Articles of Note: Week of July 20, 2026

Educatio Humana: Why Classical Education Is a Human Education – Christopher Perrin, Renewing Classical Education

It ought not to be controversial to say that education is aimed at the cultivation and maturity of a human being. This is especially true if we distinguish between training (the acquisition of particular vocational skills) and education. Today, education is often confused with vocational training—a shift in understanding that largely accompanied the progressive educational movement from about 1890 to 1930.^1 Many of us are returning to the “classical” education that existed for more than a thousand years prior to the progressive revolution. What did we call classical education before 1890? Simply, education.

The False Choice between the Liberal Arts and Vocational Training – Adam Smith, The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

Anybody who still believes in the liberal arts believes that higher education exists for a higher purpose than putting graduates in jobs. At the same time, even the truest believer has to grapple with the real harm done to graduates who can’t get the jobs they need to pay for that education. In the face of perpetually rising costs and ballooning student debt, it’s hard to keep the faith.

If Children Were Angels – Robert Pondiscio, The Next 30 Years

“If men were angels,” James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51, “no government would be necessary.” The same might be said of student discipline. If children were naturally orderly, patient, truthful, and inclined to subordinate their impulses to the common good, discipline would scarcely be required. Yet a persistent strain of educational thought—from Rousseau to today’s restorative-justice advocates—suggests that disorder at school arises less from human nature than from the heavy hand of adult authority. Remove punishment, replace hierarchy with empathy, and the child’s better instincts will emerge.

My Four Years at St. John’s College – Kari Jenson Gold, First Things

Recent weeks have seen a great deal of discussion and a fair bit of controversy about classical education, in particular the study of the Great Books. There have been arguments about the best way to read the texts and assertions about how to create good citizens. Inevitably, someone will mention St. John’s College, my alma mater, known as “The Great Books School.” Four years are spent reading the canonical texts in chronological order. There are no majors, no minors, no secondary sources. Everyone reads the same book at the same time.

Why Not Combine Liberal Arts and Occupational Education? – George Leef, National Review

For some absurd reason, Americans came to believe that college education was for the smart kids and occupational training for the rest. Colleges happily lured in as many applicants as possible with claims that their “higher” education led to good, high-paying careers while lives of drudgery awaited anyone who didn’t go to college. Consequently, huge numbers of students enrolled in college and many occupations found it hard to find new trainees.

Classical Education Needs To Level Up – John Mark N. Reynolds, Patheos

“Don’t forget the people in the pews,” in some such language, my Nana talked to me about my doctoral studies in philosophy. She was not opposed to those studies, afraid of what I was learning, but she did worry that education had a habit of causing people to forget their roots.

Why Classical Education Still Matters in the Modern Workplace – Madeleine Burr, Patrick Henry College

When people talk about “workforce readiness,” they usually ask if the applicant has technical skills, certifications, and professional polish. The better question is whether the applicant received the kind of education that fosters clear communication, integrity, and adaptability.

At Patrick Henry College, these strengths are fostered through a classical liberal arts education.

Dean Hodge, Internship Director of Patrick Henry College, said, “A classical education trains students to learn how to learn, rather than just how to perform a narrow technical task.”

Schools Are Bringing Back Pen and Paper, and Students Are Thriving - Luisa Prada, Vice

The noise around the vast damage technology causes in schools is growing louder. What once seemed like a revolutionary idea, changing how American children learn through laptops and tablets, has proven to be a bit of a disaster. Now, as reported by Minneapolis’ KARE 11, teachers across the country are taking it upon themselves to reverse the decline in literacy, attention spans, and critical thinking skills by ending the debate about what to do and finally doing something.

What Does Athens Have to Do with Abuja? Classical Christian Education in Africa – Karen Elliott, Humanitas Institute

“What in the world does classical Christian education have to do with Africa? What Africans really need is training in farming. All I see on the news are famines across Africa. They need to learn to feed themselves. In other words, why doesn’t someone teach them how to fish instead of just giving them fish?”

Great Hearts Lake Charles Celebrates Future with the Community – Jason Moore, Great Hearts America

Great Hearts Lake Charles will be the second Great Hearts academy in Louisiana when the doors open for K-3 students on the first day of school, which is planned to open in the fall of 2027. The future campus location at St. Luke-Simpson United Methodist Church was announced at a community event, BBQ, Books, & New Beginnings, allowing prospective families the opportunity to see the future facility and meet with leadership from Great Hearts, who are excited to bring a tuition-free classical education rooted in strong academics, character formation, and a love of learning to the Lake Charles community.

The Odyssey at Great Hearts – Jason Moore, Great Hearts America

The renewed interest in the epic poem by Homer, the Odyssey, was highlighted in a recent article by Esther Zuckerman and Connor Hart in The Wall Street Journal: After 3,000 Years, People Are Finally Reading ‘The Odyssey’—at Least on Wikipedia. The article accounts for many who are familiarizing themselves with this ancient Greek text before watching the 2026 theatrical film, adapted by writer/director Christopher Nolan, on the big screen this summer. While the source material has gained momentary popularity, this timeless piece of literature has long been a staple of the curriculum at Great Hearts academies.

