Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform since Sputnik
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Chester E. Finn, Jr., March 27, 2008
Checker (as he’s known) has been the nation’s most incisive education scholar and critic for more than a generation. The fact, moreover, that he has been more prolific than virtually anyone else in the field has made his contribution that much larger. More specifically still, no one has been more effective – working both outside and inside of government – in making the case for high standards, consequential accountability, fiscal good sense, and significantly expanded educational freedom.
Bill Bennett, by the way, is of same mind, calling his former colleague in the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan administration (as well as Mitch Pearlstein’s old boss back then) “simply the nation’s single best education expert.”
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: What are the Real Economic Costs?
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Margo Thorning, March 6, 2008
Whatever one thinks or fears about global warming -- how significant or hyped it might be, how dangerous or inconsequential it might be, or how manmade or naturally occurring its causes or non-causes might be -- it's increasingly difficult to find any sector of society not responding or adapting in some way. This is all the more reason to take account of economic by-products which, almost certainly, will grow in importance in shaping American lives and livelihoods.
Economist Margo Thorning discusses the likely consequences of Minnesota's proposed Climate Mitigation Action Plan on employment, household income, and new investments in the state. She also talks about the likely economic and environmental effects of bills currently before Congress, including the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. And Dr. Thorning will suggest cost-effective approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Minnesota, across the United States, and around the planet.
Can Politicians Hold to Principle Without Brutalizing Each Other?
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Roger Moe & Steve Sviggum, February 13, 2008
Politicians say they're willing to compromise -- as long as they're not forced to compromise their principles. As caveats go, this one has been known to lead to more rancor and roadblocks than most. It also leads to more nastiness than voters usually appreciate.
DFLer Roger Moe and Republican Steve Sviggum, two of Minnesota's legendary legislators, will talk about how men and women in public life can remain philosophically true to themselves and find solutions to critical issues while staying clear of besmirching their colleagues' intelligence, intentions, patriotism, good looks, and family trees.
Is America an Experiment? Vitalizing Conservatism in Minnesota and the Nation
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Wilfred M. McClay, January 17, 2008
Ever since the time of its Founding, our American nation has been understood as a great experiment, both by ourselves and by the world. But what does it mean to think of a nation as an "experiment"? Does it mean that everything about our society and government is open to constant revision, so that change is the only constant? Or is the idea of America as an experiment actually a deeply conservative idea, one which gives us insight into what American conservatism has been, and what it needs to become in the 21st Century?
Iran: What Should the United States Do?
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A. John Radsan, December 4, 2007
U.S. policy toward Iran, he writes, should "go over to the dark side" and entail a "multi-layered plan of aggressive actions." But unlike those who call for military strikes, "our most aggressive actions -- for now -- should focus on covert actions by the CIA." Such actions, he continues, "could increase support for dissidents and separatist forces within Iran, thereby attacking the infrastructure of the regime's global sponsorship of terrorism and other disruptive activities."
Protecting the Constitutional Right to Earn an Honest Living
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William H. (Chip) Mellor, November 13, 2007
Why is economic liberty no less precious than other rights? Why is it often protected so poorly? And what is IJ doing to strengthen economic freedom across the country?
Mr. Mellor speaks about IJ's ongoing and successful efforts in challenging economic regulations that deny individuals the right to pursue occupations of their choice. Men and women, for example, seeking to be florists, hair-braiders, casket-resellers, equine dentists -- and most recently, taxi drivers in Minneapolis.
Educational Entrepreneurship: Why is there so little?
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Frederick M. Hess, September 2007
Listen to Dr. Rick Hess will talk about how school choice advocates have "long operated in the hope that it would spur districts to dramatically improve." Or failing that, they've assumed choice would "summon forth a wealth of impressive new providers." Yet despite a "variety of promising sparks," he contends, "neither expectation has been met." Why?
According to Dr. Hess, debate over choice has failed to recognize that "consumer freedom is only half the market equation." Or more to the point, "demand unanswered by a supply-side response will not deliver hoped-for school improvements."
Safeguarding and Rebuilding America's Physical Infrastructure: The Indispensable Role of Markets
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Robert Poole, September 2007
In the terrible wake of the 35W bridge collapse, please join us for a special American Experiment Luncheon Forum at which Robert Poole, founder of the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles, talks about better ways of rebuilding our nation's Interstate and urban expressway system while simultaneously expanding its capacity to cope with growth.
