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ASCA Response

Francie Grace — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:36:51 -0500

The American School Counselor Association has issued this response to Public Agenda's latest report, "Can I Get A Little Advice Here? How An Overstretched High School Guidance System Is Undermining Students' College Aspirations." We're republishing it in full here, and hope to continue the discussion about how to help students find their path in life.

ASCA Response to Public Agenda Report

A recently released study by Public Agenda illustrates what can go wrong when there are not enough school counselors to support students and when school counselors are placed in positions preventing them from performing the functions they were trained and hired to do. Although the American School Counselor Association, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and other organizations recommend a pupil-to-school-counselor ratio of 250-to-1, the national average is 460 students to one school counselor, with some school districts as high as 1,000-to-1.

The result, as this study confirms, is a significantly decreased ability of school counselors to work individually with students in navigating the complex financial aid and college admission process.

In addition, as the study notes, school counselors are increasingly called on to do work outside of their mission, including: "discipline issues and sorting out scheduling and other administrative mix-ups with the high school."

ASCA agrees with many of the conclusions of the Public Agenda study: more school counselors are needed, and existing school counselors should not be overloaded with non-counseling duties preventing them from spending time successfully guiding students to academic success and postsecondary education. ASCA works closely with school administrators, professional school counselors and the colleges that train school counselors to ensure the highest level of professionalism, but the burden on even the best school counselors has obvious implications for their ability to help students.

ASCA believes the findings of this study can serve as a wake-up call that could bring about substantial and needed changes. The study points out that "young people who characterized their interactions with counselors as anonymous and unhelpful were less likely to go directly from high school into a postsecondary program." Therefore, strong relationships between school counselors and students can lead to more students seeking postsecondary education. This is a good opportunity to provide a positive perspective on the problems and to highlight the need for supporting school counselors so they can be effective, rather than eliminating their positions because some consider them to be ineffective.

ASCA hopes to work with policymakers, education leaders and the Gates Foundation, which underwrote this survey, to place more certified professional school counselors in our schools and to allow them to help students improve academic achievement, career planning including postsecondary education, and personal and social development.

High School Counselors Get Low Marks from Students on College Advice

David White — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:24:12 -0500

Can I Get A Little Advice Here?

Francie Grace — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:17:49 -0500

Young Americans tell us they're not getting much help from their high school counselors when choosing a college, career, or in getting financial aid. In the second of our series of reports on college completion, Can I Get A Little Advice Here?, six in ten of young adults who went on to further education gave their high schools poor grades for college advice. Nearly half felt like "just a face in the crowd." With costs rising and college completion rates sinking, this raises serious questions about what kind of help young people need, and whether they're getting it. Read the full report, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Second Awkward Age: Life At 55 And Beyond

Francie Grace — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:36:26 -0500

Public Agenda president Ruth Wooden is the moderator of this event Thursday, March 4, at the Urban Institute, co-sponsored by Public Agenda, on evolving roles for older adults, many of whom are approaching or are at what has been considered to be retirement age but, for a variety of reasons, may not be ready to leave the workforce.

Be part of the discussion – in Washington, through our webcast, and online on Twitter (hashtag is #Boomer 3.0) - as distinguished experts explore the labor force, economic, health, and identity issues facing Americans approaching retirement. We’ll look at the diversity of this population and developmental factors affecting older Americans, successful aging, the special circumstances of older minority men and women, policy prescriptions that could improve older Americans’ economic security, and lessons from other nations.

The panelists for this event are: Scott Bass, provost, American University, and founding director of the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts–Boston; Dalmer Hoskins, senior adviser to the Social Security Administration and former secretary general of the International Social Security Association; Richard Johnson, senior fellow, Income and Benefits Policy Center, Urban Institute; and Sandra Nathan, vice president, workforce development, National Council on Aging.

Click here for details on attending this event. For further information, please contact Simona Combi at the Urban Institute ((202) 261-5709) or Melissa Feldsher at Public Agenda (212-686-6610, extension 50).

The Twitter hashtag for this event is: #Boomer3.0

Live webcast (also available as a recording after the event) at: http://www.urbaninstitute.org/events/Life-at-55-and-Beyond.cfm

Stop, Listen & Act: Panel Discussion On Our Fiscal Future

Francie Grace — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:36:07 -0500

Stop, Listen & Act:
Panel Discussion On Our Fiscal Future

By Andrew Yarrow

(L-R) Maya MacGuineas, Richard Keil, Eugene Steuerle and Ruth Wooden at the Urban Institute's panel discussion on how to get the public galvanized towards action on the issue of getting control of the federal budget deficit and national debt.

What are the most effective ways to get people to listen, become concerned, and press their leaders to take action to reduce the seemingly inexorable rise of federal debt? That was the central question discussed at a February 25 forum, "Trillions of Reasons to Get Serious About Our Fiscal Future," at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. (click here to check out the webcast of the event).

Do you make extremely complex material more accessible to the public? Do you scare people? Do you get an inspired, unexpected messenger with a "road to Damascus" fervor, as envisioned by Richard Keil, a former White House correspondent and current director of Public Strategies Inc.? Do you push the media to highlight when "outside validaters" agree rather than allow the debate to be framed by "dueling experts," as suggested by Public Agenda President Ruth Wooden, a member of the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States, which issued its report in January? Should you talk explicitly about "winners" and "losers," as said by the Urban Institute's Eugene Steuerle, an expert on both taxes and Social Security, and Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform?

