Today, Thomas Sowell and Peter M. Robinson discuss Sowell’s education and upbringing, which inform what Sowell says are profound shortcomings in the modern K–12 school system. Thomas Dee’s research is transformed into a new video about the causes and costs of chronic school absenteeism. And Matt Pottinger argues President Trump is successfully resisting the isolationists in his party and administration when it comes to his foreign policy and defense agendas.
Reforming K–12 Education
In a Q&A published on Freedom Frequency, Hoover Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell talks with Distinguished Policy Fellow Peter M. Robinson about his educational upbringing and its challenges and explains the shortcomings of the modern school system, which include “failing to teach students how to think” and express their views honestly. Sowell laments the attacks on charter schools, which provide a lifeline to disadvantaged students and others who are poorly served by the educational system’s inertia. Read more here.
In a new video for the Intellections video series, research by Senior Fellow Thomas Dee informs our understanding of the persistent challenge of school absenteeism in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, one in four US public-school students was chronically absent, missing at least 10 percent of the school year. This surge in school absenteeism widens learning gaps, limits opportunity, and weakens civic readiness. Confronting the problem requires targeted action—tracking attendance data in real time, diagnosing local causes, engaging parents, and restoring community norms around daily attendance. Watch the video here.
Determining America’s Role in the World
Writing in Freedom Frequency, Distinguished Visiting Fellow Matt Pottinger reports that President Trump is diverging from the isolationist wing of his party, as well as key staff members, while making statements (and actions) that support deterrence. How will this mesh with the Pentagon’s draft national defense strategy, which puts a priority on policing the homeland and the Western Hemisphere? The president who has bombed Iran, reinforced Ukraine, and bucked up NATO has, most notably, taken a giant profile in ending the fighting in Gaza. Now, Pottinger writes, “odds are good that Trump will see Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitions much as he has come to see Putin’s.” Read more here.
Confronting and Competing with China
In The Economist, Research Fellow Dan Wang argues the current trajectory of the Trump administration means “America is getting authoritarianism,” without any of the benefits China’s citizens derive from authoritarianism, like rapidly constructed public spaces, top-notch transportation infrastructure, or a surge in domestic green electricity generation. Instead, Wang argues America is only receiving the negatives: US generals and admirals are hauled before their leader akin to China’s Great Hall gatherings, firms must offer up shares of their capital to the state (Intel and US Steel), and the government shows “a broad cruelty towards people the regime judges to be weak.” Read more here. [Subscription required]
The Environment
In a new working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Senior Fellow Dominic Parker and coauthors examine a curious phenomenon in Quebec, Canada, where its southern region is devoid of gray wolves due to historic overhunting, but its larger northern expanse still houses a healthy population of the animals. Because the wolves feed primarily on deer, Parker and coauthors find the gray wolves in Quebec north of the St. Lawrence River “reduce the share of animal collisions” with humans in vehicles in that region by 38 percent. They equate the reduction in crashes enabled by the presence of wolves to be worth $29 million US per year. Read more here.
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
A new article by Grason Logue at The Dispatch analyzes the implications of the recent report “Biosecurity Really: A Strategy for Victory” published by Hoover’s Bio-Strategies and Leadership research team. As Logue notes, the report’s lead author Science Fellow Drew Endy believes that the United States has about a thousand days “to get serious about emerging biological threats spurred by advances in biotechnology and AI.” In the report, Endy and coauthors outline “what policymakers need to do to ensure the country’s future biosecurity as the ‘biorevolution’ picks up speed in the coming years and decades,” potentially enabling many more individuals to home-grow or synthesize hazardous items like explosives or pathogens. “We think of biology starting with how it is in nature, and that’s what biology is, and that’s what biology does,” explains Endy in the article. “The editing wave, we’re changing the things that already exist, but the synthesis wave is a blank slate.” Read more here. [Subscription required]
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