With the presidential campaigns well under way, talk of polarization once again fills the air. Although Americans think that polarization has increased, that is a misperception. By the standard definition of polarization—the middle loses to the extremes—there is no evidence of increasing polarization among the public at large.
The Becker Friedman Institute of the University of Chicago and the Hoover Institution of Stanford University teamed up yesterday to put on a Conference on Elections, Policymaking, and Economic Uncertainty. The conference was held at the Hoover Institution Offices in Washington D.C. Steve Davis, Lars Hansen and I organized it.
Barack Obama won re-election four years ago largely because the 2012 electorate had more Democrats than Republicans—and because the president held serve with his fellow Democrats. In one sense, the story of the 2016 election can be distilled into a single question: Can Hillary Clinton do likewise?
Last October, we lamented New York City’s neglect of high-ability students, particularly in its low-income neighborhoods. Since then, the district and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña have taken steps to mitigate the problem. Unfortunately, their efforts fall way short.
Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed two high-profile anti-climate change bills – Senate Bill 32 and Assembly Bill 197 – which double down on California’s already aggressive environmental efforts despite the fact that they aren’t working as planned.
School failure is no longer the United States’ most pressing educational problem—mediocrity is. Both Trump and Clinton could do a lot of good by changing the tone of the education reform debate—and backing it up with a few discrete changes in policy.
An astonishingly bad piece appeared in Politico this week under an admittedly arresting headline: “The Case Against James Comey: Not Since Hoover Has an FBI Director Shown Such a Lack of Accountability.”
How much medical history should presidential candidates disclose? Activists launch a new campaign to pardon Edward Snowden, just in time for the launch of a biopic on the world’s most famous leaker.
Hoover Institution fellow Checker Finn explains how we’re getting close to a universal belief in the concept of school choice and how this is changing education for the better. Many students who used to be trapped in failing public schools now have the opportunity to choose between public, private, charter, and magnet schools.
Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen discusses the 2016 elections, the candidates, and issues of concern to the South Bay, as well as statewide and national campaigns.
Dariusz Pachocki, Assistant Professor in the Department of Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing at John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, discusses his research on textual variants in the works of Polish novelist Leopold Tyrmand.
U.S. intelligence agencies are expanding spying operations against Russia on a greater scale than at any time since the end of the Cold War, U.S. officials said.
The United Nations General Assembly gets underway this week in New York, and beginning next Tuesday, 195 leaders from around the world will parade before the UN’s green marble rostrum and deliver speeches.
In 1987, education scholars Diane Ravitch and Chester E. Finn, Jr. co-authored a book entitled What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? The short answer: not much. Ravitch and Finn based their study on findings from the First National Assessment of History and Literature.
Lurking in the background of this year’s highly unusual election campaign is the notion that the American political system has become both dysfunctional and corrupt.
I have signed on to the letter asking President Obama to pardon Edward Snowden that was released today. I know this will be an unpopular position among many of my former colleagues in the national security community. My reasons for doing so are not fully captured by that letter.
It’s back-to-school season, and the smell of defense reform is in the air. Depending on how much of a wonk you are, the mere mention of the U.S. defense acquisition system will either make you fall asleep (normal person) or tear your hair out (Hill staffer, Pentagon drone, etc.).
California has historically led the nation in its ambitious adoption of clean energy technologies. The state has the highest percentage of electric vehicles on the road, the largest number of solar panels installed on rooftops and regulatory processes that allow consumers to advocate for an evolving energy landscape.