Do you need to set a clear goal, mobilize the public behind that goal (click here to see public opinion on this issue), and then get policymakers to act, as argued by MacGuineas and Rudolph Penner, an Urban Institute fellow and former Congressional Budget Office director who chaired the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States? Do you talk in high-minded terms of shared "sacrifice"? Do you send the message if we spend less on debt, we can spend more on things that people want, as suggested by Steuerle and Margaret Simms of the Urban Institute's Low-Income Working Families project? And how do you overcome what Wooden terms the "default to inertia"?

As the deficit commission established by President Obama takes shape, and in the wake of the recent reports by both the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States and the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform on how to reduce America's massive and rapidly growing debt burden, how do you get Americans to care? If citizens do not, politicians will be unlikely to take on "third-rail" issues such as cutting Social Security or Medicare benefits or increasing taxes.

Panelists agreed that the problems in how to constructively talk about the budget deficit and national debt are legion. Americans, said Wooden and Simms, don't trust the information and its messengers. Scary scenarios of economic Armageddon may garner attention, but, Penner and Wooden observed, can either lead people to hopelessness or a Chicken Little-style cynicism. It is essential, said Keil, to convey that the United States has faced challenges before and "we can fix it."

Turn the debate away from points of disagreement and forge a "united front across the political spectrum," as Wooden said. Public and media discussion, said Steuerle, need to be turned away from a focus on who "wins" and "loses" under various reforms, and toward an examination of the substantive issues.

Several panelists suggested the importance of either an "unexpected" messenger leading the crusade, analogous to T. Boone Pickens' 2009 campaign for wind energy. MacGuineas, for her part, took a leaf from recent campaigns to help disaster victims and suggested that former Presidents Bush and Clinton speak out together, demonstrating that America's fiscal future is a bipartisan concern.

Setting a single, clear goal such as reducing debt to 60 percent of GDP is something that could be agreed upon, said Penner and MacGuineas. The practical policy steps and compromises will more easily follow.

The President's new 18-member commission on fiscal responsibility and reform, said Wooden, would be well-served to recognize and engage the public from the start, getting public buy-in for action now, rather than waiting until December when the commission is set to issue its report. In short, desperately needed fiscal reforms won't happen when elites are talking only to one another: the public must feel trust, a sense of all being in this together, and that they are being heard—not just lectured to—by their leaders.

Andrew Yarrow, Public Agenda vice president and director of our Washington, D.C., office, speaks often on the subject of the federal budget deficit and national debt, as part of our Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances curriculum and as a participant in workshops held by Generations United. Yarrow is a contributing author to "The Federal Budget Deficit," a new collection of essays on this issue, and is the author of books including "Forgive Us Our Debts: The Intergenerational Dangers of Fiscal Irresponsibility."

To be a part of the solution to our nation's fiscal crisis, join the discussion here or at OurFiscalFuture.org, on Facebook and on our Twitter feeds @FiscalFuture, @FacingUp and @PublicAgenda.

The Second Awkward Age: Life At 55 And Beyond

David White — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:00:25 -0500

The Twitter hashtag for this event is: #Boomer3.0

Live webcast (also available as a recording after the event) at:
http://www.urbaninstitute.org/events/Life-at-55-and-Beyond.cfm

Public Agenda president Ruth Wooden is the moderator of this event at the Urban Institute, co-sponsored by Public Agenda, on evolving roles for older adults, many of whom are approaching or are at what has been considered to be retirement age but, for a variety of reasons, may not be ready to leave the workforce.

The panelists for this event are: Scott Bass, provost, American University, and founding director of the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts–Boston; Dalmer Hoskins, senior adviser to the Social Security Administration and former secretary general of the International Social Security Association; Richard Johnson, senior fellow of the Urban Institute's Income and Benefits Policy Center; and Sandra Nathan, vice president, workforce development, National Council on Aging.

Trillions Of Reasons To Get Serious About Our Fiscal Future

David White — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:56:26 -0500

That was the title of a panel discussion held at the Urban Institute, with Public Agenda president Ruth Wooden among those considering the deficit (see our fact sheet) and what it will take for the public to become truly engaged on this issue. Wooden is a member of the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States, which last month released a report with questions the public can ask to evaluate the fiscal wisdom of any budget plan. Other panelists included Rudolph Penner, who chaired the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States, and Maya MacGuineas of the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. Click here to listen to the webcast, posted online for those of you who missed this event.

Summing Up Public Opinion on Federal Debts and Deficits

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:52:09 -0500

The federal budget and the national debt are getting a lot of attention lately, but how does the public see this problem? Public Agenda has compiled recent survey data from other organizations that sheds light on how worried the public is about federal finances, how well they understand the issue and potential solutions, and whether they trust the government to address it. Download the paper

Summing Up Public Opinion on Federal Debts and Deficits

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:43:20 -0500

An Opening To Comment On Open Goverment

Scott Bittle — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:11:04 -0500

The world of public engagement and e-democracy has been watching the Obama administration's Open Government Directive closely, debating whether it will really bring more "transparency, participation, and collaboration" to the federal government. Now you have your chance to weigh in.

