Supreme Court Shocker!
Proving that everything is unpredictable
Graduation! Supreme Court surprise! 19-hour congressional committee meetings! “Free” planes from mideast autocracies! Trump’s escalating assault on Harvard! A burst pipe flooding our house!
What a busy, eventful stretch!
Before I begin, I wanted to thank you for all the kind messages about Pepper. Many of you emailed, texted, called, or pulled me aside to share your condolences. That means a lot to us. And nearly everyone shared how their heart still aches for one of their departed furry family members, which was touching.
On to the news! Hopkins graduation was this week, and this was the largest number of advisees I’ve ever had at the ceremonies. It was so much fun to see their big smiles as they crossed the stage, and to see the (well-deserved) pride in the eyes of their loved ones. I rarely attended pomp-and-circumstance stuff when I started my career but have come to appreciate how important it is. And fun!
Holy crap, the Trump-Harvard feud got real over the past couple weeks! Banning Harvard from having international students is truly the nuclear option, and it feels very excessive. Every couple of days brings more news about the government’s threats, which has made this feel more and more ominous. I have had mixed feelings about the feud, as multiple sources on the ground in Cambridge have verified that there indeed is a major antisemitism problem on that campus (which an internal task force recently confirmed). But it’s hard to imagine that the attacks are anything other than score-settling for the administration, with little regard to innocent bystanders getting mowed down in the process (~10,000 students, in this case). And let’s be honest here: If a D administration pulled out all the stops to single out a private business in this way, Rs would be losing their crap.
I’m following Congress’ work on the FY26 budget carefully. Although the House-approved version has lots of implications for education and young people, I’m going to hold off on commenting until we see what the Senate does with it (see this good analysis in the meantime). Earlier this morning, Sen. Thune said the goal is to pass the bill by July 4th, so things are going to happen quickly. Never a dull moment in DC!
Something Short
Lots of pundits are saying that they predicted the 4-4 SCOTUS ruling on Oklahoma’s quest to allow religious charter schools, but I didn’t see many of them predict this outcome before the fact. Regardless, the fact that the charter school community writ large both celebrated and bemoaned this decision speaks to the complexities of this case. The best write-ups that I’ve seen are from the NYT and NOTUS.
Anyone who expounds on the ruling’s implications is just guessing. It was handed down without explanation or even a description of how each justice voted, and this issue will make it back to the Court in the near future. For the record: My prediction is a 5-4 decision approving religious charters, followed almost immediately by several states moving to restrict charter funding (probably moving to a more emphatic magnet school model).
Something a Bit More Involved
I have been fortunate to do work in several other countries, with my visits to China being the most frequent over the years. When I make those visits, it is not uncommon for my hosts to ask for my advice on how to promote creativity and advanced performance in schools. My response usually surprises them: “OK, but you tell me what you think the U.S. should do first.” That always leads to an interesting discussion about what we can learn from each other.
In a related vein, I push my colleagues in other countries to share their conceptual models with me. For example, I was disappointed a few years ago to open a handbook of international research on creativity and find that almost every single chapter involved someone from a different country examining how Western theories could be applied in their cultural context. What a lost opportunity! China had a rich intellectual tradition for a few thousand years before the U.S. was created, surely there are valuable conceptual nuggets we can mine to enrich our cross-cultural understanding of creativity (and other psychological and educational topics).
To date, my only international colleague to take me up on this challenge is my close friend, Prof. Weiguo Pang, at East China Normal University. We started with a paper comparing Confucian and Western conceptions of intelligence, assisted by our colleague Amber Esping, which was fun but not quite where we wanted to take things.
So we kept at it and wrote a paper examining Confucian concepts of creativity and innovation, which was recently published. This effort hit the bull’s-eye! We were able to provide a reasonably detailed description of Confucian approaches to creativity, compared them to an important Western model, and proposed a new model that improved the Western model with some Confucian additions. It was hard work, but we are very happy with the results and plan to build on these efforts.
As always, let me know if you’d like copies of the papers.
