Editor's Note: In September of this year Visiting Fellow Norman Eisen was featured in the Council on Government Ethics Law (COGEL) members-only magazine, The Guardian. An abbreviated version of his interview is featured below.

Interview conducted by Wesley Bizzell, Assistant General Counsel, Altria Client Services LLC.

Recently, you addressed the Italian Parliament to discuss ethics in government, as that legislative body considers adopting its own code of ethical conduct. In that speech, you noted you believe there are four key concepts at the center of Federal U.S. ethics laws. What are those four concepts and why they are important?

Firstly, I’d like to note the importance of focusing on four concepts. The House of Representatives Ethics manual is 456 pages long; too long to be of any real use in creating an ethics system. Instead, these four principles serve as a foundation upon which different governments can build their own sets of rules based on their own unique needs.

I focused on just four to make a point about priorities. The first is “conflicts”—that is, problems that arise when an individual’s personal interests and parliamentary duties may be at odds with one another. The second is “gifts”. Even if there isn’t an explicit quid-pro-quo style agreement involved, when a political figure accepts a gift from someone with a demonstrated interest in government decision-making, the suspicion of misconduct will always be there. “Revolving door” is the third core concept. When individuals rotate from the private sector to the public sector over and over again, they are naturally going to form relationships that tempt them toward unethical behavior. Finally, “use official resources.” Officials must be careful to use official resources only for official purposes, being particularly careful not to conduct any campaign activity on the taxpayer’s dime. The goal with these four priorities is not only to keep people from behaving unethically, but also to make sure it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing anything unethical either.

In that speech, you said that focusing on these four areas keeps you from losing the forest for the trees when working with ethics codes. Can you elaborate on that?

There’s always a danger for members of the executive branch, because the system of rules and regulations that governs ethical behavior is itself so complex. When it’s imbedded in equally complicated and overlapping sets of statute you risk creating rules so specific that they’re practically useless. The same is true in the legislative branch and I dare say in the federal judicial branch, as well as at the state and local levels. You’re always on the edge of being lost in the minutiae.

In fact, you can often make wrong decisions if you focus in too much on the specifics, because you lose sight of the larger picture that guides the rules. There are always options in ethical dilemmas, and the big picture needs to be kept in focus.

While at the White House serving as Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform you oversaw numerous significant changes in the area of open government—including helping craft and implement President Obama’s Open Government Directive; publishing White House visitor logs on the internet; and generally improving the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. What change in the area of open government are you most proud?

I was struck when we began the interview by the list of topics—campaign finance, lobbying, ethics, elections, and FOIA issues—because all of those were part of my portfolio as Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform during the first two years of the Obama administration. I would have to say that I’m most proud of my role in the President’s decision to put all of the White House visitor records on the internet.

Remember, in previous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, plaintiffs had to litigate for years just to get a handful of visitor records. To have all of the visitor records on the internet, categorized into various types, opens access to the White House to an unprecedented degree. There are now over four-and-a-half million visitor records available on the White House website, with more added every month. I think that that is remarkable.

Truthfully, I was torn between that accomplishment and a second one, which is that the President and his staff in the White House have had the longest run in presidential history (knock on wood) without a major ethics scandal or a grand jury investigation, indictment, or conviction. I was tempted to list that second fact as the accomplishment of which I was most proud. But it occurred to me that the death of White House scandal is actually a function of the exceptional level of transparency that the visitor records represent. Transparency helps ensure people don’t have meetings they shouldn’t be having, which keeps them out of trouble. So I’ll offer that second accomplishment as a part of the first one.

In your view, what was the most significant lobbying and ethics reform during your tenure at the White House?

No doubt about it: reversing the revolving door. Craig Holman of Public Citizen, who studies these issues, says we were the first in the world to create a reverse revolving door. I think it is absolutely critical to slow the revolving door in both directions—both coming out of government and going in.

I should also note that the comprehensive nature of the ethics system we put into place in the Obama administration bears a responsibility for the good results. The first rule, of course, of any ethics system is “tone at the top.” The president exemplifies that. He has the highest standards of ethics himself, and as a result everyone around him feels he will be personally let down if they don’t embrace the ethics system. Good results flow from that. Looking back, we can identify certain aspects that have more and less successful, but it’s important to recognize that the positive results are owed to the gestalt. Our transparency and ethics system was one of the most through and transparent that I’ve seen in any government, and the result speak for themselves.

I was honored today to speak at the kick off meeting of the new ReFormers Caucus. This group of over 100 former members of the U.S. Senate, the House, and governors of both parties, has come together to fight for meaningful campaign finance reform. In the bipartisan spirit of the caucus, I shared speaking duties with Professor Richard Painter, who was the Bush administration ethics czar and my predecessor before I had a similar role in the Obama White House. 

As I told the distinguished audience of ReFormers (get the pun?) gathered over lunch on Capitol Hill, I wish they had existed when in my Obama administration role I was working for the passage of the Disclose Act. That bill would have brought true transparency to the post-Citizens United campaign finance system, yet it failed by just one vote in Congress.  But it is not too late for Americans, working together, to secure enhanced transparency and other campaign finance changes that are desperately needed.  Momentum is building, with increasing levels of public outrage, as reflected in state and local referenda passing in Maine, Seattle and San Francisco just this week, and much more to come at the federal, state and local level.

Event Information

As the sixth anniversary of Citizens United v. FEC approaches on January 21, both experts and ordinary citizens believe the United States is confronting a campaign finance crisis. Citizens United and related court cases have unleashed a flood of dark money that many believe could drown our democracy. It is estimated that over $5 billion will be spent on the 2016 presidential race—more than 3 times the amount spent in 2008 (already the most expensive election cycle in history). A comprehensive poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS News in the spring of 2015 showed that 84 percent of adults—including 90 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans—believe that money has too much influence in American political campaigns. Even the richest Americans agreed: 85 percent of adults making $100,000 or more share that same belief.

There has been much handwringing about this state of affairs. But there has been too little public attention paid to finding solutions. On the sixth anniversary of Citizens United, the Governance Studies program at Brookings hosted current and former government officials, lobbyists, donors, advocates, and other experts to discuss how to resolve the campaign finance crisis. They focused on innovative reform efforts at the federal, state, and local levels which offer the hope of addressing the problem of big money in politics.