Government agencies are accepting public comments until March 19 on their plans to comply with the directive (you can find a full list of agencies and links here). Each agency has its own plan, from Agriculture to Veterans Affairs, so whether you're interested in the field in general or in how a specific department deals with the public, it's worth a look.

Our Center for Advances in Public Engagement has done a lot of thinking about the best ways to get the public more involved in decision making. Check out our papers on Promising Practices in Online Engagement, Reframing Framing, and Democracy, Growing Up.

Trillions Of Reasons To Get Serious About Our Fiscal Future

Francie Grace — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:57:36 -0500

That was the title of a discussion at the Urban Institute, with Public Agenda president Ruth Wooden among those considering the deficit (see our fact sheet) and what it will take for the public to become truly engaged on this issue. Wooden is a member of the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States, which last month released a report with questions the public can ask to evaluate the fiscal wisdom of any budget plan. Other panelists included Rudolph Penner, who chaired the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States, and Maya MacGuineas of the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. Click here to check out the archived webcast of the event.

Will The View Be Clearer At The Summit?

Scott Bittle — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:41:21 -0500

You'll be able to watch the White House summit on health care reform live on both webcast and television, which may be an advance for government transparency. But will the bipartisan summit be an advance for the public in clarity on this tough issue?

Anticipation is certainly high for the summit. President Obama put the Democrats' proposals on the table earlier this week, and the Republicans are expected to arrive with their own plan. There's been a lot of argument, and fierce debate over whether the summit itself is a real opportunity or just political theatre.

One of the greatest challenges during the long debate over health care has been making the options understandable to the public. But in our view, all through this process there hasn't been enough effort by leaders to help people weigh alternatives and work through the tradeoffs inherent in any reform plan – and that process of thinking about options is essential to real public engagement.

So with that in mind, we'd like to suggest a few useful tools as a viewer's guide to the summit. Our Citizen's Survival Kit on health care reform, prepared for the last election, sums up the key issues and lays out some of the basic choices. Essentially, the kit provides the big picture on an issue where it's really easy to get lost in the details.

To compare some of the current choices on the table now, have a look at the Kaiser Family Foundation's side-by-side summary of the proposals before Congress. It's just been updated to include President Obama's latest proposals.

Finally, it helps to have a glossary, and a sense of history, both in this case provided by the Prescriptions blog at The New York Times.

The Deficit Commission Is Born: Now What?

Francie Grace — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:10:48 -0500

It's official: President Obama today created the bipartisan fiscal commission he proposed in his State of the Union message. Of course, the commission itself is just a step toward a plan – but what are our options for that plan?

The Choosing the Nation's Fiscal Future report has lots of options, and there's additional commentary from the report's authors on what needs to be done at the Our Fiscal Future web site, including from Public Agenda president Ruth Wooden.

The leaders of the new deficit commission are: Democrat Erskine Bowles, a North Carolina banker and former White House chief of staff, and Republican Alan Simpson, the former senator from Wyoming.

The panel, which is to deliver its recommendations by Dec. 1, will have less authority than would that in the recent Conrad-Gregg proposal that failed to win Congressional approval. Announcing the commission, the president emphasized that the accumulated weight of the deficit could hobble the economy and said "everything's on the table." At the same time, Obama pledged that in the short term, taking steps to encourage businesses to create jobs will continue to be top priority.

A sampling of react and related stories from around the web: thoughts from the economics blog Capital Gains and Games and The Wall Street Journal on the naming of the GOP members of the commission; Catherine Rampell of the New York Times, putting the panel in context, with a look at other entities bent on fiscal prudence; Time Magazine, on stimulus spending and deficit danger; and rumblings from Kathleen Sebelius that the Democrats will come together and post a single health care reform proposal by Monday, in advance of Obama's Feb. 25 bipartisan health care summit.

Squeeze Play 2010

Francie Grace — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:10:21 -0500

Are college and universities doing all they can to keep costs under control? According to Squeeze Play 2010, a new report from Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, six out of ten Americans believe that colleges mainly care about their own bottom lines instead of making sure that students have a good educational experience. Squeeze Play 2010 is part of a series of surveys, dating back to 1993, tracking public attitudes about college affordability and accessibility. More than half of Americans now say college is essential for success in the work world. Even more, 69 percent, say there are many qualified people who do not have access to higher education, up seven percentage points from two years ago and 22 percentage points compared to a decade ago. Find out more about Squeeze Play 2010 here.

The Importance Of Play

Francie Grace — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:30:03 -0500

Turns out the old axiom about all work and no play may be right (and, heading into a holiday weekend, this may be the right time to make this observation). But being dull isn't the only risk of not spending enough time at play: a lack of time at play can also make you less flexible and less knowledgeable about the world, as well as less trustful and by extension, less able to cooperate with others in working towards solutions. So for both children and adults, it has implications for society and civic life.

Those are some of the theories explored by Alison Kadlec, director of our Center for Advances in Public Engagement, in "Play and Public Life," published in the current edition of the National Civic Review. She interviews Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, and author of "Play: How It Shapes The Brain, Opens Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul." Brown argues that for both animals and humans, "playful interaction allows a penalty-free rehearsal of the normal give and take necessary in social groups." Trust, he says, "is the core process that evokes and allows enough safety for play to take place."

Trust is also a foundation of the public engagement process, in which groups with disparate interests agree to explore trade-offs and solutions. Brown points to some real-world examples, such as George Mitchell's crediting the successes he had brokering peace in Northern Ireland to having spent time telling jokes at the dinner table.

