Virginia Expels Literary Tradition From State English Standards

The Virginia Department of Education has approved a draft of new English Language Arts standards. They make for a dreary read. If you care about novels and poems, if you think Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are essential voices that every young American should hear, if you feel, as W. E. B. Du Bois did, that an hour with Shakespeare is a mighty inspiration that can relieve the dismal circumstances of life, this fresh version of ELA in the Old Dominion will only depress you. The document is an expression...