Panelists will included:

Cheri Beasley, Associate Justice, North Carolina Supreme Court
Daniel Berger, Partner, Berger & Montague, P.C.
John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President, Free Speech for People
Norman L. Eisen, U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic (2011-2014); Special Assistant and Special Counsel to the President (2009-2011); Visiting Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Bruce Freed, Founder and President, Center for Political Accountability
Steve Israel, Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-NY)
Roger Katz, Chair, Government Oversight Committee, Maine State Senate (R)
Allen Loughry, Justice, Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia
Chuck Merin, Executive Vice President, Prime Policy Group; Lobbyist
Connie Morella, Ambassador to OECD (2003-2007); Member, U.S. House of Representatives (R-Md., 1987-2003)
Jeffrey Peck, Principal, Peck Madigan Jones; Lobbyist
Nick Penniman, Executive Director, Issue One
Trevor Potter, Commissioner, Federal Election Commission (1991-1995; Chairman,1994)
John Pudner, Executive Director, Take Back Our Republic
Ann Ravel, Commissioner, Federal Election Commission (Chairwoman, 2015)
Timothy Roemer, Ambassador to India (2009-2011); Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Ind., 1991-2003); member 9/11 Commission; Senior Strategic Advisor to Issue One
John Sarbanes, Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Md.)
Claudine Schneider, Member, U.S. House of Representatives (R-R.I.,1981-1991)
Peter Schweizer, President, Government Accountability Institute
Zephyr Teachout, CEO, Mayday PAC
Lucas Welch, Executive Director, The Pluribus Project
Fred Wertheimer, Founder and President, Democracy 21
Tim Wirth, Member, U.S. Senate (D-Colo.,1987-1993); Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Colo.,1975-1987)
Dan Wolf, Chair, Committee on Steering and Policy, Massachusetts State Senate (D)

Click here for a full agenda.

Video

• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 1
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 2
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 3
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it - Part 4

Audio

• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 1)
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 2)
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 3)
• The campaign finance crisis in America and how to fix it: A solutions summit (Part 4)

Transcript

• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• Solution Summits Agenda120
• 20160121_campaign_finance_summit_transcript

Last week, over 100 experts from across the U.S. came together at the Brookings Institution on the sixth anniversary of the Citizens United decision to analyze its disastrous consequences and how to repair them. The room was as diverse as it was packed. Two dozen current and former members of Congress, representatives of the executive and judicial branches, both state and federal, attended. They sat side-by-side with business leaders and lobbyists, activists and scholars. Conservatives and Tea Party leaders mingled with liberals and progressives. All were united by their agreement that the current system is broken—and their determination to fix it.

Several points of consensus emerged from the half day event.

First, we are facing a crisis due to the flood of money that is drowning American democracy. For example, Congressman Steve Israel expanded on his recent New York Times op-ed describing why he his quitting Congress. He related his experience of calling potential campaign donors from a small cubicle off the Capitol grounds—a practice referred to as “call time.” Invoking images from The Wolf of Wall Street, Congressman Israel compared the practice to “selling penny stocks, only it’s shares of democracy that are being traded.” The result is voter disillusionment– voters increasingly feeling like their voices are not heard because they cannot make large political contributions. Author Peter Schweizer, President of the Government Accountability Institute, argued that businesses suffer under this system as well. From his perspective, “Businesses … are targeted by politicians in the search for cash,” in a type of extortion by which politicians use their influence to benefit only those who can pay up. The Executive Director of Take Back our Republic, John Pudner, argued that the campaign finance system is the single greatest threat to national security—if domestic interests can purchase influence in our system, international interests can figure out a way to do so as well.

Ambassador Eisen with Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY 3) 

Second, there is hope for a fix. There are a wide range of innovative solutions at hand, many of which have already been successfully deployed at the state and local levels. Commissioner and outgoing Chair Ann Ravel of the Federal Election Commission laid out a reform agenda for that organization. John Bonifaz of Free Speech for People advocated for a 28^th amendment allowing for campaign spending limits, reminding the audience, “We have done this before in our nation’s history; 27 times before. Seven of those times to overturn egregious Supreme Court rulings.” Fred Wertheimer urged strategies to capitalize on the small donor revolution that technology has ushered in, as well as a renewed push for public finance. Judges and legislators from states across the union discussed how public finance and other remedies are working at the state and local levels. Still others advocated solutions including a pledge that would commit politicians to ethical fundraising standards and campaign finance reform agendas when in office; reform in the Federal Election Commission to allow greater enforcement authority; corporate governance policies that require publically held companies to openly disclose political contributions and be accountable to their shareholders; and many, many more specific solutions to tackle the problem from all sides.

Third, and perhaps the most important takeaway from the event, was that those fixes are in political reach. Expert after expert, all from vastly different backgrounds and political orientations, argued that we are much closer to achieving these solutions than we think. The entire program was evidence of that—the size, diversity, and passion of the attendees mirroring a nation of voters who are demanding their representatives do what’s necessary to fix our broken campaign finance system. In the concluding panel, Congressman John Sarbanes predicted, “I think the public is going to demand this. That’s why the time is now. The broad public has arrived at a moment where they are demanding a response to the way they feel. If they don’t get it from some of the solutions we’re proposing, because we don’t educate them that those solutions are there, they’re going to grab a pitchfork and they’re going to go somewhere else. But there’s plenty of evidence that the public will not be denied some remedy to the way they feel.”

The full audio of the event, which includes further discussion of many solutions and the reasons why they are so necessary, can be found on the event page. By clicking there, you can see all the featured speakers, and many more experts participated from the audience floor. Give a listen and you will see why it was such a remarkable day, and why change is nearer that you may think.

We have received many emails and calls in response to our blog last week about our campaign finance reform “Solutions Summit," so we thought we would share some pictures and quotes from the event. Also, Issue One’s Nick Penniman and I just co-authored an op-ed highlighting the themes of the event, which you can find here.

Ann Ravel, Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission and the outgoing Chairwoman kicked us off as our luncheon speaker. She noted that, “campaign finance issues [will] only be addressed when there is a scandal. The truth is, that campaign finance today is a scandal.”

(L-R, Ann Ravel, Trevor Potter, Peter Schweizer, Timothy Roemer)

Commenting on Ann’s remarks from a conservative perspective, Peter Schweizer, the President of the Government Accountability Institute, noted that, “increasingly today the problem is more one of extortion, that the challenge not so much from businesses that are trying to influence politicians, although that certainly happens, but that businesses feel and are targeted by politicians in the search for cash.” That’s Trevor Potter, who introduced Ann, to Peter’s left.

Kicking off the first panel, a deep dive into the elements of the campaign finance crisis, was Tim Roemer, former Ambassador to India (2009-2011), Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, (D-IN, 1991-2003) Member of the 9/11 Commission and Senior Strategic Advisor to Issue One. He explained that “This is not a red state problem. It’s not a blue state problem. Across the heartland, across America, the Left, the Right, the Democrats, the Republicans, Independents, we all need to work together to fix this.”

(L-R, Fred Wertheimer, John Bonifaz, Dan Wolf, Roger Katz, Allen Loughry, Cheri Beasley, Norman Eisen)

Our second panel addressed solutions at the federal and state level.  Here, Fred Wertheimer, the founder and President of Democracy 21 is saying that, “We are going to have major scandals again and we are going to have opportunities for major reforms. With this corrupt campaign finance system it is only a matter of time before the scandals really break out. The American people are clearly ready for a change. The largest national reform movement in decades now exists and it’s growing rapidly.”