We can think of some other believers in this art, evidenced by President Obama's fondness for basketball and bipartisan invites to Super Bowl parties, and GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch's song composed for Ted Kennedy when the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts returned to Capitol Hill in 2008.

Click here for more about Alison's article on this interesting aspect of both child development and public life.

Shout-Out For College Stories

Francie Grace — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:14:47 -0500

What's life really like for today's college students? How can we help more of them succeed? If we don't really know what it's like, the solutions are unlikely to be effective. These questions, and that principle, are at the heart of a lot of what we do here at Public Agenda – in the With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them series of reports, and as a partner in the Achieving the Dream initiative to boost success for community college students.

We'd like to lend our support to a project with a similar mission: Take America To College, which has set up a web site and YouTube channel to encourage non-traditional currently enrolled college students, age 20 to 30, to tell their stories – either in words, or in short video form. By non-traditional, we mean students whose path through college hasn't been one of straight to college from high school, followed by four years and a diploma. Many instead had their education interrupted to work full-time, serve in the military, or address family responsibilities.

If that sounds like you, or someone you know, Take America To College would love to hear the story: the college experience, the challenges and triumphs of staying and trying to stay in school. Students who participate in Take America To College will be considered to be one of five people who will be featured in a documentary video series that will air on a major news site. Each of the five will also be awarded $500 plus a video camera and a trip to Washington to meet with policymakers.

The last day to submit entries is February 19.

Sound Financial Advice

Francie Grace — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:09:31 -0500

In the season when many Americans' minds turn to thoughts of getting some financial advice to help with their taxes, the Senate is following suit, on another serious matter that affects all of our bottom lines.

Rudolph Penner, a former Congressional Budget Office director who co-chaired the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States that wrote the report Choosing Our Fiscal Future, was the source Thursday for some advice for members of Congress.

Testifying before the Senate Budget Committee, Penner emphasized the unsustainability of the federal budget deficit, with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounting for 40 percent of all government spending other than interest in a normal year - and all growing faster than the economy and revenue.

As the deficit increases, said Penner, the national debt will grow ever more rapidly, until interest on the debt becomes a budget problem in itself, with debt expected to pass 100 percent of GDP in less than twenty years.

And that's more than just a ratio. Penner observes that it's highly unlikely that world capital markets would tolerate those sorts of numbers for very long. If no changes are made, it is projected that the market for U.S. debt would collapse long before 2040.

That grim scenario, based on facts and the two-year long work of the committee, was used as a scene-setter. Penner did go to Capitol Hill armed with recommendations on a way forward.

"Our committee," Penner told the panel, "believes that Congress should set a target for the debt‐GDP ratio and not exceed it. Given an explicit target, the American people could judge how well the Congress and administration are doing in their pursuit of fiscal responsibility."

"We believe further that a prudent target would hold the debt to 60 percent of GDP," Penner continued. "That ratio should be achieved by 2022 and we should begin implementing the necessary policies by 2012. If the nation experiences good fortune while holding the debt to this level, it would be wise to lower the target further."

Click here to check out Penner's complete remarks (and here's a shortened link to spread the word on Twitter: http://bit.ly/ariLRF), where you can follow our updates on the federal budget and national debt on @PublicAgenda, @FiscalFuture and @FacingUp.

Government Waste, and What's Really Being Wasted

Scott Bittle — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:53:43 -0500

The American public says more than half of every federal tax dollar, 53 cents, is wasted, according to an ABC/Washington Post survey released today. But what that survey suggests to us is what's really being wasted isn't money; it's trust.

The ABC/Post survey has been asking this question for 25 years now, and the number has been as high as 56 cents and as low as 43 cents. Budget experts would say that while there certainly is waste in government, it's nowhere near that high.

Based on Public Agenda's research, when people say half of every tax dollar is wasted, they're not analyzing bloated defense purchasing or Medicare fraud (although those stories have an impact). They're expressing an overall frustration with government – and based on the same ABC/Post survey, frustrations are running high. Two-thirds of those surveyed say they're "dissatisfied" or "angry" with the government. According to the Post:

The opening is clear: Public dissatisfaction with how Washington operates is at its highest level in Post-ABC polling in more than a decade -- since the months after the Republican-led government shutdown in 1996 -- and negative ratings of the two major parties hover near record highs.

There are two lessons here, one very specific, and the other more general.

The specific point is about how these levels of distrust shape the debate over the federal deficit and the national debt. There are solutions to the government's grim long-term fiscal problems; the Choosing the Nation's Fiscal Future report is full of them. Public Agenda's research has shown, however, that one of the biggest barriers to solving the budget problem is the public's lack of trust in leaders. People simply aren't confident that the government will use their money wisely. They're worried that if they agree to spending cuts or tax increases, the government won't put that money to good use.

More broadly, this shows the public's distaste for gridlock and hyper-partisanship in Washington. And it also shows the opportunity for a different approach: real public engagement that allows citizens' voice to be heard and their concerns to play a role in decision making. Public engagement, properly executed, can break through gridlock and allow decisions to be firmly grounded in the public's values and priorities.

Surveys like this send a clear message that politics as usual isn't working for the American public. If we're going to solve our budget problems – or any of our other problems, for that matter – we need to get that trust back, and that means getting the public back into the process.

