Today, Condoleezza Rice argues that the future of the American Dream depends on getting education reform right; Eric Hanushek offers research-based prescriptions for improving left-behind schools; and Kevin Warsh writes that “fundamental reform of monetary and regulatory policy would unlock the benefits of AI to all Americans.”
Freedom Frequency
In a new essay for Freedom Frequency, Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice argues that America’s future depends on modernizing and improving its education system—and making sure that all students benefit. Citing an Education Futures Council report, she stresses that a new “operating system” for schools promises many reforms that would create a more effective and responsive learning ecosystem for everyone. At the same time, Rice says, education at all levels must embrace the tech—including artificial intelligence—that will accelerate prosperity in a rapidly changing world. Read more here.
Reforming K–12 Education
In an interview at Defining Ideas, education scholar and Senior Fellow Eric Hanushek draws on his recent research to highlight innovations that America’s schools could use to pull a lagging education system out of its pre-COVID slump. The solutions don’t lie with any single technique, he says in an interview, but with a whole-system reform including performance evaluations and better pay for better teachers. Any school that claims to focus on student achievement, Hanushek concludes, should examine the successful examples of pioneering districts and follow suit. Read more here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
“Americans would benefit from higher take-home pay and greater purchasing power if only the Federal Reserve’s leadership stopped defending its mistakes and started correcting them,” writes Distinguished Visiting Fellow Kevin Warsh at the opinion page of The Wall Street Journal. Warsh argues that the US economy is poised to boom as AI-driven innovations increase productivity and help to push prices lower. He sees Federal Reserve monetary policy as one major obstacle to the full realization of the economic “American juggernaut.” Among other policy critiques, Warsh says the Fed’s current policy stance favors Wall Street over small and medium sized “Main Street” businesses—which he maintains would benefit from lower interest rates. Read more here. [Subscription required.]
Healthcare Policy
In a NOTUS Perspectives panel, Research Fellow Lanhee J. Chen and five other health care experts were each asked to identify their top recommended change to the structure of the US health care system. Chen responded that he would favor greater price and quality transparency, so patients can make better-informed decisions regarding their care. “Patients can be made into better consumers by incentivizing both providers and payers to provide transparency into health care costs and quality,” Chen argues, concluding that more transparency in the system could “lower health spending and ultimately improve health outcomes.” Read more here.
Revitalizing History
In an essay for The Times (UK), Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson considers the causes and consequences of widespread decline in reading among adults and young people. “When people stop being able to read—to make sense of the meaning of text on a page,” Ferguson says, “they also lose the ability to make sense of the world.” The historian sees the stakes of declining readership as nothing short of civilizational, for as he argues, “without text it is hard to keep track of and communicate the rules that are necessary in a society of any complexity.” A cessation of reading, Ferguson concludes, would cut us off from the greatest thinkers of the past, and cause the loss of the ability to structure arguments and think analytically. Read more here.
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