School Choice Is the Market Key to Education Success – Alex Tokarev and Kristin Tokarev, Action Institute

When parents are given a choice of schools for their children, they enhance their children’s chances of educational and professional success and protect them from becoming fodder for Big Government indoctrination.

The Great Screen Debate Is Really a Choice Debate – JoAnn Kilpatrick, Real Clear Education

Students are taking a much-needed summer break, but the screen time debate is still intensifying. Some parents are demanding opt-outs, and educators are divided. Over the course of the last school year alone, legislative restrictions on classroom tech have been proposed in more than 25 states.

Parental Choice Is Sending Public Schools a Message. Are They Listening? – Anna J. Egalite, Education Next

In rural North Carolina, one public district is testing a microschool model where middle schoolers study with AI support and learn entrepreneurship by helping run an Airbnb. In rural Indiana, another district leader helped launch a nature-based public microschool after watching families who did not see traditional schools as a good fit for their children consider homeschooling.

These experiments are small and in their early stages but point to an important shift: Some forward-thinking public school leaders are beginning to treat the exercise of school choice not simply as a threat but as a source of valuable information. As homeschooling remains elevated after the pandemic and states expand charters, vouchers, and education savings accounts, district leaders are hearing loud and clear that many families want something different. Public schools need to understand what that “different” is.

Charter schools are public schools, too | Opinion – Laurel Niles and Sara Hassler, Tallahassee Democrat

We read the June 21, 2026, Tallahassee Democrat commentary by Sally Butzin with appreciation for the attention it brings to important questions about public education. At the same time, we believe a few distinctions are important to clarify so that the conversation about school quality and accountability reflects the full landscape of Florida’s public education system.

It is helpful at the outset to be precise about structure. Florida does not operate “three separate and unequal school systems” in the way the column suggests. Traditional district schools and public charter schools are both public schools. They are funded with public dollars, tuition-free, open to all students, and accountable under state law.

Don’t Teach Students ‘How to Think,’ Teach Them What Is True – Kate Bierly, Real Clear Education

In debates over ideological indoctrination in schools, the following slogan is often offered as the solution: “Don’t teach children what to think. Teach them how to think.”

It is an appealing slogan. Free citizens should not be handed approved opinions by the state; they should learn to reason for themselves. In response to the ideological maladies of today’s classrooms, the slogan feels like a sufficient fix.

There’s a Lot of Talk About ‘Career Readiness.’ Have We Thought It Through? – Rick Hess, Education Week

After a decadelong hiatus, it feels like “school reform” has gained new momentum (for better and worse). We see it in reading instruction, new school models, career pathways, and more. These efforts mostly echo reform initiatives from the first decade of this century. That means there’s much to be learned from the Bush-Obama years, even if they’ve faded in our collective memory. To help surface some of those hard-earned lessons, I turned to Stefanie Sanford, the president of Alithi Consulting and a veteran of this century’s pivotal K-12 debates. As policy chief at the Gates Foundation and then the College Board, Stef was in the middle of fights over No Child Left Behind, high school reform, teacher evaluation, the Common Core, AP U.S. History, and more.

Do Students Still Need to Learn Calculus? – Liz Cohen, Education Next

In his new book Aftermath, Ted Dintersmith joins a growing chorus of policy wonks, researchers, and advocates who say that the age of calculus is behind us and that future math education should focus entirely on statistics and relevancy to students’ lives. “The tragedy is that 50% of high schools still do offer calculus,” Dintersmith writes. “That we cling to obsolete priorities.”

This approach is misguided. Dintersmith writes engagingly about interesting real-world math applications that may well pique the interest of a high school student. Math teachers should make math interesting! But Dintersmith and others in the anti-calculus camp miss three key realities about math and about education.

The next literacy challenge: Teaching students how to write – Jackie Mader, The Hechinger Report

It was the middle of a writing lesson in Gabrielle Grace’s first grade class at Sand Creek Elementary in suburban Denver, and students were furiously jotting down details about their summer plans, the first step in composing a paragraph on the topic.

Except for 6-year-old Dean, who was already done.

“This stuff was just too easy for me,” he said. He pointed to his worksheet, fully filled out with a topic sentence (“I do many things over the summer”) and a list of his summer activities (“park, ipad and vacation”).

Contrary to Common Belief, The Poorest School Districts Outspend The Wealthiest – Amanda Geduld, The 74

There’s a prevailing principle in the U.S. that funding disparities are at the root of education inequality, with poorer districts receiving less money than their wealthier counterparts. But a recent study has actually found the opposite, documenting that over the past nearly 50 years high-poverty and predominantly non-white districts across all 50 states actually spent more per student on average.

Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey: A 21st c. Adaptation of the Ancient Epic – Jessica Hooten Wilson, The Scandal or Reading: Uncovering Holy Wisdom

Let me begin my review of the 2026 film The Odyssey in a strange place, in 12th c. England, where Marie de France is justifying her retelling of stories such as Lancelot and Guinevere, David and Bathsheba, and other well-known myths.