Fiscal Sanity: It's Been Done Before

Scott Bittle — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:58:25 -0500

Today's must-read budget story is in USA Today, which makes a point that often gets lost when we debate getting the federal budget under control: namely, that it's been done before, and not that long ago, either.

Balancing the budget in the late 1990s required sustained, bipartisan effort, and a combination of both spending controls and tax increases. But it also came at a political cost to a number of the politicians involved.

It's also worth remembering that those efforts in the Nineties to get rid of the year-to-year shortfall never translated into strategies to deal with the problems that are leading the federal budget into disaster in the long run: the rising health care costs and aging population that are going to send costs for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security soaring, and the national debt along with it.

Right now the nation's finances are getting more attention than they have in a long time. But bipartisanship is in short supply, unless, as some argue, you count a bipartisan unwillingness to look at real solutions, particularly any solutions that might affect their own home states. Others argue that this is no time to worry about the budget at all, given the Great Recession and the risks of long-term unemployment.

That's why the Committee on the Fiscal Future suggested that real efforts to deal with our long-term budget problems start next year, to give the government time to deal with the economic crisis, and time to build consensus on solutions. History shows this can be done. And in this case, if we learn from history, maybe we can repeat it.

Squeeze Play 2010

Peiting Chen — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:32:15 -0500

Are college and universities doing all they can to keep costs under control? According to a report from Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, six out of ten Americans believe that colleges mainly care about their own bottom lines instead of making sure that students have a good educational experience.

Squeeze Play 2010 is part of a series of surveys, dating back to 1993, tracking public attitudes about college affordability and accessibility. Nearly two-thirds of those polled in this most recent survey believed that colleges and universities should use federal stimulus funds to hold down tuition increases, even if that means cutbacks in campus programs and services.

Our research also found that 60 percent of Americans believe that colleges could take in more students without raising prices or reducing quality and more than half agree that colleges could spend less and still maintain quality education for students.

The percentage of Americans that believe college is essential for success in the work world remains at a high point (55 percent, up 24 percentage points since 2000). Additionally, 90 percent of parents of high school students surveyed believe that their child is going to college. However, the percentage believing that the vast majority of qualified, motivated students have the opportunity to attend college remains at a low of 28 percent.

No Teacher Left Behind?

Scott Bittle — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:51:57 -0500

The No Child Left Behind law, which for good or ill has been the center of American education policy over the past decade, is up for an overhaul. That's the word from the Obama administration, which says a central point will be changing how schools are rated, one of the most controversial parts of the law.
Public Agenda's research shows that teachers are open to many different ways of assessing their work. More than half of teachers, 56 percent, said test scores were a "good' or "excellent" way of measuring teacher effectiveness, but other yardsticks were more popular, such as student engagement (92 percent), how much their own students learn compared with others (72 percent) and feedback from administrators (70 percent).

But there's may be an even more important hurdle here in improving schools, which is that significant numbers of teachers are frustrated with their work. Our Teaching For A Living study found four in 10 teachers "disheartened," struggling with their work environment and their ability to make a difference.

Frustration like that is bound to affect their success with students – and their attitudes about reform. As the nation continues to try and make American schools all they should be, one of the greatest challenges is figuring out whether good leadership and different policies could re-energize these teachers, or whether they'd be better off doing something else.

Load 16 (Clean?) Tons And What Do You Get…

Scott Bittle — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:58:19 -0500

The federal government this week announced plans to push biofuels and "clean coal" technology, in an effort to move forward on energy options even while a more complicated "cap-and-trade" plan stays stalled in Congress. Developing new technology is important to solving our energy problems, but what is really at stake here and what choices do we have?

Americans get half of our electricity from coal, and the pros and cons of it are actually pretty simple. Coal is inexpensive, we have lots of domestic supply, and some 80,000 people work in the industry. On the other hand, coal puts out more greenhouse gases and pollutants than our other options, even other fossil fuels like natural gas and oil. (See our handy chart from Who Turned Out the Lights? Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis to compare different energy sources).

So coming up with ways to use coal without producing greenhouse gases could be a breakthrough. But it's not exactly around the corner -- the Obama administration's plan would create five to 10 commercial demonstration projects by 2016, and if they succeed, widespread adoption would be even further off.

That's why it's important for policymakers to focus the energy debate on the fundamental choices we face. Too often we end up arguing over the complexities of a cap-and-trade plan, or the emissions targets needed to control climate change. But to engage the public, the key questions are more basic: what kind of power plants do we need? How should we fuel our cars? These are questions Americans can and should grapple with – and in a world that needs more energy at the same time it needs cleaner energy, the public needs to be part of this debate.

Up To The Limit?

Scott Bittle — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:41:43 -0500

The House voted today to raise the national debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, but by a pretty close vote on what's usually a routine matter. Opponents said the debt has to be brought under control; supporters pointed out that without an increase in the debt limit, the government would end up defaulting on its debt, throwing the world financial markets into chaos. Again.

So if we can't just stop borrowing cold turkey, how do we get a handle on this? The Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States concluded you have to start soon, in next year's budget. (In other words, not the one President Obama just submitted for fiscal year 2011, but the budget after that). And the committee argued the goal should be to control the debt at 60 percent of GDP over the next decade – that would keep it from getting too far out of hand while still allowing the government to fight the recession and do the other things it needs to do.

