Government Reform

Not so long ago, conservative intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. believed universities were worth fighting for. Today, conservatives seem more inclined to burn them down. In Let's Be Reasonable, conservative political theorist and professor Jonathan Marks finds in liberal education an antidote to this despair, arguing that the true purpose of college is to encourage people to be reasonable. Drawing on the ideas of John Locke and other thinkers, Marks presents the case for why, now more than ever, conservatives must not give up on higher education.

Why have so many middle-class Americans encountered so much financial trouble? In this classic analysis of hard-pressed families, the authors discover that financial stability for many middle-class Americans is all too fragile. The authors consider the changing cultural and economic factors that threaten financial security and what they imply for the future vitality of the middle class. A new preface examines the persistent and new threats that have emerged since the original publication.

Critical race theory has hijacked the US education system on every level. Parents, students, educators, and policymakers must know and support the truth about American history and reject this divisive and anti-American theory’s obsession with skin color and prejudice.

George Washington’s nightmare has been realized. Despite his warning about the negative effects of party loyalties, the US government has become paralyzed by partisanship, allowing national challenges to go unaddressed. As an independent candidate for US Senate in 2018, Neal Simon witnessed the destructive nature of modern American politics. He experienced firsthand the perverse incentives that push candidates and lawmakers to ideological extremes. He watched as party leaders resisted pragmatic solutions to our nation’s problems.

In the final decades of the 19th century, America experienced rapid industrial growth, corporate mergers, an influx of immigrants, and a rise in urban population and development. These modern changes resulted in crowded tenements, low wages, long working hours, child labor, and bad factory conditions. In response, the American people called for an end to corruption in government and supported legislation aimed at reducing these new evils of society. Consequently, during this “Progressive Era” the United States experienced one of the highest rates of reform in its history. Government ...

Are Americans truly free? In The Freedom Scale, Jake Morrett argues that personal liberty is under assault from an ever-expanding government and erosion of constitutional principles. This incisive examination of modern politics proposes a new framework for evaluating policies based on how they impact individual freedom. Morrett takes readers on a journey through the hot-button issues that can create a domino effect on freedom as a whole, like taxation, gun rights, healthcare, and education—viewing each through the lens of liberty vs. government control. He offers a blistering critique of ...

Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of Black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968. Few of the students in these schools know White children any longer.

Losing Control is a vivid history of the past half century of immigration politics and policy. It is also a dramatic ground-level account of how the story took shape. Kammer describes the economic and cultural forces that both pushed millions of migrants from home communities in Latin America and pulled them northward to the US. He shows how the backlash gradually emerged from the frustrations of American workers and communities who felt overwhelmed by the influx and betrayed by their government.

19 Jahre saß Marco Bülow im Bundestag. Offen und eindringlich berichtet er in seinem neuen Buch von seinen konkreten Erfahrungen im Parlament und zeigt ...

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, required equal access to public places and employment, and enforced desegregation of schools and the right to vote. Today, the Black community faces an alarming education gap, a higher rate of unemployment/underemployment, and inequalities in the criminal justice system. A Black agenda or strategy is necessary to reverse these critical issues on a national level through public policy such as major reform in education, employment, and criminal justice.

In the aftermath of the 2010 election, George Megalogenis considers what has happened to politics in Australia. Have we entered a new phase with minority government and the rise of the Greens and independents? Hawke, Keating and Howard years were ones of bold reform; recently we have seen an era of power without purpose. But why? Is it down to powerful lobbies, or the media, or a failure of leadership, or all of the above? And whatever the case, how will hard decisions be taken for the future? In a brilliant analysis, Megalogenis dissects the cycle of polls, focus groups and presidential politics....

Can money buy high-quality education? Studies find only a weak relationship between public school funding and educational outcomes. In The Money Myth, W. Norton Grubb proposes a powerful paradigm shift in the way we think about why some schools thrive and others fail. The greatest inequalities in America's schools lie in factors other than fiscal support. Fundamental differences in resources other than money explain the deepening divide in the success of our nation's schoolchildren.