Our third and final panel explained why the time for reform is now. John Sarbanes, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-MD) argued that fixes are in political reach. He explains, “If we can build on the way people feel about [what] they’re passionate on and lead them that way to this need for reform, then we’re going to build the kind of broad, deep coalition that will achieve success ultimately.”

(L-R in each photo, John Sarbanes, Claudine Schneider, Zephyr Teachout)

Reinforcing John’s remarks, Claudine Schneider, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (R-RI, 1981-1991) pointed out that “we need to keep pounding the media with letters to the editor, with editorial press conferences, with broad spectrum of media strategies where we can get the attention of the masses. Because once the masses rise up, I believe that’s when were really going to get the change, from the bottom up and the top down.”

Grace Abiera contributed to this post.

This is part two of my analysis of instruction and Common Core’s implementation.  I dubbed the three-part examination of instruction “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”  Having discussed “the “good” in part one, I now turn to “the bad.”  One particular aspect of the Common Core math standards—the treatment of standard algorithms in whole number arithmetic—will lead some teachers to waste instructional time.

In 1963, psychologist John B. Carroll published a short essay, “A Model of School Learning” in Teachers College Record.  Carroll proposed a parsimonious model of learning that expressed the degree of learning (or what today is commonly called achievement) as a function of the ratio of time spent on learning to the time needed to learn.     

The numerator, time spent learning, has also been given the term opportunity to learn.  The denominator, time needed to learn, is synonymous with student aptitude.  By expressing aptitude as time needed to learn, Carroll refreshingly broke through his era’s debate about the origins of intelligence (nature vs. nurture) and the vocabulary that labels students as having more or less intelligence. He also spoke directly to a primary challenge of teaching: how to effectively produce learning in classrooms populated by students needing vastly different amounts of time to learn the exact same content.^[i] 

The source of that variation is largely irrelevant to the constraints placed on instructional decisions.  Teachers obviously have limited control over the denominator of the ratio (they must take kids as they are) and less than one might think over the numerator.  Teachers allot time to instruction only after educational authorities have decided the number of hours in the school day, the number of days in the school year, the number of minutes in class periods in middle and high schools, and the amount of time set aside for lunch, recess, passing periods, various pull-out programs, pep rallies, and the like.  There are also announcements over the PA system, stray dogs that may wander into the classroom, and other unscheduled encroachments on instructional time.

The model has had a profound influence on educational thought.  As of July 5, 2015, Google Scholar reported 2,931 citations of Carroll’s article.  Benjamin Bloom’s “mastery learning” was deeply influenced by Carroll.  It is predicated on the idea that optimal learning occurs when time spent on learning—rather than content—is allowed to vary, providing to each student the individual amount of time he or she needs to learn a common curriculum.  This is often referred to as “students working at their own pace,” and progress is measured by mastery of content rather than seat time. David C. Berliner’s 1990 discussion of time includes an analysis of mediating variables in the numerator of Carroll’s model, including the amount of time students are willing to spend on learning.  Carroll called this persistence, and Berliner links the construct to student engagement and time on task—topics of keen interest to researchers today.  Berliner notes that although both are typically described in terms of motivation, they can be measured empirically in increments of time.     

Most applications of Carroll’s model have been interested in what happens when insufficient time is provided for learning—in other words, when the numerator of the ratio is significantly less than the denominator.  When that happens, students don’t have an adequate opportunity to learn.  They need more time. 

As applied to Common Core and instruction, one should also be aware of problems that arise from the inefficient distribution of time.  Time is a limited resource that teachers deploy in the production of learning.  Below I discuss instances when the CCSS-M may lead to the numerator in Carroll’s model being significantly larger than the denominator—when teachers spend more time teaching a concept or skill than is necessary.  Because time is limited and fixed, wasted time on one topic will shorten the amount of time available to teach other topics.  Excessive instructional time may also negatively affect student engagement.  Students who have fully learned content that continues to be taught may become bored; they must endure instruction that they do not need.

Jason Zimba, one of the lead authors of the Common Core Math standards, and Barry Garelick, a critic of the standards, had a recent, interesting exchange about when standard algorithms are called for in the CCSS-M.  A standard algorithm is a series of steps designed to compute accurately and quickly.  In the U.S., students are typically taught the standard algorithms of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with whole numbers.  Most readers of this post will recognize the standard algorithm for addition.  It involves lining up two or more multi-digit numbers according to place-value, with one number written over the other, and adding the columns from right to left with “carrying” (or regrouping) as needed.

The standard algorithm is the only algorithm required for students to learn, although others are mentioned beginning with the first grade standards.  Curiously, though, CCSS-M doesn’t require students to know the standard algorithms for addition and subtraction until fourth grade.  This opens the door for a lot of wasted time.  Garelick questioned the wisdom of teaching several alternative strategies for addition.  He asked whether, under the Common Core, only the standard algorithm could be taught—or at least, could it be taught first. As he explains:

Delaying teaching of the standard algorithm until fourth grade and relying on place value “strategies” and drawings to add numbers is thought to provide students with the conceptual understanding of adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers. What happens, instead, is that the means to help learn, explain or memorize the procedure become a procedure unto itself and students are required to use inefficient cumbersome methods for two years. This is done in the belief that the alternative approaches confer understanding, so are superior to the standard algorithm. To teach the standard algorithm first would in reformers’ minds be rote learning. Reformers believe that by having students using strategies in lieu of the standard algorithm, students are still learning “skills” (albeit inefficient and confusing ones), and these skills support understanding of the standard algorithm. Students are left with a panoply of methods (praised as a good thing because students should have more than one way to solve problems), that confuse more than enlighten. 

Zimba responded that the standard algorithm could, indeed, be the only method taught because it meets a crucial test: reinforcing knowledge of place value and the properties of operations.  He goes on to say that other algorithms also may be taught that are consistent with the standards, but that the decision to do so is left in the hands of local educators and curriculum designers:

In short, the Common Core requires the standard algorithm; additional algorithms aren’t named, and they aren’t required…Standards can’t settle every disagreement—nor should they. As this discussion of just a single slice of the math curriculum illustrates, teachers and curriculum authors following the standards still may, and still must, make an enormous range of decisions.

Zimba defends delaying mastery of the standard algorithm until fourth grade, referring to it as a “culminating” standard that he would, if he were teaching, introduce in earlier grades.  Zimba illustrates the curricular progression he would employ in a table, showing that he would introduce the standard algorithm for addition late in first grade (with two-digit addends) and then extend the complexity of its use and provide practice towards fluency until reaching the culminating standard in fourth grade. Zimba would introduce the subtraction algorithm in second grade and similarly ramp up its complexity until fourth grade.

It is important to note that in CCSS-M the word “algorithm” appears for the first time (in plural form) in the third grade standards:

3.NBT.2  Fluently add and subtract within 1000 using strategies and algorithms based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction.

