Frequent readers of my blog know that I am a big fan of the book, No Excuses : Closing the Racial Gap in Learning , by Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom. I have recommended it several times and continue to highly recommend it.
Well than, you can imagine my surprise, and delight!!!, to see Ruben Navarrette discuss them in his latest article. He writes:
Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom are nationally renowned conservative intellectuals, a husband-wife team with his-and-her doctorates, and both prolific writers and provocative thinkers.
The Thernstroms also happen to be two of my favorite people. That’s not something I could have said a couple of decades ago, when – because of their opposition to racial preferences and bilingual education – I might have considered them hostile to minority progress. Only later would I realize I had that backward, and that it was these sorts of programs – and others cooked up in the laboratory of liberalism – that kept minorities from progressing.
Abigail is vice chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. Stephan is a professor of U.S. history at Harvard University. They’ve written some important books, both independent of one another and together as part of a formidable team. Their collaborations include “America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible” and, more recently, “No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning.”
They’re delightfully interesting folks. And one reason for that is they tackle thorny issues such as race and ethnicity without hesitation, fear or apology. It was Stephan Thernstrom – as one of my undergraduate professors – who first taught me that ethnicity and race relations were worthy fields of study, analysis and commentary.
The whole article is worth the read, and I also highly recommend you go get the book.
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