. Eventually, I joined a little league baseball team. After the first few practices, I discovered, to my surprise, I was a good fielder—but I also discovered I was a terrible hitter. The reason: The rock provided endless hours of fielding practice, but it couldn’t pitch to me. That experience taught me an important lesson: In baseball, you become what you practice the most. I have found the same to be true in life.

US Military Base Schools Put New Emphasis on Western Civilization and Christianity – Annie Mia Konstantin Toropin, Word & Way

The Department of Defense is introducing a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity this fall in the schools it operates for military families, part of an effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning.

The Department of Defense Education Activity operates about 160 schools across 11 countries and educates roughly 70,000 students who are children of active-duty military or civilian service members. Conservatives have eyed the schools — which, unlike most public schools, are run by the federal government — as a testing ground for reshaping education.

Why Music Is The Heart Of A Classical Education – John Mark N. Reynolds, Patheos

Music is classical education.

Music is not an elective, not “frosting on the cake,” but an art that must be mastered, a heritage to preserve, and a harmony to cultivate in one’s soul.

At “Quasi-Public” Private Schools, 100% of Students Get Tuition Vouchers. There’s Almost No Accountability – Megan O’Matz, Propublica

At some point, my reporting colleagues and I began referring to them as the “100% schools.”

We were following the money that flows from states’ public coffers into private schools through vouchers when we noticed a subset of educational facilities where tax dollars cover all or a big part of the tuition for every student.

In essence, these were schools that were funded like public schools but didn’t operate with the same oversight or transparency.

Can charter schools survive universal school choice? – Daniel Buck, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Echoing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s sentiments distancing herself from wokeness, a common sentiment among reformers seems to be that the bipartisan education reform era was “craazzy.” Standardized testing pep rallies, the glorified grant writing beauty pageant called Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, guarantees of 100 percent reading proficiency by 2014—maybe we went a little overboard, folks. (Though I’m sympathetic to Mike Petrilli’s Ahab-like insistence that standards-based reform, for all its flaws, really was a net positive.)

Diving into Schooling in America 2026 – Colyn Ritter, Informed Choice

Last week, EdChoice released the 14^th edition of the Schooling in America (SIA) survey. I wrote a piece about the survey from a 30,000-foot perspective, discussing some of the notable highlights along with a few housekeeping notes on methodology. For those interested in learning more about the history of SIA and the key findings, I’d recommend checking it out.

With this post, I want to dive a bit deeper into some themes present throughout the data, and reflect on a missed opportunity that I’m hopeful to correct in next year’s version of the survey.

The March of School Choice – Andy Smarick, National Review

For the last 35 years, America has been, in fits and starts, remolding K–12 schooling into the system we should have had from the start. The federal government’s new school-choice program, the Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC), is the latest step on this long journey. It could also prove to be the largest, but that will depend on -- of all things -- Democratic governors.

A Rosier 2026 Back-to-School Moment – Kim Strassel, WSJ Podcasts: All things with Kim Strassel

Are parents' school choices looking better this fall? On this episode of All Things, Kim Strassel speaks with Center for Education Reform founder Jeanne Allen about encouraging reforms and her upcoming book, “The Education Avengers.”

How to Run a School District Without Really Telling – Frederick Hess, Education Next

Mike Miles has been superintendent of Houston Independent School District since 2023, when he was appointed following a state takeover. With earlier stints in Dallas and the Harrison School District in Colorado Springs, and some promising early results in HISD, Miles may be the closest thing we have to a superstar superintendent today. Now, he’s ready to share the secrets of his success, which he has done in By Design: How to Transform School Systems.

How Two Schools Are Leaning Into Human Skills In The Age Of AI – Ulrich Boser, Forbes

Three weeks ago, two public schools in Houston launched a bold academic experiment.

The schools will split the school day this year, with mornings devoted to intensive traditional academics and the afternoons centered on projects that will teach “human-centric skills” like critical thinking, collaboration, and adaptability.