The term “strategies and algorithms” is curious.  Zimba explains, “It is true that the word ‘algorithms’ here is plural, but that could be read as simply leaving more choice in the hands of the teacher about which algorithm(s) to teach—not as a requirement for each student to learn two or more general algorithms for each operation!” 

I have described before the “dog whistles” embedded in the Common Core, signals to educational progressives—in this case, math reformers—that  despite these being standards, the CCSS-M will allow them great latitude.  Using the plural “algorithms” in this third grade standard and not specifying the standard algorithm until fourth grade is a perfect example of such a dog whistle.

It appears that the Common Core authors wanted to reach a political compromise on standard algorithms. 

Standard algorithms were a key point of contention in the “Math Wars” of the 1990s.   The 1997 California Framework for Mathematics required that students know the standard algorithms for all four operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—by the end of fourth grade.^[ii]  The 2000 Massachusetts Mathematics Curriculum Framework called for learning the standard algorithms for addition and subtraction by the end of second grade and for multiplication and division by the end of fourth grade.  These two frameworks were heavily influenced by mathematicians (from Stanford in California and Harvard in Massachusetts) and quickly became favorites of math traditionalists.  In both states’ frameworks, the standard algorithm requirements were in direct opposition to the reform-oriented frameworks that preceded them—in which standard algorithms were barely mentioned and alternative algorithms or “strategies” were encouraged. 

Now that the CCSS-M has replaced these two frameworks, the requirement for knowing the standard algorithms in California and Massachusetts slips from third or fourth grade all the way to sixth grade.  That’s what reformers get in the compromise.  They are given a green light to continue teaching alternative algorithms, as long as the algorithms are consistent with teaching place value and properties of arithmetic.  But the standard algorithm is the only one students are required to learn.  And that exclusivity is intended to please the traditionalists.

I agree with Garelick that the compromise leads to problems.  In a 2013 Chalkboard post, I described a first grade math program in which parents were explicitly requested not to teach the standard algorithm for addition when helping their children at home.  The students were being taught how to represent addition with drawings that clustered objects into groups of ten.  The exercises were both time consuming and tedious.  When the parents met with the school principal to discuss the matter, the principal told them that the math program was following the Common Core by promoting deeper learning.  The parents withdrew their child from the school and enrolled him in private school.

The value of standard algorithms is that they are efficient and packed with mathematics.  Once students have mastered single-digit operations and the meaning of place value, the standard algorithms reveal to students that they can take procedures that they already know work well with one- and two-digit numbers, and by applying them over and over again, solve problems with large numbers.  Traditionalists and reformers have different goals.  Reformers believe exposure to several algorithms encourages flexible thinking and the ability to draw on multiple strategies for solving problems.  Traditionalists believe that a bigger problem than students learning too few algorithms is that too few students learn even one algorithm.

I have been a critic of the math reform movement since I taught in the 1980s.  But some of their complaints have merit.  All too often, instruction on standard algorithms has left out meaning.  As Karen C. Fuson and Sybilla Beckmann point out, “an unfortunate dichotomy” emerged in math instruction: teachers taught “strategies” that implied understanding and “algorithms” that implied procedural steps that were to be memorized.  Michael Battista’s research has provided many instances of students clinging to algorithms without understanding.  He gives an example of a student who has not quite mastered the standard algorithm for addition and makes numerous errors on a worksheet.  On one item, for example, the student forgets to carry and calculates that 19 + 6 = 15.  In a post-worksheet interview, the student counts 6 units from 19 and arrives at 25.  Despite the obvious discrepancy—(25 is not 15, the student agrees)—he declares that his answers on the worksheet must be correct because the algorithm he used “always works.”^[iii] 

Math reformers rightfully argue that blind faith in procedure has no place in a thinking mathematical classroom. Who can disagree with that?  Students should be able to evaluate the validity of answers, regardless of the procedures used, and propose alternative solutions.  Standard algorithms are tools to help them do that, but students must be able to apply them, not in a robotic way, but with understanding.

Let’s return to Carroll’s model of time and learning.  I conclude by making two points—one about curriculum and instruction, the other about implementation.

In the study of numbers, a coherent K-12 math curriculum, similar to that of the previous California and Massachusetts frameworks, can be sketched in a few short sentences.  Addition with whole numbers (including the standard algorithm) is taught in first grade, subtraction in second grade, multiplication in third grade, and division in fourth grade.  Thus, the study of whole number arithmetic is completed by the end of fourth grade.  Grades five through seven focus on rational numbers (fractions, decimals, percentages), and grades eight through twelve study advanced mathematics.  Proficiency is sought along three dimensions:  1) fluency with calculations, 2) conceptual understanding, 3) ability to solve problems.

Placing the CCSS-M standard for knowing the standard algorithms of addition and subtraction in fourth grade delays this progression by two years.  Placing the standard for the division algorithm in sixth grade continues the two-year delay.   For many fourth graders, time spent working on addition and subtraction will be wasted time.  They already have a firm understanding of addition and subtraction.  The same thing for many sixth graders—time devoted to the division algorithm will be wasted time that should be devoted to the study of rational numbers.  The numerator in Carroll’s instructional time model will be greater than the denominator, indicating the inefficient allocation of time to instruction.

As Jason Zimba points out, not everyone agrees on when the standard algorithms should be taught, the alternative algorithms that should be taught, the manner in which any algorithm should be taught, or the amount of instructional time that should be spent on computational procedures.  Such decisions are made by local educators.  Variation in these decisions will introduce variation in the implementation of the math standards.  It is true that standards, any standards, cannot control implementation, especially the twists and turns in how they are interpreted by educators and brought to life in classroom instruction.  But in this case, the standards themselves are responsible for the myriad approaches, many unproductive, that we are sure to see as schools teach various algorithms under the Common Core.

The eurozone has three problems: national debt obligations that cannot be met, medium-term imbalances in trade competitiveness, and long-term structural flaws.

The short-run problem requires more of the monetary easing that Germany has, with appalling shortsightedness, been resisting, and less of the near-term fiscal restraint that Germany has, with equally appalling shortsightedness, been seeking. To insist that Greece meet all of its near-term current debt service obligations makes about as much sense as did French and British insistence that Germany honor its reparations obligations after World War I. The latter could not be and were not honored. The former cannot and will not be honored either.

The medium-term problem is that, given a single currency, labor costs are too high in Greece and too low in Germany and some other northern European countries. Because adjustments in currency values cannot correct these imbalances, differences in growth of wages must do the job—either wage deflation and continued depression in Greece and other peripheral countries, wage inflation in Germany, or both. The former is a recipe for intense and sustained misery. The latter, however politically improbable it may now seem, is the better alternative.

The long-term problem is that the eurozone lacks the fiscal transfer mechanisms necessary to soften the effects of competitiveness imbalances while other forms of adjustment take effect. This lack places extraordinary demands on the willingness of individual nations to undertake internal policies to reduce such imbalances. Until such fiscal transfer mechanisms are created, crises such as the current one are bound to recur.

