June 18, 2024
A Unified Theory of Education
When it comes to education, these have been the best of times and the worst of times. In 2021, Arizona adopted the nation’s first universal education-savings-account (ESA) program. In 2022, West Virginia adopted the second. That trickle became a flood in 2023, with states from Arkansas to Utah to Ohio adopting their own programs. Around…
June 18, 2024
Economic Opportunity and Social Mobility
Years ago, I worked at the Pew Charitable Trusts on something called the Economic Mobility Project. In 2009, we commissioned a survey covering opportunity, mobility, and the American Dream. One revealing question we asked was the following: The term American Dream means different things to different people. Here are some ways some people have described…
June 18, 2024
Donald Trump is an Outlier on the Right: When It Comes to Fidelity and Marriage, Democrats Face Bigger Problems
The political and legal fallout of Donald Trump’s affair with Stormy Daniels has not only complicated his run for the presidency, but it has also raised a deeper concern: Has the Republican standard bearer’s marital misbehavior eroded our collective commitment to the values and virtues that sustain the institution of marriage? On the left, journalist…
June 15, 2024
Reimagining Early Education
For years, conservatives have dropped the ball on early childhood education policy, almost entirely ceding the playing field to the left. This has led to programs that lack guidance from some important conservative intuitions, like fiscal restraint, the centrality of family and the power of markets. Early childhood education is a crucial kitchen-table issue for…
June 13, 2024
Why Married Fathers Matter
The eighth grade girls cleaned up at the middle school graduation I attended last week. Of the four major awards, three went to girls, and just one to a boy. This pattern is all too typical in American life today. Two-thirds of high school students in the top 10% are girls, while boys dominate the…
June 13, 2024
A Deal to Trump Student Loans
Last month, President Joe Biden bragged about how he forgave another $7 billion in student loans. “The Supreme Court blocked me,” he said, “but they didn’t stop me.” These billions were added to the administration’s tab that already exceeds $400 billion. And that doesn’t count the $500 billion the Supreme Court blocked him from forgiving, or the over $1 trillion he’s effectively trying to…
June 12, 2024
Our Homeless Problem is Getting Out Of Control — What Can We Do?
The ongoing debate over fining individuals for sleeping in public spaces is currently being deliberated by the Supreme Court in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. The case underscores a critical juncture in how we address homelessness. While the court’s decision will undoubtedly carry weight, it risks overshadowing the more pressing issue at hand: the urgent…
June 10, 2024
The Economic World We’ve Lost
Populism has infected both major parties in the United States, leading to policies that previous generations of economic policymakers would immediately recognized as foolhardy and counter-productive. But whether the country can escape its self-destructive pessimism is anyone’s guess. WASHINGTON, DC – The past decade has brought a sea change in US economic policy, and not…
June 7, 2024
An Epidemic of Loneliness in the Age of Boundaries
Social media features a different viral villain every day. If we’re lucky, he or she tells us something about ourselves. In just such a case, a man named Marcus Shepard got more than 12 million views on his post bragging of a breakup with a friend with whom he hadn’t had “meaningful offline contact in almost…
June 6, 2024
How New Graduates Can Thrive in a Workplace Dominated by AI
Dwight Eisenhower’s advice about plans and planning is still relevant today On June 6, the world will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the 40th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “the Boys of Pont du Hoc” speech honoring those who helped turn back the Nazi threat on the beaches of Normandy. We are now as far from Reagan’s speech as the speech was…