What Are These Economists Talking About? Deficits And Debts In Plain English

Peiting Chen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:50:46 -0500

What Are These Economists Talking About?
Deficits And Debts In Plain English

By Ilana E. Straus, Scripps Howard Foundation Wire, Feb. 2010

(AXcess News) Washington - People are barraged by numbers predicting economic success and doom on a daily basis.

Just this week, the Senate voted to allow the national debt to rise to $14.3 trillion, the highest ever. The House is expected to take action next week.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report Tuesday on the state of the economy, leading analysts to come up with varying interpretations.

It's hard to know exactly which numbers to trust, how to make sense of the difference between cloudy economic terms and how to deal with bias.

Here is a basic guide to two of the most common terms that have been thrown around: national deficit and public debt.

National deficit

2010 Estimate: $1.4 trillion - CBO

What it is:

The deficit is the yearlong difference between "what the United States Government takes in from taxes and other revenues" and what the government spends. - U.S. Department of the Treasury.

What that means:

The projected deficit is the highest the U.S. has ever had, meaning the government has either been collecting less money, spending more, or both.

"The high deficits are an outrage" Chris Edwards, an economist at the libertarian CATO Institute in D.C., said. "They are unethical."

Others say the increased spending was necessary.

"It's clearly too much, but that has to be put in the obvious context of the recession," said Andrew Yarrow, vice president and director of Public Agenda's D.C. office. The group generally opposes higher deficits.

"Most would agree that the government had to do something," he said.

Michael Linden, associate director for tax and budget policy at the Center for American Progress, said,
"The current deficit is not a concern. It is very high, but that's mostly a function of the emergency spending that had to happen."

CAP is a progressive group founded by former Clinton administration officials.

The deficit isn't just caused by spending, Linden said. The government has collected considerably less tax revenue this year because people were making less and because the government wanted to stimulate the economy by letting people keep more of their own money, he said.

Public debt

2009 Calculation: $7.6 trillion - CBO

What that means:

The public debt consists of all the deficits of previous years added together. It is all the debt owed by government branches. - U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Public debt is often confused with national debt, an estimate that includes the money different branches of government owe to one another and is therefore considerably higher than public debt. It's the national debt the Senate voted to raise this week.

What that means:

For most of national history, the U.S. didn't have a public debt.

"Other than during the Civil War and the World Wars, the U.S. largely balanced its budget until the late 1960s," Yarrow said.

U.S. public debt has been building up for the last half century.

"It's really the spending that's out of control," Edwards said. Wars over the past couple decades, domestic spending and tax cuts during the Bush years and recent stimulus plans have been expensive, he said. "Both parties are to blame."

Not all say the high debt is a problem.

"Right now the debt is at a manageable level," Linden said.

"It really can't get too much higher" without some risks coming into play, he said.

Lowering debt would mean making some sacrifices.

"In many ways, Americans have really wanted to have it all," Yarrow said.

"They've wanted to have more spending, but they've wanted to pay less in taxes, and that just doesn't add up," he said. "The government has played along with them."

Long-term effects of the public debt and deficits

The public debt "doesn't have any effect in the near term," Linden said. "It's a high public debt, but it's not too much of a burden. The problem is if it continues to rise."

But Yarrow cautioned, "If we do nothing, entitlement programs," including Medicare and Social Security, "will compose all of the budget."

The debt will hit younger workers the hardest, Edwards said.

"There's a huge threat of enormous tax increases for young workers in the future," he said. "The increasing power of the elderly lobby will put pressure on politicians to raise taxes on young workers."‘

Many countries, waiting on the U.S. to pay back loans, are starting to question the value of holding U.S. debt, Yarrow said.

If these countries were to pull money out of U.S. markets, they could cause "severe panics in financial markets," he said.

This debt may be a problem for future generations.

"Money borrowed by the federal government must be paid back by future generations with interest," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said in a press release this week.

"There are a lot of ways this can hit individuals down the road," Yarrow said. "And not too far down the road."

Since debt has increased under both parties, placing the blame on a political party is unhelpful, Yarrow said.

"Debt and deficit have been caused by both Democrats and Republicans," Yarrow said. "They must be solved by Democrats and Republicans working together."

Source: this article is from the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

The Budget As Board Game

Scott Bittle — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:36:33 -0500

In a torrent of news about President Obama's new budget proposal, two things really stand out to us – and they're probably not the points upon which most of the coverage and commentary will focus.

One point comes from the Wall Street Journal's interactive graphic of the federal budget process, which is something to make you laugh or cry, as you prefer.

This eight-stage, 27-box graphic could be the basis of a board game for particularly wonky kids. But at a moment when everyone in Washington is combing through President Obama's $3.8 trillion budget proposal, with its record $1.6 trillion deficit, it's important to remember just how long and complicated this process is.

That doesn't help the public come to grips with this. Budgets are all about setting priorities, and while this budget proposal tells us what the Obama administration thinks the priorities should be, there's nothing in this long, convoluted process that helps the public sort through options and choices to figure out what their priorities are.

The second point that strikes us comes from the sheer volume of coverage, analyzing the budget proposal from so many angles that it's hard for anyone who's not immersed in the coverage to keep up. (If you want to make a start on it, we'd suggest this roundup of stories from almost every angle in the Washington Post's 44 blog, and of course the Choosing Our Fiscal Future news tracker). No matter what angle you're interested in, somebody's covered it.