Some Things That Intrigued Me
Are we experiencing a U.S. competitiveness spiral? Noah Smith thinks we may be heading in this direction. Basically, his argument is that advanced societies that think they have it all figured out often misinterpret the reasons for their success and make lots of mistakes that bring it down a few pegs. For example, by isolating the economy and culture from “outside influences,” moving away from a focus on research and technology, and being disdainful of progress outside one’s borders (ahem). It’s an interesting hypothesis, and I’ve found myself thinking about it quite often.
Whither the job market? Lots of readers commented on last issue’s item on how AI is (or isn’t) changing the job market. In particular, one of my friends and mentors, Steve Baranyk, drew the parallel between the transition from agrarian to industrial jobs to today’s transition from pre-AI to post-AI jobs. A few days later, I listened to this conversation between Kara Swisher and Barry Diller, which hits on similar themes at one point:
I certainly understand and appreciate the parallel, but I’m not yet sure it works for me. I suspect the transition to industrial jobs was fairly obvious at the time; is the transition from pre- to post-AI jobs as obvious today? While running errands this afternoon, I listened to a techno-optimist economist wax poetic about how AI doomsayers are all stupid and how AI is going to unleash a golden age of worker productivity. The host of the podcast then asked him what those jobs would look like, in what fields and industries, etc. … and the economist basically shrugged and said, “Who knows?” Not the most convincing argument, tbh.
Populism is a dangerous drug. Regular readers know that I find David Brooks’ work to be intriguing: He picks important topics, provides an interesting center-right perspective, then loses me with his recommendations. But I loved his recent column on how populists on both the left and right are very wrong about the causes of America’s economic problems, and that the Clinton-Bush-Obama years were much better economically than people realize. This quote near the end stood out:
If you didn’t like the so-called era of neoliberalism, wait until you experience how much fun postliberalism will be. Trump is taking a sledgehammer to the sources of American prosperity: global competition, immigrant talent, scientific research and the universities.
Our economy has drastically outpaced the rest of the world over the past 35 years. Sure, we have problems, but populism isn’t the answer to any of them.
Polling on closing U.S. ED. My EdChoice colleague, Alli Aldis, wrote up their recent survey on public opinion regarding the closing of the U.S. Department of Education. In a nutshell: People don’t like the idea. Lots of good detail in Alli’s post, check it out.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light! Jonathan Malesic goes after the use of AI in education in this commentary. Regular readers know I’m no fan of AI, but I don’t think we can call it a “gimmick.” I respect him for raging against it, though!
Title IX reforms. I’ve been frustrated by the constant changes to Title IX regulations with each presidential administration. Although I don’t love all the content changes this conservative group is recommending, they aren’t wrong about the need for consistent rules for colleges and K-12 schools. There’s a reasonable, middle-of-the-road compromise here that works for 75% of us, if not more. The back-and-forth has made gender equity into much more of a culture war issue than it should have been.
Make America Stupid Again. RFK Jr.’s new MAHA report is a propaganda piece with fake references (the investigative journalists are too nice to point out that it was almost certainly written using AI). Shocking! We need to stop sane-washing this guy: He’s a nutter, a propagandist, and a bit of a dimwit who will go down in history as the worst cabinet appointment in modern history. There are dozens of Republicans who would have done better in this important role. Coming out of a pandemic that killed over a million Americans, having a smarter, wiser leader in charge of public health wasn’t seen as a priority? What a joke.
Some Things I Found to be Cool
Fresh Air interview with Walton Goggins. He plays a wide range of characters, but whether he’s playing it violently, comedically, dramatically, or just playing it straight, Goggins is always interesting. This interview does not disappoint.
Andor and Rogue One. The Disney+ series Andor, which recently concluded its second and final season, is hands-down the best Star Wars TV series. Which is fitting, because I believe Rogue One, the movie it leads into, is the second-best Star Wars film (Yes, Empire is obviously the best, and I will not entertain counterarguments). Both the movie and series are for grown-ups yet flow seamlessly into the plot of the original 1977 movie. I heard a critic recently note that sometimes a show or movie speaks to current events in obvious ways, but you don’t mind because it’s so well done. That’s the case for me and this show. And the closing montage in the last episode … wow, that’s good TV.
