Archive for the 'Education' Category
March 3rd, 2010 by Jon Taplin
Diane Ravitch (far left in picture) has been in the forefront of the public school reform movement for two decades.
She led the Department of Education efforts in the first Bush administration for standardized testing, charter schools and bringing free market ideas to K-12 Education.
Now she feels those efforts were misguided.
She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.
“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an interview. Continue reading ‘Education Reform and Federalism’
February 18th, 2010 by Jon Taplin
When ever I raise the issue of the Cost of Empire, our conservative correspondents always respond that the real economic crisis facing America comes not from Imperial Overstretch, but from our profligate system of social insurance–Social Security and Medicare. But last week Bill Gross, our country’s leading bond manager, published a chart he called The Ring of Fire, looking at the relative economic security of the developed nations.
So how come the nations that define Social Democracy–Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands are all considered safe bets, while the U.S. is about the join the club of the economic disabled, with its public debt nearing 90% of its GDP? The Finnish government provides cradle to grave health care and universal free education as well as old age pensions. What would keep us, after we have shed the burdens of empire, from providing similar services to our citizens?
January 28th, 2010 by Jon Taplin
Apple’s stock is down almost 4% this morning in a classic “buy on the rumor, sell on the news” trader’s strategy. I’m happy to buy some of those day trader’s $199 stock. Anyone who doubts the utility of this device is just not thinking very clearly. I can say with some confidence that it is going to revolutionize academic publishing as well as the way journalism is delivered. Most of us who write books about the media are constrained by our ability to explicate a passage about say, Citizen Kane, by the inclusion of a still picture from the film. The ability to include a 30 second clip of the part of the movie you are critiquing is going to change the nature of most non-fiction E Books.
In a couple of years, the I Pad will be the device students bring to college.
January 27th, 2010 by Jon Taplin
I thought Barack gave an incredible speech. During the closing section, it felt like you could hear a pin drop in the chamber.
Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions – our corporations, our media, and yes, our government – still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.
No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there.
No wonder there’s so much disappointment.
I campaigned on the promise of change – change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change – or at least, that I can deliver it.But remember this – I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone. Democracy in a nation of three hundred million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That’s just how it is.
Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths. We can do what’s necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what’s best for the next generation.
But I also know this: if people had made that decision fifty years ago or one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago, we wouldn’t be here tonight. The only reason we are is because generations of Americans were unafraid to do what was hard; to do what was needed even when success was uncertain; to do what it took to keep the dream of this nation alive for their children and grandchildren.
As Obama spoke these words the cameras panned across Democratic and Republican legislators, their eyes fixed on the President. No one looked away. No one was twittering on his Blackberry. Because they all knew the President was speaking truth to power. And that is a rarity in the halls of Congress.
January 19th, 2010 by Jon Taplin
Times are tough for men, who held three of the four jobs lost during this recession. What to do?
Marry up.
“Men now are increasingly likely to marry wives with more education and income than they have, and the reverse is true for women,” said Paul Fucito, spokesman for the Pew Center. “In recent decades, with the rise of well-paid working wives, the economic gains of marriage have been a greater benefit for men.”
Of course, once married, the emotional insecurity of not being the breadwinner is proving harder for many men to handle than they thought.
Elaine Richardson, who is in her 50s, is divorced and owns a health care consulting firm in Westchester, said that men “call you high maintenance if you look like you don’t need anyone to take care of you.”
The brave new world of post modern relationships.
January 11th, 2010 by Jon Taplin
I’ve been talking about “the New Frugality” for a while and Friday’s consumer credit stats bear out my thesis, that something profound has changed in our desire to live within our means.
Americans borrowed less for a 10th consecutive month in November with total credit and borrowing on credit cards falling by the largest amount on records going back nearly seven decades.
I don’t think we will ever return to the point where the average household will live with a debt to income ration of 160% as they did in 2006. So this will mean a transition towards an economy in which consumer spending plays a smaller part in GDP, kind of like Germany or France. Continue reading ‘Social Democracy & The New Frugality’
January 6th, 2010 by Jon Taplin
My favorite Greek Philosopher, Epicurus, believed the good life was made up of three components.
- The company of good friends
- The freedom and autonomy to enjoy meaningful work
- The willingness to live an examined life with a core faith or philosophy
It appears from a Conference Board research study published yesterday, that the second element is missing in most American lives.
Americans of all ages and income brackets continue to grow increasingly unhappy at work-a long-term trend that should be a red flag to employers, according to a report released today by The Conference Board.
The report, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, finds only 45 percent of those surveyed say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987, the first year in which the survey was conducted. Continue reading ‘Alienation at Work’
December 30th, 2009 by Jon Taplin
The Big Ag conglomerates have a customer of last resort. When they have meat or chicken that’s not good enough for McDonalds or KFC, they sell it to the Government for the School Lunch Program!
Sign this petition and stop this outrage.
December 11th, 2009 by Jon Taplin
The Nobel committee calls the acceptance speech “a lecture”, and that is what our President gave yesterday. Many news reports have highlighted the humility and irony acknowledged at the beginning of the speech, but I thought it was worth exploring deeper into the text to pull out some of the kinds of things one might find in a great university lecture.
Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states — all these things have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today’s wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred…More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.
This seems to me to be the heart of the matter. I have long cited Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy as a prescient vision for the world of the 21st Century that Western nation states were unprepared for. But the question then turns to why the U.S. should be “the world’s unpaid cop”, tasked with controlling this anarchy. Obama tries to answer. Continue reading ‘Obama's Nobel Prize Lecture’
November 8th, 2009 by Jon Taplin
A short Fable from This American Life.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbVeN13wGFc&feature=player_embedded]
