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Since 2009, the number of CPS teachers who do not work in charter schools has declined by nearly 1,700.

because they operate more cheaply by hiring nonunion teachers.

The teachers elected new leaders with a mandate to stem the tide of layoffs, school closings and charter schools while holding on to hard-won pay increases and retirement benefits.

The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.

To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators.

And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.

Since December, 20,000 teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade have introduced coding lessons, according to Code.org, a group backed by the tech industry that offers free curriculums. In addition, some 30 school districts, including New York City and Chicago, have agreed to add coding classes in the fall, mainly in high schools but in lower grades, too. And policy makers in nine states have begun awarding the same credits for computer science classes that they do for basic math and science courses, rather than treating them as electives.

coding looks less like an extracurricular activity and more like a basic life skill, one that might someday lead to a great job or even instant riches.

But the momentum for early coding comes with caveats, too. It is not clear that teaching basic computer science in grade school will beget future jobs or foster broader creativity and logical thinking, as some champions of the movement are projecting. And particularly for younger children, Dr. Soloway said, the activity is more like a video game — better than simulated gunplay, but not likely to impart actual programming skills.

HISTORY NOW is a quarterly online journal for American history teachers and students, launched in September, 2004. All issues are archived below: Issue One, September 2004: Elections Issue Two, December 2004: Primary Sources on Slavery Issue Three, March 2005: Immigration Issue Four, June 2005: American National Holidays Issue Five, September 2005: Abolition Issue Six, December 2005: Lincoln Issue Seven, March 2006: Women's Suffrage Issue Eight, June 2006: The Civil Rights Movement Issue Nine, September 2006: The American West Issue Ten, December 2006: Nineteenth Century Technology Issue Eleven, March 2007: American Cities Issue Twelve, June 2007: The Age Of Exploration Issue Thirteen, September 2007: The Constitution Issue Fourteen, December 2007: World War II Issue Fifteen, April 2008: The Supreme Court Issue Sixteen, June 2008: Books that Changed History Issue Seventeen, September 2008: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era Issue

“killer applications

Competition

The Scientific Revolution

The current massive and unanticipated experiment in online education could transform higher education as we know it. We should begin these difficult conversations about the future of the liberal arts now, in cyberspace, before the new normal takes shape—whenever that may be. Even if we feel trapped in our own homes and beset with anxiety and cabin fever, we also have an opportunity to reconsider the aims of higher education not in the abstract but in this concrete historical moment, with attention to specific institutional needs, public policy proposals, ideological pressures, and the overarching economic crisis.

A genuine commitment to ethical, historically aware, egalitarian, or democratic principles can land an individual in a world of trouble. I am thinking, for example, of the basic scientific literacy, historical awareness, and ethical commitment that equip an individual citizen to recognize the expertise of infectious disease specialists and reject the common sense of neighbors or the priorities and demands of an employer—or to spot the bogus claims, fundamental incompetence, or ethical depravity of some elected leaders. Such scientific literacy and basic familiarity with statistical analysis allow nonexperts to understand the arguments of climatologists and reject the sophistry of coworkers or talk show hosts or governors who point out, for example, that “the climate has always been changing.”

The reason that individual institutions cannot pitch such potential outcomes under ordinary circumstances is that these intellectual faculties serve the public good but do not necessarily advance the economic interests or career objectives of individual prospective or current students, especially those incurring significant debt. Being a whistleblower, for example, is generally a costly, painful career move—but the public needs to know nonetheless if the US military is shooting civilians in the streets of Baghdad; or the pharmaceutical industry is engineering a profitable opioid epidemic; or the health insurance industry is denying legitimate claims.