National Portrait Gallery. After a long day at work last week, I took a walk around Chinatown/Penn Quarter in DC. The National Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum is one of the few museums in the city with later hours - most close by 5:00, but the NPG/AAM stays open until 7:00. I walked by around 6:00 and decided to duck in for a half hour, and I loved the new exhibits and newly-purchased paintings. However, this portrait by John Singer Sargent, which I’ve seen there before, is electric. It’s in the back of a gallery as you walk down one of the main corridors, and it always sneaks up on me. Just riveting!
It looks finely detailed, but if you get close to the canvas, you notice that Sargent softened the details as he moved away from her face … to the point that the brushstrokes near the frame are almost impressionistic. The effect (along with the great contrast) is to focus all of your attention on her face. Sargent made the subject, Elizabeth Chanler, look like a badass because, according to historians, she was reportedly of exceptionally strong character, having raised her seven younger siblings after the death of her mother. If you’re in DC, it’s worth 10 minutes to duck into the museum to see how much this painting pops in real life!
This is just funny. Came across this end cap in the middle of a Target in Fredericksburg, Virginia. No smoking, indeed.
Jade Plant of the Month
This issue’s jade plant is a real survivor! I’ve mentioned in past issues that these green babies are resilient, and this plant is a great example of that. During a long drive from TN to VA to DC to Baltimore to NJ to CT over the course of a week, it dried out too much and was heavily wilted by the time I got to DC. Jades rarely wilt when thirsty, but this is a relatively young plant without strong roots and trunks. It bounced back a bit after a good soaking, but to my surprise, several leaf clusters grew quickly out of the stems and began to grow toward the center. You can make out some of the new growth in the photo. All of that growth has happened since the soaking! It is amazing how fast it is filling in. If nurtured correctly, this one has a decent chance of obtaining a nice shape despite the rocky start!
Some Events to Consider
Forget upcoming events, we just had Graduation! As mentioned above, this was an especially awesome graduation, as I had over a dozen master’s and doctoral students participate in the ceremonies. Two of my doctoral students, Mary Pei and Sarah Caroleo, defended their dissertations this spring and graduated with their PhDs last week.
Dr. Mary was unable to attend this year’s ceremony, and I will feature her and her work in a future issue. In this issue, I want to honor Dr. Sarah, who also received the Student Excellence Award for the doctoral program. Here’s a picture from the hooding ceremony.
Funny story: Sarah was the first doctor to be hooded, so I was meticulous in how I put the ceremonial hood (the blue drape around her neck) over her shoulders, fastening it carefully in the back per tradition. All my colleagues were watching, and I didn’t want to screw it up! The irony is that only one of my colleagues hooded their graduates correctly after that! (Props to Eric Rice for doing it perfectly.)
I can go on-and-on about Sarah’s many accomplishments and talents, but it will be more concise if I share the official remarks that were read before Sarah received her award:
Sarah was already an impressive person when she arrived in Baltimore to study for her PhD. She was an accomplished teacher, had a master’s degree from a prestigious program, and was in the early stages of building a reputation as a future leader.
Fast forward to today, and she has excelled in her coursework, pushing herself to learn new skills and take her existing strengths to the next level. She has defended an excellent dissertation on a topic of national and international importance. While doing all of that, she managed to find time to publish important papers and present her work at several national conferences. And last but not least, she begins a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University later this year.
But those accomplishments, although quite impressive, do not fully capture Sarah. After she began the program, the faculty quickly noted that Sarah almost always has a smile on her face, loves to work with others, and most importantly, is always looking for ways to support both students and faculty.
I do not need to point out that the faculty believe Sarah has a bright future ahead of her – that much is obvious. But I note that she will make a big difference in the world while helping others do the same. That is unique, that is laudable, and that is a major reason why the faculty are pleased to honor Sarah with this award.
You’ll be hearing a lot about and from Sarah in the future! But for now, join me in wishing her heartfelt congratulations!
Where to Find Me
http://Amazon.com/author/jonathanplucker
www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanplucker