Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2011 by David Kirp
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kirp-esteem-20110424,0,4748601.story

Success in school doesn’t necessarily result from ceaselessly drilling students to prep them for achievement tests. “Noncognitive” factors, such as students’ sense that they fit in and are capable of doing the work, profoundly affect what they learn. Whether they believe they have the brainpower and the social skills to make it in the achievement-oriented world of school can shape how well they actually do.

San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2011 by David L. Kirp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/20/EDC81I7KH6.DTL

According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2006-7, the last school year for which national statistics are available, 220,517 students, some as young as kindergartners, suffered some form of corporal punishment. The schools’ “justifications” included acting out, being late to class, wearing “suggestive” clothing—even flunking a test.

KQED-FM, Forum, March 8, 2011 Host Michael Krasny
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201103081000

“If you think about policy, you want to think about kids generally in the way you think about a kid you love. That doesn’t necessarily mean the trip to Europe or the internship with the Congressman. But it means providing the same kinds of support so that the kid is going to emerge healthy, wealthy, and wiser.”

The Arizona Republic, November 2, 2010 by Anne Ryman
http://bit.ly/9e92Ex

David L. Kirp, of the University of California-Berkeley, and Patrick S. Roberts of Virginia Tech, studied the University of Virginia Darden School of Business…. They concluded that only the law and business schools at the University of Virginia could attract enough students who were willing to pay the new model’s higher tuition. They also called the Darden model a “canary in a mine, a sign of things to come” as state funding increasingly accounts for less of a university’s budget.

Inside Higher Ed, September 7, 2010 by Scott Jaschik
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/07/ucla

By embracing the idea that those parts of the university that can bring in more money should do so, and be rewarded for doing so, Kirp and Roberts write that the university was placing ideals at risk. “Does the academic commons that Thomas Jefferson tried to embody in his design of the Lawn—professors and students with diverse academic interests coming together in a single open space—stand a chance in this dollar-driven era? Can a university maintain this kind of intellectual community if learning becomes just another consumer good?” they write.

The Washington Post, July 9, 2010 by Valerie Strauss
http://bit.ly/c01Iu9

For example, they cite University of California at Berkeley Professor David L. Kirp’s argument that market pressures have prompted colleges to give students more leisure time, and the contention by Murray Sperber of Indiana University that professors eased up on students for various reasons, including a desire to spend more time doing research.

New America Foundation, Early Ed Watch, June 10, 2010 by David L. Kirp
bit.ly/bb3MWO

Despite the widespread recognition that good early education can alter the arc of children’s lives, the conventional wisdom, that children don’t matter because they don’t vote, endures. In national politics, children come last.

San Francisco Chronicle, May 31, 2009 by David L. Kirp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/31/ING317S58S.DTL&type=printable

All the research tells the same story: Expectations are crucial. Advise minority students with comparatively weak paper records that they have a decent shot at succeeding, enroll them in highly demanding schools, and they’re more likely to thrive than if they’re fed an intellectual diet of pabulum.

San Francisco Chronicle, February 10, 2009 by David L. Kirp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/10/EDS415Q7U9.DTL&type=printable

Every added Head Start dollar means new jobs for teachers, aides and staff, many of them poor women who are the economic anchors of their communities. Providing more Head Start slots also means that poor parents have time to find work or get the training they need to secure a decent job. The $1.05 billion that’s in jeopardy of being cut would create thousands of teaching and staff positions, in addition to the jobs generated when Head Start centers start buying cribs, crayons, cookies and computers.

San Francisco Chronicle, January 19, 2009 by David L. Kirp
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/19/EDEU15BU9O.DTL&type=printable

What matters far more are the big-ticket federal policies that can make or break people’s lives – hate crimes, employment discrimination, the don’t ask, don’t tell policy—and, on those issues, Obama is on the side of the angels.

The American Prospect, Nov. 24, 2008 by David Kirp
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=college_for_the_few

In Real Education, Murray turns the spotlight on higher education. He’s up to his familiar tricks: This time the provocation is that too many people go to college. Murray loves to make broad-brush, simple-sounding claims—welfare causes dependency, intelligence is inherited—and Real Education offers four of these “simple truths.”

The New York Times, Nov. 2, 2008 by Jesse McKinley
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/weekinreview/02mckinley.html?_r=1&sq=Berkeley&st=cse&scp=6&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

“Schools are still there as part of the story because whatever their politics, families are conservative when it comes to their kids,” said David L. Kirp, a professor of law and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. “No family regards their kids as a social experiment.”

The American Prospect, September 22, by David L. Kirp
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=audacity_in_harlem

“From the outset, the Harlem Children’s Zone has been both the beneficiary and the victim of hype and expectations. The national media regard New York City as the center of the known universe, and so this high-voltage program has been smothered with coverage. Out-of-town delegations, looking to devise their own children’s zones, descend in droves.”

- San Francisco Chronicle, September 2, by Douglas Kirp and W. Stephen Barnett
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/01/ED3612LC8C.DTL

“When pre-K is done right … the evidence confirms that it can alter the arc of children’s lives. That’s why the goal of policy should be to guarantee every 3- and 4-year-old a preschool opportunity as good as what the wisest parents would want for their own children.”

- KERA-TV, Think, September 5, Host Krys Boyd
http://www.kera.org/video

“If you think about the investments that a state can make—investing in little kids, investing in young kids, investing in their education—is probably the smartest thing that could be done. Just in terms of who’s going to be the taxpayers of the next generation, who the knowledge workers are going to be in the next generation … it’s important to appreciate how valuable [preschool] is for kids.”