Demokratie und Rechtsstaat sind bedroht: durch Autokraten wie Putin von außen, die fürchten, auch für sie könnte das Streben der Bevölkerung nach politischer Selbstbestimmung gefährlich werden; durch Autokraten im Inneren, die auf einer Welle populistischer Erregung ins Amt kommen und den Rechtsstaat aushöhlen; durch eine lethargische und politisch gleichgültige Bürgerschaft, die zwar seit längerem in einer Demokratie angelangt ist, sich nun aber an dieser langweilt und nicht mehr engagiert. Die Welle der Demokratisierung, die 1989 losgebrochen ist, ist verebbt. Inzwischen gibt es weltweit wieder mehr autokratische Regime als Demokratien.

Police who engage in torture are condemned by human rights activists, the media, and people across the world who shudder at their brutality. Stark revelations about torture by American forces at places like Guantanamo Bay have stoked a fascination with torture and debates about human rights. Yet despite this interest, the public knows little about the officers who actually commit such violence. Just Violence reveals the moral perspective of perpetrators and how they respond to human rights efforts.

What explains the growing class divide between the well-educated and everybody else? Noted author Brink Lindsey, a senior scholar at the Kauffman Foundation, argues that it's because economic expansion is creating an increasingly complex world in which only a minority with the right knowledge and skills - the right "human capital" - reap the majority of the economic rewards. The complexity of today's economy is not only making these lucky elites richer - it is also making them smarter.

Spätestens seit Lockdown und Schulausfall hinterfragen Eltern den Sinn vieler Maßnahmen rund um Schule und Kindeswohl. Zu Recht. Psychotherapeutin Gunda Frey warnt: "Wir erschaffen eine traumatisierte Generation!" Kinder werden heute von Geburt bis Schulabschluss den Zwängen eines auf "Funktionieren" optimierten Systems ausgesetzt - Rücksichtnahme auf ihre Bedürfnisse: meist Fehlanzeige! Das Ergebnis: Kinder, denen Eltern, Erzieher und Lehrer nicht das ermöglichen, was gut, gesund und nötig wäre. Die Resultate sind fatal.

Al enmarcar históricamente los sistemas educacionales tanto en los países Latinoamericanos como en los Estados Unidos, aparecerán las reformas educativas implementadas en las décadas de los 80’s, 90 y al principio de los 2000’s como un hito que establecerá las maneras en que estaban instituidos y cómo funcionaban los sistemas escolares antes y después de dichas reformas.

Eine Streitschrift über die Missstände der Schulpolitik von der Stimme einer empörten Generation. Deutschlands ehemaliger oberster Schülersprecher Dario Schramm ist einer der schärfsten und profiliertesten Kritiker der Schulpolitik seit dem ersten Lockdown und klagt an: Wie kann es sein, dass Kinder und Jugendliche nicht nach ihren Bedürfnissen gefragt werden? Warum werden sie wenn überhaupt nur als allerletzte mitgedacht? Und wieso wird die Lufthansa mit einem Milliarden-Paket gerettet, während es an Schulen immer noch mit Luftfiltern und schnellem Internet hapert?

Unsere Schulen stecken in einer Krise, aus der sie sich nur sehr langsam herausarbeiten. Lehrer, Eltern und Schüler sind frustriert, Arbeitgeber klagen, dass die Schulabgänger nicht die nötigen Kenntnisse für den Einstieg ins Berufsleben mitbringen. Die Krise hat viele Ursachen, eine davon ist die Situation der Lehrer. Vor riesigen Klassen können sie nicht auf die individuellen Stärken und Schwächen ihrer Schüler eingehen, Sparkonzepte, überfrachtete Lehrpläne und eine übermächtige Bürokratie ersticken jedes Engagement.

There was a time in this country when people who were well-off had two homes, and the super-rich may have had three residences. In 2008 a prominent politician was asked how many homes he had. He didn’t know. The number was eight...and in the ensuing years the income gap has only widened. Billionaires now have so much money and power that the very fabric of our nation is coming unraveled. Tax policy is fundamental to a nation’s stability. We need to return to the system that brought us a large, dynamic, educated middle class.