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With all due respect to Charles Dickens, it appears to be the worst of times for public and higher education in America, if not democracy itself; public schools are increasingly viewed as a business and are prized above all for customer satisfaction and efficiency, while largely judged through the narrow lens of empirical accountability measures. When not functioning as an adjunct of corporate value or a potentially lucrative for-profit investment, public schools are reduced to containment centers, holding institutions designed to largely punish young people marginalized by race and class.

"If I were to describe the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, it would be as that of a trimmer. He represented change - but not the radical kind the left wanted or the revolutionary kind the right still suspects. In the wake of the rigid, white-knuckled George W Bush and Dick Cheney, he appeared as a lithe and nimble, cat-like creature. Time after time he seems to have given way to opponents and to have bent too easily in the prevailing winds.\n\n[...]\n\nAll the way he seemed weak, reactive, vacillating, vague. He has given his supporters as little emotional satisfaction as he has given some of his allies (Britain included). In fact, he has driven his friends a little crazy and allowed his enemies to greet his open hand with contempt. He has bent to the prevailing winds and not picked battles when he was unsure he could win them. But in the end there isn't weakness here. There is a suppleness and pragmatism that is a kind of strength."