Most Teens Use AI for Homework, Even if Some Think They’re Missing Out on Learning – Katie DeBenedetti, KQED

A new study from Bay Area-based Common Sense Media suggests AI tools could be disrupting students’ development of key skills, like critical thinking and executive function.

AI Is Ruining Scholarship – Mya Poe and Dylan B. Dryer, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Ask any journal editor today about the effects of generative AI on academic publishing, and you’ll get an earful. It’s not just that AI style is irritating (though it is). Beyond the syntactically flat, lexically precious, oily, and boring style of AI-generated writing, journal editors are receiving entire revise-and-resubmit requests miraculously executed in a single evening. And we are getting crushed with submissions.

The School of Self-Rule – Bruno V. Manno and John Sailer, Commonplace

More than half a century ago, the not-yet-Thomist philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre offered a “doom-laden” depiction of modern education. Noting that our educational system reflects “the moral content of our society,” MacIntyre asserted that modernity is obsessed with “getting on.”

Howard Gardner: How AI Will Force Us to ‘Rethink’ Education – Rick Hess, Education Week

Howard Gardner, the Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, which—despite the qualms of skeptics like me—has profoundly shaped schooling for decades. He’s authored 30 books, translated into 32 languages, and been named one of the world’s 100 most influential public intellectuals by both Foreign Policy and Prospect. Howard and I have known each other for more than 30 years, and he recently reached out to genially take issue with my contention that AI really doesn’t change what students need to know. What followed was a robust back-and-forth about what AI means for schooling. Here’s what he had to say.

The K-12 Techlash Moment – Frederick M. Hess, Law & Liberty

Education is in the throes of a well-deserved “techlash.” That much is clear. Less clear is whether the public is as fed up as the rush of legislation might suggest.

School cellphone bans are everywhere. At the start of 2026, at least 35 states had adopted statewide limits on phones in school. Most of those policies were “bell-to-bell” bans.

The Test-Score Mystery – Nat Malkus, National Review

The prolonged decline has no clear cause

This summer, the nation received the kind of news it is not used to: apparent improvements in test scores. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s long-term trend assessments (NAEP LTT) released in June showed that nine-year-olds’ scores in 2025 improved substantially in both reading and math. Might these scores mark the beginning of a new era in U.S. education?

Help us understand how AI has changed the way you teach – Meredith Kolodner, The Hechinger Report

We want to know how artificial intelligence use is changing your class time and assignments. Students and teachers at all levels of education are using it, even as researchers work in real time to analyze its effects on learning, good and bad.

A majority of students and instructors report using AI regularly, with equal numbers saying that it improves and that it harms learning. Recent research indicates that its unregulated use is eroding math skills. And there’s widespread concern that it is cutting into students’ ability to analyze problems and think critically.

Let’s Preserve Civics Education Programs – George Leef, National Review

In a long overdue counterattack against “progressive” thought control in our colleges and universities, some schools have established programs for civic education. A good and essential step.

But as Daniel Buck argues in today’s Martin Center article, the challenge ahead is to preserve them.

At present, there are no fewer than 45 centers at 41 institutions in 25 states. The question facing the movement now isn’t how reformers should establish such institutes or why — but rather, how can they sustain the movement.

The lefties see these programs as intrusions into their domain and would love to see them obliterated.

What is Art? – Jonathan Bate, Jonathan Bate’s Literary Remains

I’ve been rereading Tolstoy’s extraordinary book What Is Art? I think it’s hilarious and in many ways wrongheaded, but also full of wisdom. For those who don’t know it: early in the book there’s a wonderful account of how he goes to the theatre to watch the rehearsal of an opera. What strikes him is the extraordinary labour involved: exhausted workers, performers being shouted at and abused, enormous amounts of human effort going into the production of an elaborate luxury. And the audience who will come to see the final product is posh and wealthy. So his mind turns to the peasants whose labour ultimately pays for the creation of art. And that leads him to ask: What justification is there for all this high culture? What makes it worth the human cost?