Present circumstances call for a combination of short-term expansionary policies that have to be led or accepted by the surplus nations, notably Germany, who will also have to recognize and accept that not all Greek debts will be paid or that debt service payments will not be made on time and at originally negotiated interest rates. The price for those concessions will be a current and credible commitment eventually to restore and maintain fiscal balance by the peripheral countries, notably Greece.

The 2016 presidential election confronts the U.S. electorate with political choices more fundamental than any since 1964 and possibly since 1932. That statement may strike some as hyperbolic, but the policy differences between the two major parties and the positions of candidates vying for their presidential nominations support this claim.

A victorious Republican candidate would take office backed by a Republican-controlled Congress, possibly with heightened majorities and with the means to deliver on campaign promises. On the other hand, the coattails of a successful Democratic candidate might bring more Democrats to Congress, but that president would almost certainly have to work with a Republican House and, quite possibly, a still Republican Senate. The political wars would continue, but even a president engaged in continuous political trench warfare has the power to get a lot done.

Candidates always promise more than they can deliver and often deliver different policies from those they have promised. Every recent president has been buffeted by external events unanticipated when he took office. But this year, more than in half a century or more, the two parties offer a choice, not an echo. Here is a partial and selective list of key issues to illustrate what is at stake.

The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare or the ACA, passed both houses of Congress with not a single Republican vote. The five years since enactment of the ACA have not dampened Republican opposition.

The persistence and strength of opposition to the ACA is quite unlike post-enactment reactions to the Social Security Act of 1935 or the 1965 amendments that created Medicare. Both earlier programs were hotly debated and controversial. But a majority of both parties voted for the Social Security Act. A majority of House Republicans and a sizeable minority of Senate Republicans supported Medicare. In both cases, opponents not only became reconciled to the new laws but eventually participated in improving and extending them. Republican members of Congress overwhelmingly supported, and a Republican president endorsed, adding Disability Insurance to the Social Security Act.  In 2003, a Republican president proposed and fought for the addition of a drug benefit to Medicare.

The current situation bears no resemblance to those two situations. Five years after enactment of Obamacare, in contrast, every major candidate for the Republican presidential nomination has called for its repeal and replacement. So have the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives and Majority Leader in the Senate.  

Just what 'repeal and replace' might look like under a GOP president remains unclear as ACA critics have not agreed on an alternative. Some plans would do away with some of the elements of Obamacare and scale back others. Some proposals would repeal the mandate that people carry insurance, the bar on 'medical underwriting' (a once-routine practice under which insurers vary premiums based on expected use of medical care), or the requirement that insurers sell plans to all potential customers. Other proposals would retain tax credits to help make insurance affordable but reduce their size, or would end rules specifying what 'adequate' insurance plans must cover.

Repeal is hard to imagine if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2016. Even if repeal legislation could overcome a Senate filibuster, a Democratic president would likely veto it and an override would be improbable. 

But a compromise with horse-trading, once routine, might once again become possible. A Democratic president might agree to Republican-sponsored changes to the ACA, such as dropping the requirement that employers of 50 or more workers offer insurance to their employees, if Republicans agreed to changes in the ACA that supporters seek, such as the extension of tax credits to families now barred from them because one member has access to very costly employer-sponsored insurance.

In sum, the 2016 election will determine the future of the most far-reaching social insurance legislation in half a century.

Social Security faces a projected long-term gap between what it takes in and what it is scheduled to pay out. Every major Republican candidate has called for cutting benefits below those promised under current law. None has suggested any increase in payroll tax rates. Each Democratic candidate has proposed raising both revenues and benefits. Within those broad outlines, the specific proposals differ.

Most Republican candidates would cut benefits across the board or selectively for high earners. For example, Senator Ted Cruz proposes to link benefits to prices rather than wages, a switch that would reduce Social Security benefits relative to current law by steadily larger amounts: an estimated 29 percent by 2065 and 46 percent by 2090. He would allow younger workers to shift payroll taxes to private accounts. Donald Trump has proposed no cuts in Social Security because, he says, proposing cuts is inconsistent with winning elections and because meeting current statutory commitments is 'honoring a deal.' Trump also favors letting people invest part of their payroll taxes in private securities. He has not explained how he would make up the funding gap that would result if current benefits are honored but revenues to support them are reduced. Senator Marco Rubio has endorsed general benefit cuts, but he has also proposed to increase the minimum benefit. Three Republican candidates have proposed ending payroll taxes for older workers, a step that would add to the projected funding gap.

Democratic candidates, in contrast, would raise benefits, across-the-board or for selected groups—care givers or survivors. They would switch the price index used to adjust benefits for inflation to one that is tailored to consumption of the elderly and that analysts believe would raise benefits more rapidly than the index now in use. All would raise the ceiling on earnings subject to the payroll tax. Two would broaden the payroll tax base.

As these examples indicate, the two parties have quite different visions for Social Security. Major changes, such as those envisioned by some Republican candidates, are not easily realized, however. Before he became president, Ronald Reagan in numerous speeches called for restructuring Social Security. Those statements did not stop him from signing a 1983 law that restored financial balance to the very program against which he had inveighed but with few structural changes. George W. Bush sought to partially privatize Social Security, to no avail. Now, however, Social Security faces a funding gap that must eventually be filled. The discipline of Trust Fund financing means that tax increases, benefit cuts, or some combination of the two are inescapable. Action may be delayed beyond the next presidency, as current projections indicate that the Social Security Trust Fund and current revenues can sustain scheduled benefits until the mid 2030s. But that is not what the candidates propose. Voters face a choice, clear and stark, between a Democratic president who would try to maintain or raise benefits and would increase payroll taxes to pay for it, and a Republican president who would seek to cut benefits, oppose tax increases, and might well try to partially privatize Social Security.

On no other issue is the split between the two parties wider or the stakes in their disagreement higher than on measures to deal with global warming. Leading Republican candidates have denied that global warming is occurring (Trump), scorned evidence supporting the existence of global warming as bogus (Cruz), acknowledged that global warming is occurring but not because of human actions (Rubio, Carson), or admitted that it is occurring but dismissed it as not a pressing issue (Fiorina, Christie). Congressional Republicans oppose current Administration initiatives under the Clean Air Act to curb emission of greenhouse gases.

Democratic candidates uniformly agree that global warming is occurring and that it results from human activities. They support measures to lower those emissions by amounts similar to those embraced in the Paris accords of December 2015 as essential to curb the speed and ultimate extent of global warming.

Climate scientists and economists are nearly unanimous that unabated emissions of greenhouse gases pose serious risks of devastating and destabilizing outcomes—that climbing average temperatures could render some parts of the world uninhabitable, that increases in sea levels that will inundate coastal regions inhabited by tens of millions of people, and that storms, droughts, and other climatic events will be more frequent and more destructive. Immediate actions to curb emission of greenhouse gases can reduce these effects. But no actions can entirely avoid them, and delay is costly.  Environmental economists also agree, with little partisan division, that the way to proceed is to harness market forces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” 

The division between the parties on global warming is not new. In 2009, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. That law would have capped and gradually lowered greenhouse gas emissions. Two hundred eleven Democrats but only 8 Republicans voted for the bill. The Senate took no action, and the proposal died.

