Politics Gift Guide: Warm the Cockles of a Special Someone's Heart

Old-School Education

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," as Spanish philosopher George Santayana wrote. Some­times it seems as if Austin's school board and senior cabinet need a lesson on what has and has not worked in Austin's schools. So we've been recommending Stanford Univer­sity professor Larry Cuban's scholarly but readable work on the district's troubled 60-year slog to everyone at the Carruth Admini­stra­tion Center for months now. Every closed school, every wrecked community, every hubris-fueled plan, every failed-campus conversion, and every purge of staff and students that was supposed to fix the district is chronicled in clear and concise fashion. Unfortunately, while boards and administrators come and go, it will be the district's families that are condemned by their lack of historical perspective. – Richard Whittaker