March 6, 2024
College or Trade School? How About Both?
For too long, our debates on post-secondary education have taken a binary form: either “college for everyone” or “learn a trade.” But in an era when career trajectories are no longer linear, and when technology is rapidly and unpredictably evolving, the ability to adapt and acquire new skills is essential. What we need instead is a…
March 6, 2024
It’s Time to Scrap the Federal Student Loan Program
It may come as a surprise, but the Biden administration has effectively abolished the federal student loan program. Well, at least if a “student loan program” is understood as one in which students borrow money and then eventually repay it. That program has been replaced by a perverse entitlement in which students borrow taxpayer funds,…
March 5, 2024
The Societal Cost of the Marriage Decline
Marriage rates are plummeting. More young people are delaying or avoiding dating altogether. Pew Research recently found that 1 in 4 40-year-old American adults have never been married. Parenthood is viewed with much greater apprehension among young people than it once was. Young women express growing reservations about starting families, and many believe marriage benefits them less than it…
March 5, 2024
A Conservative Vision for Education Reform
For two guys who just published a book about the need for a conservative vision for education policy, San Francisco has been a gift that keeps on giving. When we were writing the book, the school board, which adamantly refused to reopen schools for nearly a year, instead (unsuccessfully) devoted its energies to renaming dozens of schools — including those named for…
March 4, 2024
Teen Suicide and the Limits of Sociology
“No one, it appears, was free to just parent as they wanted to parent—free of the web of social ties that both gave their lives meaning and set firm constraints around expected behaviors.” This observation from a new book about the town of Poplar Grove—the fictional name for a real, wealthy community where there have…
March 4, 2024
As the family goes, so goes the state. Utah gets this
When it comes to realizing the nation’s most important ideals — from the American dream to the “pursuit of happiness” — Utah has a well-deserved reputation for leading out. The state has a pioneering record when it comes to maximizing the odds that poor kids make it in America and that its citizenry is happy. And the research…
March 4, 2024
The state of the union isn’t strong because of the state of our unions
Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president, is justly famous for underlining the importance of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” for our new nation in the Declaration of Independence. But as we close in on the forty-sixth president’s 2024 State of the Union address in less than a week, we must face this fact:…
March 1, 2024
How the Children’s Bureau Lost Its Way
“It’s definitely very empowering when you get involved. Like anytime I finish a pair of beaded earrings. I feel like, wow, I just did that.” This message of empowerment through beading was tweeted out by the federal Administration for Children and Families recently. It’s one of a series of head-scratching messages offered by the agency…
February 29, 2024
Parents’ Rights, Yes. But Parent Responsibilities, Too
Americans disagree with one another about all manner of important topics when it comes to schools and schooling. That’s inevitable in a nation of more than 300 million people. And even good-faith disagreements will inevitably lead to a certain degree of conflict and strife. That’s part of what it means to live in a free…
February 23, 2024
After Milton’s MBTA Housing Defeat, The Way Forward Is With Persuasion, Not Mandates
It’s difficult to avoid seeing Milton’s referendum defeat of a proposed zoning law to permit higher-density housing construction as a signal setback for the state’s effort to pressure towns to make housing more affordable. There’s no getting around the importance of that effort. High housing prices not only burden current Bay State residents but act as a…