Now Republicans are opposing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a set of regulations under the Clean Air Act to lower emissions by power plants, which account for 40 percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. The Clean Power Plan is a stop-gap measure. It applies only to power plants, not to other sources of emissions, and it is not nationally uniform. These shortcomings reflect the legislative authority on which the plan is based, the Clean Air Act. That law was designed to curb the local problem of air pollution, not the global damage from greenhouse gases. Environmental economists of both parties recognize that a tax or a cap on greenhouse gas emissions would be more effective and less costly than the current regulations, but superior alternatives are now politically unreachable.

Based on their statements, any of the current leading Republican candidates would back away from the recently negotiated Paris climate agreement, scuttle the Clean Power Plan, and resist any tax on greenhouse gas emissions. Any of the Democratic candidates would adhere to the Clean Power Plan and support the Paris climate agreement. One Democratic candidate has embraced a carbon tax. None has called for the extension of the Clean Power Plan to other emission sources, but such policies are consistent with their current statements.

The importance of global policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions is difficult to exaggerate. While the United States acting alone cannot entirely solve the problem, resolute action by the world’s largest economy and second largest greenhouse gas emitter is essential, in concert with other nations, to forestall climate catastrophe.

If the next president serves two terms, as six of the last nine presidents have done, four currently sitting justices will be over age 86 and one over age 90 by the time that presidency ends—provided that they have not died or resigned.

The political views of the president have always shaped presidential choices regarding judicial appointments. As all carry life-time tenure, these appointments influence events long after the president has left office. The political importance of these appointments has always been enormous, but it is even greater now than in the past. One reason is that the jurisprudence of sitting Supreme Court justices now lines up more closely than in the past with that of the party of the president who appointed them. Republican presidents appointed all sitting justices identified as conservative; Democratic presidents appointed all sitting justices identified as liberal. The influence of the president’s politics extends to other judicial appointments as well.

A second reason is that recent judicial decisions have re-opened decisions once regarded as settled. The decision in the first case dealing with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), NFIB v. Sibelius is illustrative.

When the ACA was enacted, few observers doubted the power of the federal government to require people to carry health insurance. That power was based on a long line of decisions, dating back to the 1930s, under the Constitutional clause authorizing the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court rejected an older doctrine that had barred such regulations. The earlier doctrine dated from 1905 when the Court overturned a New York law that prohibited bakers from working more than 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week. The Court found in the 14^th Amendment, which prohibits any state from ‘depriving any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law,’ a right to contract previously invisible to jurists which it said the New York law violated. In the early- and mid-1930s, the Court used this doctrine to invalidate some New Deal legislation. Then the Court changed course and authorized a vast range of regulations under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.  It was on this line of cases that supporters of the ACA relied.

Nor did many observers doubt the power of Congress to require states to broaden Medicaid coverage as a condition for remaining in the Medicaid program and receiving federal matching grants to help them pay for required medical services.

To the surprise of most legal scholars, a 5-4 Supreme Court majority ruled in NFIB v. Sibelius that the Commerce Clause did not authorize the individual health insurance mandate. But it decided, also 5 to 4, that tax penalties could be imposed on those who fail to carry insurance. The tax saved the mandate. But the decision also raised questions about federal powers under the Commerce Clause. The Court also ruled that the Constitution barred the federal government from requiring states to expand Medicaid coverage as a condition for remaining in the program. This decision was odd, in that Congress certainly could constitutionally have achieved the same objective by repealing the old Medicaid program and enacting a new Medicaid program with the same rules as those contained in the ACA that states would have been free to join or not.

NFIB v. Sibelius and other cases the Court has recently heard or soon will hear raise questions about what additional attempts to regulate interstate commerce might be ruled unconstitutional and about what limits the Court might impose on Congress’s power to require states to implement legislated rules as a condition of receiving federal financial aid. The Court has also heard, or soon will hear, a series of cases of fundamental importance regarding campaign financing, same-sex marriage, affirmative action, abortion rights, the death penalty, the delegation of powers to federal regulatory agencies, voting rights, and rules under which people can seek redress in the courts for violation of their rights.

Throughout U.S. history, the American people have granted nine appointed judges the power to decide whether the actions taken by elected legislators are or are not consistent with a constitution written more than two centuries ago. As a practical matter, the Court could not maintain this sway if it deviated too far from public opinion. But the boundaries within which the Court has substantially unfettered discretion are wide, and within those limits the Supreme Court can profoundly limit or redirect the scope of legislative authority. The Supreme Court’s switch in the 1930s from doctrines under which much of the New Deal was found to be unconstitutional to other doctrines under which it was constitutional illustrates the Court’s sensitivity to public opinion and the profound influence of its decisions.

The bottom line is that the next president will likely appoint enough Supreme Court justices and other judges to shape the character of the Supreme Court and of lower courts with ramifications both broad and enduring on important aspects of every person’s life.

***

The next president will preside over critical decisions relating to health care policy, Social Security, and environmental policy, and will shape the character of the Supreme Court for the next generation. Profound differences distinguish the two major parties on these and many other issues. A recent survey of members of the House of Representatives found that on a scale of ‘liberal to conservative’ the most conservative Democrat was more liberal than the least conservative Republican. Whatever their source, these divisions are real.  The examples cited here are sufficient to show that the 2016 election richly merits the overworked term 'watershed'—it will be the most consequential presidential election in a very long time.

Led by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, one-time supporters of ‘single-payer’ health reform are rekindling their romance with a health reform idea that was, is, and will remain a dream.  Single-payer health reform is a dream because, as the old joke goes, ‘you can’t get there from here.

Let’s be clear: opposing a proposal only because one believes it cannot be passed is usually a dodge.One should judge the merits. Strong leaders prove their skill by persuading people to embrace their visions. But single-payer is different. It is radical in a way that no legislation has ever been in the United States.

Not so, you may be thinking. Remember such transformative laws as the Social Security Act, Medicare, the Homestead Act, and the Interstate Highway Act. And, yes, remember the Affordable Care Act. Those and many other inspired legislative acts seemed revolutionary enough at the time. But none really was. None overturned entrenched and valued contractual and legislative arrangements. None reshuffled trillions—or in less inflated days, billions—of dollars devoted to the same general purpose as the new legislation. All either extended services previously available to only a few, or created wholly new arrangements.

To understand the difference between those past achievements and the idea of replacing current health insurance arrangements with a single-payer system, compare the Affordable Care Act with Sanders’ single-payer proposal.