But in all the analysis, some of the basics may get passed over too quickly. So it's worth returning to a point that every budget expert knows, but relatively few people outside the government appreciate. The easiest way to tell it is to quote from this section of the president's budget submission, under the heading "The Unsustainable Path" (it's on page 42, if you're determined enough to get that far).

The deficit is projected to fall from its recent peak levels as the economy recovers from the recession and the worldwide financial crisis eases. By the end of the 10-year budget window, the deficit has returned to a lower level, and the debt held by the public is no longer rising rapidly relative to GDP. However, the fiscal position is not sustainable in the long run without further policy changes. Beyond the 10-year budget window, increasing health costs and population aging will place the budget on an unsustainable course unless policy changes are made to address these challenges.

Nearly everybody who studies the federal budget, including the government's own experts, ends up using the same word to describe it: unsustainable. The trends of persistent deficits, rising health care costs, and an aging population means that the federal government will pile up enormous amounts of debt over the next few decades, more than it can handle.

There are ways to avoid this, but the sooner we act, the better. The Choosing the Nation's Fiscal Future report suggested four different paths to solve the problem, covering a wide range of philosophical perspectives. The report also posedsix questions to ask about any federal budget, which really helps to put the news coverage in perspective.

When it comes to getting the public engaged in a problem, a complicated process and coverage that skips over the fundamentals is a bad combination. And we absolutely have to get the public involved in this process, because this problem, wonky as it might be, simply can't be solved without them.

Deficit & Debt: Spreading The Word On Twitter

Francie Grace — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:51:27 -0500

Deficit & Debt: Spreading The Word On Twitter

Live-tweeting the State of the Union address: a sample of some of the tweets as students at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, logged on all over campus to discuss the federal budget deficit and national debt as they watched President Obama's speech and the GOP response.

It was freezing in Emporia, Kansas – midway between Wichita and Kansas City, a great case study for the winters for which the Midwest is known - as President Obama, many miles away, took his ceremonial walk through the U.S. Capitol and began his first State of the Union address. But heat was in evidence all over the campus at Emporia State University as students logged onto Twitter to listen, comment and discuss the president's comments and the GOP response – viewed from the prism of the federal budget deficit and national debt.

The live chat (click here to take a look at the students' comments), moderated by Public Agenda on behalf of @FacingUp, was nonpartisan and devoid of political name-calling, with passion instead attaching itself to the issues: the size of the deficit and debt, the politicians' and students' own proposals, and the degree to which each might help the nation get on a more solid fiscal footing.

Emporia's economics students, led by Professor Rob Catlett, have been studying the problem as participants in the Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances nonpartisan curriculum on the nation's fiscal future. We're pleased to announce that three of them are among the winners of the final round of the Facing Up contest for essays relating to the deficit and debt crisis and what should be done about it.

And here's the official winner list:

Best Multimedia Essay By A College Student

"It's Up To Us" by Kelsey Ryan, Shane Wilson, & Kellen Jenkins of Emporia State (colleagues at The Bulletin, ESU's award-winning newspaper, seen here together celebrating a job well-done)

Best Written Essay By A College Student

"Means-Testing Social Security" by Zachary Skaggs of American University, in Washington, D.C. (an enthusiastic student of economics, currently prepping for med school, with an understandable strong interest in health care reform and cost control, among other things)

Congratulations to all! And thanks to everyone who entered – the discussion is one of the most important parts of our Students Face Up program (available free of charge thanks to a grant from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation) to help students and other concerned citizens get involved in making choices to build a better future.

Each prize is worth $500 (ESU's winners will have to split their prize three ways). But that's not the only take-away for our winners, who plan to continue raising the consciousness of other Americans on this issue, especially those in their own generation, who have a lot at stake as the national debt clock zooms forward.

Calling the Question on the National Debt

Ruth Wooden — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:06:26 -0500

In the State of the Union speech last night, President Obama said the one of the most thoughtful ways of attacking our budget crisis is to name a bipartisan commission to guide our fiscal future onto a sustainable path, in contrast to the unsustainable path we are on now.

A commission of experts can certainly come up with reasonable suggestions for how to create a sustainable federal budget. But the debate over the national debt and the federal budget isn't just about money, it's about values, and as President Obama said last night, it's also about trust. The federal budget is an expression of our priorities as a country. How we trust our government to spend the taxpayers' money (and who gets taxed) says something about what Americans value, and what we don't.

Budget debates reflect fundamental differences in public values, priorities, and the tradeoffs they're willing to make to accomplish their goals. People hold sharply different values about what they want or need from government, what government can actually deliver, and what role it should play in daily life. These differences in beliefs and interests need to be recognized and reconciled before the government can make long-term budget decisions.

If you judge the United States by its budget, however, you might be forgiven for thinking Americans are a little muddled on key points. As a nation, there's a fundamental mismatch between what our government spends and what takes in, a situation that's going to get worse in the foreseeable future. So far, our political system we've been wanting more from the government than we've been willing to pay for some time.

One of the most crucial points about the Choosing Our Nation's Fiscal Future report is that it calls the question and asks for dialogue on some of the fundamental questions that underlie our budget problems. How big should our government be? What kind of services do we want? How are we going to pay for it? What do we need to do to ensure fairness between older and younger generations?

The Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States didn't take positions on any of these questions. But the committee members felt strongly that we have to recognize that these questions are out there, shaping the decisions the government makes. That's why we devoted an entire chapter of the report to some of the values questions and how they affect the budget, like fairness, economic growth, efficiency, security, and the size of government.

The members also believe that these differing values, in and of themselves, aren't the source of our budget problems. There are a number of ways to put the federal budget on a sustainable path, from widely different philosophical perspectives. We thought the best way of illustrating that was to come up with four alternative paths. Any of them would stabilize the national debt at 60 percent of GDP, our overall goal for eventual, long-term fiscal stability. Each of them approaches the problem differently, but they all get there:

Low spending and revenue This path would allow payroll and income tax rates to remain roughly unchanged, but it would require sharp reductions in the projected growth of health and retirement programs; defense and domestic spending cuts of 20 percent; and no funds for any new programs without additional spending cuts.

Intermediate path 1 This path would raise income and payroll tax rates modestly. It would allow for some growth in health and retirement spending; defense and domestic program cuts of 8 percent; and selected new public investments, such as for the environment and to promote economic growth.

Intermediate path 2 This path would raise income and payroll taxes somewhat higher than with the previous path. Spending growth for health and retirement programs would be slowed, but less than under the other intermediate path; and spending for all other federal responsibilities would be reduced. This path gives higher priority to entitlement programs for the elderly than to other types of government spending.

High spending and revenue This path would require substantially higher taxes. It would maintain the projected growth in Social Security benefits for all future retirees and require smaller reductions over time in the growth of spending for health programs. It would allow spending on all other federal programs to be higher than the level implied by current policies.

Again, the committee isn't endorsing any of these paths. The goal is to show that there are a lot of options for solving the problem, no matter what your political philosophy. That's critical to gaining true public input on solving our budget problems.

Turning our fiscal problems over to a commission doesn't mean the rest of us can sit on our hands. We cannot solve this problem without the public. And the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States has provided this new commission with a head start on how to engage the public in dialogue around the values choices embedded in any final fiscal plan.

Coming up with specific policy proposals and formulas is the province of the experts. But setting national priorities is emphatically the province of the American public. However we move forward on budget problems, let's remember that the only people who can choose our fiscal future are the same ones who will have to live with the choices: the American people. The Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States called the question, but it's up to the public to provide the answer.

Public Agenda President Ruth Wooden served as a member of the Committee on the Fiscal Future of the United States. This blog appeared on the Choosing Our Fiscal Future web site, and you can find out more about the project on Twitter @FiscalFuture and on Facebook.

Live-Tweeting The State Of The Union

Francie Grace — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:43:01 -0500

It was freezing as usual last night in Emporia, Kansas – midway between Wichita and Kansas City, a great case study for the winters for which the Midwest is known. But heat was in evidence as students all over campus at Emporia State University logged on to Twitter to listen, comment and discuss the State of the Union address and the GOP response – viewed from the prism of the federal budget deficit and national debt.

And here's the official winner list:

Best Multimedia Essay By A College Student

"It's Up To Us" by Kelsey Ryan, Shane Wilson, & Kellen Jenkins of Emporia State (colleagues at The Bulletin, ESU's award-winning newspaper, seen here together celebrating a job well-done)

Best Written Essay By A College Student

An Interactive State Of The Union

Francie Grace — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:49:52 -0500

Your thoughts won't flash on the U.S. Capitol podium, but this year's State of the Union address (9 p.m. ET, on most TV networks, many radio outlets, and live on the web and the iPhone) will be different.

As soon as President Obama begins delivering his report on the condition of this country and his proposals for what should be done to face our most urgent problems, YouTube will begin accepting videos with follow-up questions for the president, whose comments are expected to include the formation of a commission on the federal budget deficit (for more on that, click here).

Folks who log onto the Citizen Tube page will also be able to vote on questions for the president, who will answer some of them next week in a live online event.

But you don't have to go on YouTube to have a real time interactive experience with the State of the Union. Log onto Twitter during the president's speech, the Republican response, or afterwards, and if you include the hashtag #FiscalFuture in your message, your comments on the federal budget deficit and national debt will be part of the ongoing conversation.

You can view the conversation live by clicking on #FiscalFuture in your own message or elsewhere, or you can go to search.Twitter.com and search for #Fiscal Future.

Our discussion is nonpartisan, so please try to stick to the subject of the problem and potential solutions, and play nice. We hope to see you there!

Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers' Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:18:17 -0500

Educational reformers of all stripes have focused tremendous energy on thinking of ways to identify effective teachers and in turn recruit, retain, compensate, and support them. But what do teachers think of their ideas?

Research by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates suggests that what teachers think are good indicators of effectiveness—and what they think will make them more effective—are not always aligned with current priorities in education policy.

Although education policy reform has focused on dramatic changes to teacher evaluation and compensation, our findings suggest that these reform ideas are not the most popular among teachers. This study explores the attitudes of all teachers toward how they would measure effectiveness, examines how they perceive themselves to be effective relative to their teaching conditions, and indicates what they believe will improve overall teacher effectiveness.

The full report, which has implications for both policymakers and teachers who want to influence policy, is available at RetainingTeacherTalent.org. This report is Part III of the Retaining Teacher Talent nationwide study Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers’ Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas. Also available online: Part I, Teaching For A Living; and Part II, Supporting Teacher Talent.