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In his Education Week blog "Straight Up", Rick Hess comes to the defense of fellow traveler Naomi Schaefer Riley following her dismissal as a Chronicle of Higher Education blogger. The boom was lowered as a result of NSR's hatchet job , published on the Chronicle 's "Brainstorm" blog, of three up-and-coming black-studies scholars. She paints their unpublished dissertations broadly as "left-wing victimization claptrap." Hess's mounting of the barricades is no surprise as the Right is framing this as a crucifixion driven by political correctness. Ms. Riley's husband, Wall Street Journal editorial writer Jason Riley, is quoted by Hess as saying of his wife's sacking, "The mob rules." Well, there's an independent source. (Also see Mona Charen and Checker Finn for similar takes.) Sara, my wife, a former Chronicle blogger herself, called for NSR's firing on this very blog. She described NSR's piece as "emo...

Rick Hess is an amusing guy-- witty banter, fun to have drinks with-- and always pushing buttons. I dig that, even though we rarely agree on policy issues. What I like most about him is that he takes seriously the idea that academics should bring their research to the public, and in an effort to prod that along, last year he began ranking us. He uses a set of metrics that even he admits are pretty darned flawed, but are at least an ATTEMPT in the right direction. I like it not because I'm ranked (ok, I like that too) but rather because Hess is a prominent guy doing whatever he can to provide incentives to professors to do more than what tenure requires of them. He wants us to use all 5 tools in our work--"disciplinary scholarship, policy analysis and popular writing, convening and quarterbacking collaborations, providing incisive media commentary, and speaking in the public square." And that I can appreciate. So here are the rankings this year. And here's the met...

You may have noticed the recent near radio silence from Sara on our blog. No, she isn't on a secret mission and hasn't left academia to join the NSA. She, however, has been busy as a bee this past year, starting with giving birth to our daughter , being named a W.T. Grant Scholar , and engaging in important academic research . My pride in her commitment to, excellence in and passion for issues of educational and social inequality is coupled with a recognition of her unwillingness to see academic research relegated to dusty and sometimes impenetrable academic journals. Sara has been aggressive and public with her research and committed to engaging in and communicating her work in a policy relevant manner. That fits a critical need in public policy conversations. That's why I was quite pleased to see Sara's name mentioned among the ranks of the most prominent academics in the nation in the "EduScholar" rankings issued by the American Enterprise Institute's...