In deciding what their children should accept and reject from Western culture, many Muslim parents are turning to private Islamic schools to help them sort it out. In the past 15 years, Maine schools have made steady and significant progress in changing their reading programs and raising their standardized-test scores in reading through three statewide initiatives. Though none of the initiatives is mandated at the state level, the state supports many of the programs. It's time for state and local school officials to catch up with the private sector in employment practices. We need to feel secure in the knowledge that every effort has been made to select people with the highest qualifications and most impeccable character possible to nurture our kids at school.
Children deserve safe schools.
Some years ago, I embarked on an interesting bit of research in pursuit of an answer to that query. As a historian, I decided to explore the autobiographies of prominent Americans from the 19th and 20th centuries. In the same issue, the photo caption with a story on teacher housing in Santa Fe, N.M., should have said that students there have built two homes for teachers. A story on Milwaukee school choice in the same issue misspelled the name of Robert Rauh, the principal of the Marva Collins Preparatory School of Wisconsin.