I admire the way Jay Mathews, the Washington Post's education columnist and reporter, takes on the real stuff of education and does so in a plain-spoken, non-wonky, real-world way that is always interesting. Good example is a column he did focusing on Levin and Belfield's new book (see previous entry). A book on the
economics of education sounds daunting but Jay lays some of the important ideas out quite well. He notes, for example, that Levin and Belfield calculate that providing the equivalent of the Perry Preschool Project from 40 years ago to 100 children would produce an additional 19 high school graduates.