Criticized by some for alleged radicalism, the ACA is actually stunningly incremental. Most of the ACA’s expanded coverage comes through extension of Medicaid, an existing public program that serves more than 60 million people. The rest comes through purchase of private insurance in “exchanges,” which embody the conservative ideal of a market that promotes competition among private venders, or through regulations that extended the ability of adult offspring to remain covered under parental plans. The ACA minimally altered insurance coverage for the 170 million people covered through employment-based health insurance. The ACA added a few small benefits to Medicare but left it otherwise untouched. It left unaltered the tax breaks that support group insurance coverage for most working age Americans and their families. It also left alone the military health programs serving 14 million people. Private nonprofit and for-profit hospitals, other vendors, and privately employed professionals continue to deliver most care.

In contrast, Senator Sanders’ plan, like the earlier proposal sponsored by Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) which Sanders co-sponsored, would scrap all of those arrangements. Instead, people would simply go to the medical care provider of their choice and bills would be paid from a national trust fund. That sounds simple and attractive, but it raises vexatious questions.

• How much would it cost the federal government? Where would the money to cover the costs come from?
• What would happen to the $700 billion that employers now spend on health insurance?
• How would the $600 billion a year reductions in total health spending that Sanders says his plan would generate come from?
• What would happen to special facilities for veterans and families of members of the armed services?

Sanders has answers for some of these questions, but not for others. Both the answers and non-answers show why single payer is unlike past major social legislation.

The answer to the question of how much single payer would cost the federal government is simple: $4.1 trillion a year, or $1.4 trillion more than the federal government now spends on programs that the Sanders plan would replace. The money would come from new taxes. Half the added revenue would come from doubling the payroll tax that employers now pay for Social Security. This tax approximates what employers now collectively spend on health insurance for their employees...if they provide health insurance. But many don’t. Some employers would face large tax increases. Others would reap windfall gains.

The cost question is particularly knotty, as Sanders assumes a 20 percent cut in spending averaged over ten years, even as roughly 30 million currently uninsured people would gain coverage. Those savings, even if actually realized, would start slowly, which means cuts of 30 percent or more by Year 10. Where would they come from? Savings from reduced red-tape associated with individual insurance would cover a small fraction of this target. The major source would have to be fewer services or reduced prices. Who would determine which of the services physicians regard as desirable -- and patients have come to expect -- are no longer ‘needed’? How would those be achieved without massive bankruptcies among hospitals, as columnist Ezra Klein has suggested, and would follow such spending cuts? What would be the reaction to the prospect of drastic cuts in salaries of health care personnel – would we have a shortage of doctors and nurses? Would patients tolerate a reduction in services? If people thought that services under the Sanders plan were inadequate, would they be allowed to ‘top up’ with private insurance? If so, what happens to simplicity? If not, why not?

Let me be clear: we know that high quality health care can be delivered at much lower cost than is the U.S. norm. We know because other countries do it. In fact, some of them have plans not unlike the one Senator Sanders is proposing. We know that single-payer mechanisms work in some countries. But those systems evolved over decades, based on gradual and incremental change from what existed before. That is the way that public policy is made in democracies. Radical change may occur after a catastrophic economic collapse or a major war. But in normal times, democracies do not tolerate radical discontinuity. If you doubt me, consider the tumult precipitated by the really quite conservative Affordable Care Act.

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in Newsweek.

One cannot help feeling a bit silly taking seriously the policy proposals of a person who seems not to take policy seriously himself. Donald Trump's policy positions have evolved faster over the years than a teenager's moods. He was for a woman's right to choose; now he is against it. He was for a wealth tax to pay off the national debt before proposing a tax plan that would enrich the wealthy and balloon the national debt. He was for universal health care but opposed to any practical way to achieve it.

Based on his previous flexibility, Trump's here-today proposals may well be gone tomorrow. As a sometime-Democrat, sometime-Republican, sometime-independent, who is now the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump has just issued his latest pronouncements on health care policy. So, what the hell, let's give them more respect than he has given his own past policy statements.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those earlier pronouncements are notable for their detachment from fact and lack of internal logic. The one-time supporter of universal health care now joins other candidates in his newly-embraced party in calling for repeal of the only serious legislative attempt in American history to move toward universal coverage, the Affordable Care Act. Among his stated reasons for repeal, he alleges that the act has "resulted in runaway costs," promoted health care rationing, reduced competition and narrowed choice.

Each of these statements is clearly and demonstrably false. Health care spending per person has grown less rapidly in the six years since the Affordable Care Act was enacted than in any corresponding period in the last four decades. There is now less health care rationing than at any time in living memory, if the term rationing includes denial of care because it is unaffordable. Rationing because of unaffordability is certainly down for the more than 20 million people who are newly insured because of the Affordable Care Act. Hospital re-admissions, a standard indicator of low quality, are down, and the health care exchanges that Trump now says he would abolish, but that resemble the "health marts" he once espoused, have brought more choice to individual shoppers than private employers now offer or ever offered their workers.

Trump's proposed alternative to the Affordable Care Act is even worse than his criticism of it. He would retain the highly popular provision in the act that bars insurance companies from denying people coverage because of preexisting conditions, a practice all too common in the years before the health care law. But he would do away with two other provisions of the Affordable Care Act that are essential to make that reform sustainable: the mandate that people carry insurance and the financial assistance to make that requirement feasible for people of modest means.

Without those last two provisions, barring insurers from using preexisting conditions to jack up premiums or deny coverage would destroy the insurance market. Why? Because without the mandate and the financial aid, people would have powerful financial incentives to wait until they were seriously ill to buy insurance. They could safely do so, confident that some insurer would have to sell them coverage as soon as they became ill. Insurers that set affordable prices would go broke. If insurers set prices high enough to cover costs, few customers could afford them.

In simple terms, Trump's promise to bar insurers from using preexisting conditions to screen customers but simultaneously to scrap the companion provisions that make the bar feasible is either the fraudulent offer of a huckster who takes voters for fools, or clear evidence of stunning ignorance about how insurance works. Take your pick.

Unfortunately, none of the other Republican candidates offers a plan demonstrably superior to Trump's. All begin by calling for repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. But none has yet advanced a well-crafted replacement.

It is not that the Affordable Care Act is perfect legislation. It isn't. But, as the old saying goes, you can't beat something with nothing. And so far as health care reform is concerned, nothing is what the Republican candidates now have on offer.

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in U.S. News and World Report.

SUMMARY:
With the U.S. poverty rate stuck at around 15 percent for years, it’s clear that something needs to change, and candidates need to focus on three pillars of economic advancement-- education, work, family -- to increase economic mobility, according to Brookings Senior Fellow Isabel Sawhill and Senior Research Assistant Edward Rodrigue.

“Economic success requires people’s initiative, but it also requires us, as a society, to untangle the web of disadvantages that make following the sequence difficult for some Americans. There are no silver bullets. Government cannot do this alone. But government has a role to play in motivating individuals and facilitating their climb up the economic ladder,” they write.

