New America on Education

Imagine for a moment that you are driving your child to the hospital. She has a high fever and is suffering from severe abdominal pain. It's unclear what's wrong but she is in definite need of medical attention.

Now imagine that the only doctor on call is a recently graduated medical student. It's her first day on the job and there is no experienced physician or surgeon available for consultation. Are you satisfied with this level of care for your child?… more

This story has been brought to you by the letter S and the numbers 15 and 40. (Or, as the Count might say in his adorable Transylvanian accent, "fivteen and forrrty-HA, HA, HA!") The S, as anyone who has ever watched television can deduce by now, stands for Sesame Street. The 40 is almost as easy: this year marks the 40th anniversary of sunny days, friendly neighbors and the fuzzy creatures who live on that street where the air is sweet. If you haven't watched recently… more

Steve Barr stood in the breezeway at Alain Leroy Locke High School, at the edge of the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, on a February morning. He's more than six feet tall, with white-gray hair that's perpetually unkempt, and the bulk of an ex-jock. Beside him was Ramon Cortines--neat, in a trim suit--the Los Angeles Unified School District's new superintendent. Cortines had to be thinking about last May, when, as a senior deputy superintendent, he had visited under very different… more

Barack Obama's bold, ambitious budget plan proves that he is the true heir of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Consider Obama's Rooseveltian energy plan. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to mobilize Americans to create a new source of energy: atomic power. Although he was urged to focus on government-funded R&D, FDR chose a different route. He wisely encouraged private capital to invest in atomic energy research by a variety of tax incentives. To make atomic power investment more palatable to private capital,

For decades, psychologists have warned against giving children prizes or money for their performance in school. "Extrinsic" rewards, they say - a stuffed animal for a 4-year-old who learns her alphabet, cash for a good report card in middle or high school - can undermine the joy of learning for its own sake and can even lead to cheating. But many economists and businesspeople disagree, and their views often prevail in the educational marketplace. Reward programs that pay students are under way in many cities. In

As Congress debates a roughly $825 billion economic stimulus package, many interest groups want to make sure their pet programs get a piece of the action. The education community is no exception.

Various advocates are urging Congress to use the stimulus to fund universal pre-k, expanded after-school programs, education technology, and new teacher compensation packages, among other education initiatives.

I recommend early focus on education finance matters. The administration needs to meet and improve upon campaign promises requiring substantial resources. There are pressing student loan issues and pent-up demands for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funding. Because the stimulus and budget are being developed now, you have a window of opportunity to address all three areas.

Advocates for early childhood education are understandably excited about their prospects under President-elect Barack Obama's administration. During the campaign, Mr. Obama pledged to increase federal early education spending by $10 billion annually.

Currently, the two largest federal early childhood programs, Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, spend about $12 billion annually combined. A $10 billion increase would almost double that investment.

In a few weeks, the Florida Gators and Oklahoma Sooners will face off on college football's biggest stage in the Bowl Championship Series' National Championship game. Unfortunately, many of the college seniors playing in this game will not be walking across the graduation stage next May. Instead, their schools will revel in the short-term glory of gridiron success, while the players will have to face the long-term consequences of joining the workforce without a college degree. 

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the housing bubble. We created a college tuition bubble as well. As with housing, a toxic combination of easy credit and unsophisticated and unrealistically optimistic consumers has driven college prices sky-high.

Those prices aren't coming down anytime soon - and as the credit crisis continues, that means there's a risk that students who max out on federal loans and need extra private aid won't be able to borrow enough to afford expensive colleges.

"I was inspired by Jack Kennedy," a high school teacher replied when I asked what had moved him to join the Peace Corps and work in Cameroon.

A grand, Kennedy-esque call to service flittered throughout Barack Obama's campaign, but never took firm ground. I'm concerned it might never solidify; that nascent campaign ideas, and a critical component of the Obama campaign strategy, may not come to fruition once he takes office.

For months, the Wall Street credit crisis has made many families nervous that the widespread availability of student loans will dry up. But no matter how many banks fail, there is no danger that families will be deprived access to federal student loans. None.

More than 100 banks have stopped issuing student loans, but about 2,000 continue to originate federal student loans. The government maintains two "fail-safe" systems. To date, not a single student has been unable to get a federal Stafford Loan. Every family, regardless… more

Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad has probably never met Soledad Moya, an eighth-grader at Middle School 302 in the South Bronx. But both are big believers in an approach that has people wringing their hands and wagging their fingers: paying students to perform on standardized tests. Moya's school is a 45-minute subway ride from the Manhattan hotel where Broad took the stage at last month's Clinton Global Initiative to announce a $6-million grant to help launch EdLabs -- an initiative at Harvard University to advance innovations in public… more

This month, as parents of college-age students sign promissory notes for student loans and watch tuition checks diminish their bank accounts, Congress is encouraging all parents to wake up and start planning. While National College Savings Month -- meant to spread awareness about the need to save for higher education -- has a laudable goal, promoting the importance of saving won't do much to help struggling families afford the cost of higher education.

During the Olympics, China showed the world that it can throw a heck of a coming out party. But traveling here afterward, one sees the many complexities and challenges facing this vast and ancient land. 

Especially in the rural areas--where most people still live--the impressive economic rise of China has penetrated only superficially. True, the Communist Party, which still runs nearly everything, brought electricity and other development here in the early 1980s. But while some appliances like television and telephones are increasingly common, indoor plumbing, electric ovens and… more

Barack Obama wants to give families a refundable $4,000 tax credit for college, if their children complete a required amount of community service. It's a fine, conventional Democratic idea. It could be a lot more powerful, though, if Obama coupled it with an old Republican favorite - depositing his $4,000 credit into private accounts like the so-called 529 plans that so many upper-income families use to save for college.

A fair number of freshmen arriving at their colleges this week are legacies, a term that sounds faintly disreputable. Aren't these the students who get into top-tier colleges because their parents went there and donate heavily?

That's what the critics of admission preferences for children of alumni say, and those critics got a boost from research released earlier this month.

A paper by a Duke University sociology professor and… more

* This article is adapted from Reihan Salam's and Ross Douthat's Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.

It was only four years ago that conservatives -- and a great many liberals -- were convinced that the Democratic party was doomed to become a purely regional institution: "a national party no more," to borrow the title of Georgia Democrat-turned-Bush supporter Zell Miller's 2003 memoir. Pundits brandished county-by-county maps showing blue enclaves… more

Twenty years ago, with just under 51% of the vote, California voters approved Proposition 98, a constitutional amendment establishing a minimum funding guarantee for education. For years afterward, officials at the California Teachers Assn. (the initiative's main backer) and other proponents made a habit of describing Proposition 98 as having receiving "overwhelming support" from voters.

Today, the education funding guarantee is as popular as the teachers union has long wished -- a true third rail of California government that zaps politicians who dare to suggest altering it. So… more

Summer has arrived in Baltimore, and so has summer school -- bringing with it a chance for students who improve on their High School Assessment exams to pocket something more than academic success. A few months ago, Baltimore schools CEO Andres Alonso unveiled a controversial proposal to improve city schools: Pay students to perform. It's a simple idea that has generated quite a bit of controversy from purists who cringe at the thought of paying students to learn and from… more