Name Sol Stern | Role Author | |
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Education City College of New York, University of Iowa Books A Century of Palestinia, Breaking Free: Public Sc, Common Core: Yea & Nay | ||
Opening Remarks by Sol Stern
Sol Stern (born 1935) is a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to its quarterly magazine City Journal. He is the author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice (2003), and has written extensively on education reform.
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Early life
Sol Stern was born in Ramat Gan, Israel (then in Mandatory Palestine) in 1935. He was raised in the Bronx from infancy, and attended the City College of New York, the University of Iowa, and Berkeley.
Radicalism
Stern began his career with the radical magazine Ramparts. In 1967, he contributed the article " A Short Account of International Student Politics and the Cold War with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc." to the magazine. It included the allegation that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had supported the National Student Association, ties which later were confirmed by the organization itself. The CIA funded overseas' projects to the tune of $3.3 million, and recruited NSA staff members for intelligence work. In 1968, Stern signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
Conservative shift
His departure from radicalism came after New Left attacks on Israel. He also collaborated with Ronald Radosh on a research project into the evidence against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Originally intending to prove their innocence, Stern and Radosh came to believe that the Rosenbergs had been guilty of spying for the Soviet Union. New York Times described him as a "cantankerous provocateur against liberal education policies, criticizing reading curriculums that de-emphasize phonics as well as public schools that focus on social justice." Stern has written critiques of Bill Ayers' career as an education reformer for City Journal and elsewhere.