View Mr. Poole's PowerPoint Presentation on America's Infrastructure
A Kitchen Table Conversation About Minneapolis and Its Future
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Peter Bell, Gary Cunningham, R.T. Rybak, Moderated by Mitch Pearlstein, July 2007
Three of Minneapolis' most insightful leaders, Peter Bell, Chairman of the Metropolitan Council; Gary Cunningham,Vice President, Northwest Area Foundation; and R. T. Rybak, Mayor of Minneapolis; talk deeply about their city, especially about its young people, many of whom are flying, but far too many of whom are drowning.
Searching for Climate Change: A More Temperate Take on Global Warming
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John R. Christy, June 2007
Prof. John R. Christy -- one of a handful of scientists to actually build "data sets of climate variation and change from scratch" -- talks about how finding "dramatic changes in climate systems" is really quite difficult.
Dr. Christy is professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he and a colleague have collected and analyzed global temperature information from satellite-observed microwave data going back to 1979. For this breakthrough, he was awarded NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. He likewise has been honored by the American Meteorological Society, which later named him a Fellow -- and since 2000, he's also been known as "Alabama State Climatologist."
A contributor and lead author to several reports of the U.N. International Panel on Global Climate Change, Professor Christy earned his doctorate at the University of Illinois.
View Dr. Christy's PowerPoint Presentation on Climate Change
Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide
Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters
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Arthur C. Brooks, April 2007
"When I started doing research on charity, I expected to find that political liberals -- who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did -- would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.
"I confess the prejudices of my past here to emphasize that the findings in this book -- many of which may appear conservative and support a religious, hardworking, family-oriented lifestyle -- are faithful to the best available evidence and contrary to my political and cultural roots."
View Dr. Brooks' PowerPoint Presentation on Charity
Achievement Gaps: What Will It Take to Close Them?
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Paul E. Peterson, March 2007
Professor Peterson has edited and written two invaluable books in the last few years.
In Generational Change: Closing the Test Score Gap, an anthology featuring essays by ten distinguished scholars on desegregation, early childhood education and other parts of the puzzle, he said this about No Child Left Behind: "The law does not hold students accountable for their own performance. NCLB instead reinforces the image that students are objects to be manipulated, not people who need to acquire a sense of discipline, responsibility, and self-respect."
And in The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools (co-authored with William G. Howell), he concluded: "Voucher interventions that serve African American students seem particularly promising."
View Dr. Peterson's PowerPoint Presentation on Achievement Gaps
Sprawl: A Compact History
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Robert Bruegmann, February 2007
"Virtually overnight," Dr. Bruegmann writes, "the anti-sprawl reformers' new catchphrase 'smart growth' seemed to be everywhere. It appeared as though every right-minded individual and organization in the country was convinced that sprawl was economically inefficient, environmentally detrimental, socially deplorable, and aesthetically ugly - in short, an unmitigated disaster. In fact, so many 'right-minded' people were so vociferous on the subject that I began to suspect that there must be something suspicious about the argument itself."
View Dr. Bruegmann's PowerPoint Presentation on Sprawl
Listen to Dr. Bruegmann on Minnesota Public Radio
What Ought Conservatives Push For This Legislative Session? (Especially Now that DFLers Control Almost Everything)
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An Ideologically Multicultural Panel, January 2007
What policies do leaders of Minnesota's most influential conservative organizations think conservatives should seek at the Capitol this year? What policies do leaders of other Minnesota organizations advise conservatives to pursue in St. Paul?
Why Do They Act That Way? The Media's Enlightening -- and Shady -- Influences on Children
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David Walsh, December 2006
Psychologist David Walsh mines new developments in brain science to spotlight the often malignant power of media on young people -- video games very much included. David Walsh is founder and president of the Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family, the country's leading organization examining the impact of electronic media on families.
Consumer-Directed Health Care: What Does It Mean? Where Are We Headed?
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Grace-Marie Turner, November 2006
Grace-Marie Turner, one of the nation's most fluent and influential free-market voices of reform, talks about consumer-directed health care, answering good questions such as: What, exactly is it? What's its future? What's all this enthusiasm, and sometimes commotion, over Health Savings Accounts? And might HSAs work for you?
Education Myths: What Special Interest Groups Want You to Know About Our Schools and Why it Isn't So
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Jay Greene, October 2006
Citing reams of empirical evidence, Jay Greene discusses his new book, Education Myths, and how "much of what policy makers and parents believe today about education is as mythological as anything Homer or Aesop, even if it isn't nearly as poetic."
