Interesting story on how the educational accountability movement began in the progressive era and why teachers have not been able to resist or stand up to it. The author, however, suggests that higher education has been able to resist the accountability movement, but anyone involved in reaccreditation at a college or university knows that isn’t true anymore.
by 
Interesting analysis of the cost of U.S. wars accounting for inflation. I was a little surprised the war that came out on top, mostly because it wasn’t one of the longest in U.S. history.
Source: The Most Expensive Wars in U.S. History
by Spotify is going to begin hosting streaming videos and podcasts alongside music. I’m not sure I like this change in focus. Hopefully it doesn’t mess up how they provide music.
Source: Spotify Will Stream Videos And Podcasts – BuzzFeed News
by This is story in The Atlantic about the importance of the Indie Rock movement that began in the 1980s and how it influence a generation of geeky white kids.
Source: How Indie Rock Changed the World
by Interesting story from Inside Higher Education about a way of teaching research skills in the Humanities. The inquiry approach is something I could see using in Historiography, not sure about team-based research though.
Source: Trying Team-Based Inquiry to Teach Research Skills in the Humanities | GradHacker | InsideHigherEd
by Great Chronicle of Higher Education piece about how technology can not address inequalities in education, because it does not have the power to inspire the motivation that students require to succeed. Moreover, technology without a trained and dedicated instructor also fails to achieve highest of outcomes.
Source: Why Technology Will Never Fix Education – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education
by Very interesting story about the grade level of the lyrics in popular music. Country comes out looking pretty good and so does Nickelback (?!?!). It’s hard to argue with the data – although I would really like to.
Source: Lyric Intelligence In Popular Music: A Ten Year Analysis
by “Blues Legend B.B. King dies at 89,” is Variety’s tribute to the passing of B.B. King. It provides a much more historical view of King’s career than the piece in Rolling Stone.
by The Atlantic has an interesting article, “Could a Robot Write the Perfect Pop Song?” It includes a section that examines the Japanese pop artist avatar, Miku.
by B. B. King, one of the best R&B guitarists of all time passed away today. Here is the tribute the Rolling Stones posted on him: Derek Trucks on B. B. King: We’re All His Kids.
You can hear one of my favorite B.B. King songs below.
by “Takeoff: The Oral History of Nirvana’s Crossover Moment,” is an interesting group of quotes from underground bands of the 1990s about Nirvana and the Nevermind Album.
by “How Hip-Hop Conquered Streaming,” is a buzzfeed news article that speculates on why hip-hop music does so well on streaming services like Spotify.
by This interesting story, “How We Discovered Three Revolutions of American Pop,” marks 1964, 1983, and 1991 as the most important turning points in rock music.
by Here is another story about how streaming music is changing the basic economics of the music business. Kelsey McKinney’s “If you want to use music, you’ve got to pay for it: Music’s crisis, and how to fix it,” provides some new insight in the music and technology.
by