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January 12, 2024
Here we go again. An oft-repeated economic claim on social media is that most Americans lack the means to cover a $400 emergency expense. More evidence that most of us in “late capitalist” America live paycheck to paycheck. Indeed, another common claim on social media is that nearly 80 percent of US workers live paycheck…
January 11, 2024
House Republicans released a new legislative package today aimed at bringing down the cost of college, holding universities accountable for the value of their diplomas, and reforming our broken federal student lending system. The College Cost Reduction Act represents the largest serious and comprehensive higher education reform package in decades and, in theory, has plenty…
December 19, 2023
October 18, 2023
In a recent article for The Atlantic, former AEI president Arthur Brooks makes the case that to prevent burnout at work we need to create “meaningful boundaries” between work and the rest of our lives. As usual, Brooks has excellent advice about how to navigate life’s trenches and stay motivated and happy. Yet there is one piece missing: encouraging reflection on what drives us, what makes us tick,…
October 16, 2023
More than 20,000 physical therapists left the profession in 2021 alone, notes a recent report. It’s therefore hard to imagine why anyone would want to discourage universities from offering more physical therapy programs to help renew the ranks. Unfortunately, that’s just what the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) did recently when it voted to stop…
October 10, 2023
If it’s true that you can judge a society by how it treats its weakest members, then one shortcut to judging societies would be looking at their child welfare systems. A recent article in The New Yorker by Margaret Talbot gives readers a chilling view into Austria’s foster care system in the post-war years. The story revolves…
September 7, 2023
It’s a perennial hazard of the policy and opinion space that just about the time one is ready to hold forth on a topic, another, smarter, faster writer jumps in. On the one hand, it’s a bummer; on the other, the explanation of the issue is so good and comprehensive, all one can do is…
June 13, 2023
In The Great School Rethink, education policy sentinel Frederick M. Hess offers a pithy and perceptive appraisal of American schooling and finds, in the uncertain period following pandemic disruption, an ideal moment to reimagine US education. Now is the time, he asserts, to ask hard questions about how schools use time and talent, how they work…
May 4, 2020
In the years after A Nation at Risk, conservatives’ ideas to reform America’s lagging education system gained much traction. Key items like school choice and rigorous academic standards drew bipartisan support and were put into practice across the country. Today, these gains are in retreat, ceding ground to progressive nostrums that do little to boost the…