The Revolution in Parenthood: The Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children's Needs
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Elizabeth Marquardt, September 2006
Elizabeth Marquardt previews a new study of how international trends in law, science, and culture are threatening age-old understandings of marriage and parenthood. Legal reforms and scientific advances are being pursued on behalf of adults and their interest in forming families as they choose. Stepping back: What about the interests and needs of children?
Early Childhood Education: Do Enthusiasts Exaggerate What It Can Do?
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Ron Haskins & Art Rolnick, July 2006
Ron Haskins and Art Rolnick address the limited success of most early childhood education programs and discuss evidence showing that high-quality programs can dramatically and positively impact a child's future success in school and life. Rolnick then offers a proposal to make high-quality early childhood education available to high-risk children through an endowed scholarship fund. Both Rolnick and Haskins emphasize that any future programs must be market based. Dr. Haskins is a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Department at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Dr. Rolnick is senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State
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Charles Murray, May 2006
Charles Murray discusses his elegantly radical idea for eliminating all income transfer programs at the federal, state, and local levels -- including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and corporate subsidies -- substituting, instead, cash grants of $10,000 a year for all Americans, starting at age 21. According to Murray, who makes the case in detail in his newest book, In Our Hands, "The Plan" would end poverty, afford universal health care, and not least, make it more possible for people to control their own lives.
America's Promise Realized: Getting Beyond Race
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Ward Connerly, March 2006
How do we as Americans move beyond race and embrace a color blind principle? Connerly explains: "We are going to have to engage ourselves in this tortuous battle to overcome this diversity rationale. It is wrong to pursue diversity by the government, because in the act of that pursuit you are going to discriminate against somebody. And racial discirimination, we have said, is morally wrong.... You hear often that diversity is our strength. No, merit is our strength. Diversity is excellence. How? Diversity just is. We don't have to create it, but once the government starts trying to achieve it, and actively pursues it by making decision selecting you over me and me over you on the basis of our skin color, we have changed what it means to be an American."
Do As I Say (Not As I Do)
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Peter Schweizer, January 2006
By examining IRS and real estate records, court depositions, and personal statements of prominent, outspoken liberals, Peter Schweizer, research fellow at the Hoover Institution in California, exposes blatant inconsistencies that exist between the principles that people like Barbra Streisand, Michael Moore and Hillary Clinton advocate and the choices they actually make for their own property, pocketbooks, and families.
Greatness
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Steven Hayward, December 2005
Steven Hayward discusses his latest book, Greatness: Reagan, Churchill and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders. In Greatness, Hayward investigated the similarities between Ronald Reagon and Winston Churchill and uncovered the shared, timeless attributes that made them extraordinary leaders.
A Patriot's History of the United States
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Professor Larry Schweikart, September 2005
Do our history books always tell the straight story? No, according to Larry Schweikart, a history professor at the University of Dayton. Often, history is revised and misrepresented to fit one political philosophy or another, and too often it is revised by people who have forgotten what made America great. Therefore, Prof. Schweikart wrote A Patriot's History of the United States, which, according to Mathew Spalding of the National Review, "is a welcome, refreshing, and solid contribution to relearning what we have forgotten and remembering why this nation is good, and worth defending." Prof. Schweikart discussed his book and the academic bias so prevalent on college campuses at a September 2005 forum.
Gambling Doesn't Pay: It Costs
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Prof. Earl Grinols, April 1, 2005
Blogging on the Eve of Dan Rather's Retirement
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John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson, March 9, 2005
Is Our Red and Blue Nation Changing Colors?
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Vin Weber, November 3, 2004
Holding Schools Accountable
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Cheri Pierson Yecke, September 22, 2004
Why Canada's Health Care System is No Rx for America
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Sally C. Pipes, March 4, 2004
No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning
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Abigail Thernstrom, January 22, 2004
Driving in the "Fast" Lane
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Mark Kennedy, June 30, 2003
Twenty Years After "A Nation At Risk"
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Chester E. Finn Jr., May 13, 2003
Renewing Our Vows: Families and the "Very Air Our Loved Ones Breathe"
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William J. Doherty, March 19, 2003
The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush
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David Frum, March 11, 2003
Faith of our Fathers and Mothers
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Jean Bethke Elshtain, January 30, 2003
The Collapse of the Common Good: How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom
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Philip Howard, October 23, 2002
American Values vs. Television Values
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Michael Medved, May 9, 2002
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