Author: Nola Jones

Hard-throwing pitchers are associated with a certain mythology, and Jacob Misiorowski already possesses more of it than most players twice his age. However, the most important aspect of his story is likely the one that is overlooked or nearly ignored. There was a more subdued era on a small campus in southwest Missouri before the 102.3 mph fastballs, the All-Star selection that divided baseball, and the Brewers cap with the number 32 stitched on the side. No one really wants to discuss the years a player wasn’t a star, so it’s easy to overlook. Neosho, where Crowder College is located,…

At one point during the second quarter at Scott Stadium, it appeared as though Princeton was losing. With a 3-0 lead, Notre Dame resembled the squad that had won two of the previous three national championships. The Fighting Irish exuded the kind of composure that comes from winning, just like champions typically do. For a short while on the afternoon of Memorial Day, it seemed as though the script had already been written. After that, Princeton scored eleven consecutive goals. Eleven. in a championship match. It’s the kind of run that doesn’t typically occur in a national championship game, especially…

Small towns have a certain quiet in the morning, the kind where you can hear a screen door slam from two blocks away. Because there isn’t a preschool nearby, the silence lasts all day in dozens of these rural American towns as well as in rural areas of Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Liberia. Not a nursery. There isn’t a certified early childhood educator at a gate. For many years, this absence was considered an unfortunate consequence of low population density and a fact of geography. It is becoming more difficult to refer to it as such in light of the…

In the weeks leading up to the release of a UNESCO report, education ministries experience a certain kind of silence. It’s evident in the cautious press releases, the abruptly scheduled briefings, and the increasingly elusive officials. This is also true of the 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report, which this year concentrated on equity and access. The World Organization for Early Childhood Education, or OMEP, has given early indications that the United States will not find it enjoyable to read. The report is not a silent document in and of itself. It begins with the startling statistic that, for the seventh…

The word itself sounds almost archaic, like something you might hear in a 1970s courtroom drama. When embezzlement is stripped of its legal significance, however, it refers to something subtly contemporary: the slow, intentional misappropriation of funds or property by a person who was entrusted with its management. It wasn’t a stranger scaling a window. Not a mask-wearing thief. Someone with a name on the company directory, a desk, and a login. People don’t realize how important that distinction is. Since the person had the right to be close to the money, embezzlement isn’t really theft in the traditional sense.…

Despite the fact that Blythe Hinitz has won numerous awards, they are not the first thing you notice about her career. It’s the endurance. In a nation that has never quite figured out what to do with its youngest children, 45 years of attending the same college in the same field. These days, that kind of perseverance is uncommon. Perhaps it was always the case. In 2015, Exchange magazine named Hinitz, a professor of elementary and early childhood education at The College of New Jersey, one of just three people in the US to be named an Exceptional Master Leader.…