The pillar of work is the most urgent, they assert, with every candidate needing to have concrete jobs proposals. Closing the jobs gap (the difference in work rates between lower and higher income households) has a huge effect on the number of people in poverty, even if the new workers hold low-wage jobs. Work connects people to mainstream institutions, helps them learn new skills, provides structure to their lives, and provides a sense of self-sufficiency and self-respect, while at the aggregate level, it is one of the most important engines of economic growth. Specifically, the authors advocate for making work pay (EITC), a second-earner deduction, childcare assistance and paid leave, and transitional job programs. On the education front, they suggest investment in children at all stages of life: home visiting, early childhood education, new efforts in the primary grades, new kinds of high schools, and fresh policies aimed at helping students from poor families attend and graduate from post-secondary institutions. And for the third prong, stable families, Sawhill and Rodrique suggest changing social norms around the importance of responsible, two-person parenthood, as well as making the most effective forms of birth control (IUDs and implants) more widely available at no cost to women.

“Many of our proposals would not only improve the life prospects of less advantaged children; they would pay for themselves in higher taxes and less social spending. The candidates may have their own blend of responses, but we need to hear less rhetoric and more substantive proposals from all of them,” they conclude.

Downloads

• Download the paper

We can be sure that the 2016 presidential candidates, whoever they are, will be in favor of promoting opportunity and cutting poverty. The question is: how? In our contribution to a new volume published today, “Campaign 2016: Eight big issues the presidential candidates should address,” we show that people who clear three hurdles—graduating high school, working full-time, and delaying parenthood until they in a stable, two-parent family—are very much more likely to climb to middle class than fall into poverty:

But what specific policies would help people achieve these three benchmarks of success?  Our paper contains a number of ideas that candidates might want to adopt. Here are a few examples: 

1. To improve high school graduation rates, expand “Small Schools of Choice,” a program in New York City, which replaced large, existing schools with more numerous, smaller schools that had a theme or focus (like STEM or the arts). The program increased graduation rates by about 10 percentage points and also led to higher college enrollment with no increase in costs.

2. To support work, make the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) refundable and cap it at $100,000 in household income. Because the credit is currently non-refundable, low-income families receive little or no benefit, while those with incomes above $100,000 receive generous tax deductions. This proposal would make the program more equitable and facilitate low-income parents’ labor force participation, at no additional cost.

3. To strengthen families, make the most effective forms of birth control (IUDs and implants) more widely available at no cost to women, along with good counselling and a choice of all FDA-approved methods. Programs that have done this in selected cities and states have reduced unplanned pregnancies, saved money, and given women better ability to delay parenthood until they and their partners are ready to be parents. Delayed childbearing reduces poverty rates and leads to better prospects for the children in these families.

These are just a few examples of good ideas, based on the evidence, of what a candidate might want to propose and implement if elected. Additional ideas and analysis will be found in our longer paper on this topic.

The U.S. is the only advanced country without a paid leave policy, enabling workers to take time off to care for a new baby or other family member. At least two Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio, have been talking about it, making it likely that it will get attention in 2016.

The idea has broad appeal now that most two-parent families and almost all one-parent families struggle with balancing work and family. Polls show that it is favored by 81 percent of the public—94 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Independents and 65 percent of Republicans. Three states, California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, have each enacted policies that could become models for other states or for the nation.

Paid leave promotes inclusive growth

Overall, paid leave is good for workers, good for children, and possibly even good for employers because of its role in helping to retain workers. It is also a policy that encourages inclusive growth. Studies of European systems suggest that paid leave increases female labor force participation and that the lack of it in the U.S. may be one reason for the decline in female labor force participation since 2000 and the growing female participation gap between the U.S. and other countries, adversely affecting our absolute and relative growth. The policy would make growth more inclusive because it would disproportionately benefit lower-wage workers.

The devil is in the design

The major issues in designing a paid leave policy are:

1. Eligibility, and especially the extent of work experience required to qualify (often a year);
2. the amount of leave allowed (Clinton suggests three months; Rubio four weeks);
3. the wage replacement rate (often two-thirds of regular wages up to a cap), and
4. financing.

Legislation proposed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) calls for a 0.2 percent payroll tax on employers and employees. Most states have made paid leave a part of their temporary disability systems. Senator Rubio proposes to finance it through a new tax credit for employers. 

Getting it right on eligibility, length of leave, and size of benefit

My own view is that a significant period of work experience should be required for eligibility to encourage stable employment before the birth of a child. This would not only encourage work but also insure that the subsidy was an earned benefit and not welfare by another name (but see below on financing).   

Leave periods need to be long enough to enable parents to bond with a child during the child’s first year of life but not so long that they lead to skill depreciation and to parents dropping out of the labor force. Three months seems like a good first step although it is far less generous than what many European countries provide (an average of 14 months across the OECD). That said, the Europeans may have gone too far. While there is little evidence that a leave as long as 6 months would have adverse effects on employment, when Canada extended their leave from six months to a year, the proportion of women returning to work declined.

A replacement rate of two-thirds up to a cap also seems reasonable although a higher replacement rate is one way to encourage more parents to take the leave. Among other things, more generous policies would have positive effects on the health and well-being of children. They might also encourage more fathers to take leave.  

How to pay for it

On financing, social insurance is the appropriate way to share the putative burden between employers and employees and avoid the stigma and unpopularity of social welfare. It would, in essence, change the default for employees (who are otherwise unlikely to save for purposes of taking leave). Some may worry that imposing any new costs on employers will lead to fewer employment opportunities. However, many economists believe that the employer portion of the tax is largely borne by workers in the form of lower wages. Moreover, in a study of 253 employers in California, over 90 percent reported either positive or no negative effects on profitability, turnover, and employee morale. Reductions in turnover, in particular, are noteworthy since turnover is a major expense for most employers. 

Will paid leave cause discrimination against women?

Another worry is discrimination against women. Here there is some cause for concern unless efforts are made to insure that leave is equally available to, and also used by, both men and women. This concern has led some countries to establish a use-it-or-lose-it set aside for fathers. In the province of Quebec, the proportion of fathers taking leave after implementation of such a policy increased from 21 to 75 percent and even after the leave period was over, men continued to share more equally in the care of their children.

Will Congress enact a national paid leave policy in the next few years? That’s doubtful in our current political environment but states may continue to take the lead. In the meantime, it can’t hurt if the major candidates are talking about the issue on the campaign trail.       

Senior Fellows Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill are the first joint recipients of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize from the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS). The prize is awarded each year to a leading policymaker, social scientist, or public intellectual whose career focuses on advancing the public good through social science. It was named after the late senator from New York and renowned sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The pair accepted the award May 12 at a ceremony in Washington, DC. 

In their joint lecture delivered at the ceremony, Haskins and Sawhill emphasized the importance of evidence-based public policy, highlighting Sawhill’s latest work in her book, Generation Unbound (Brookings, 2014). Watch their entire speech here:

“Marriage is disappearing and more and more babies are born outside marriage,” Sawhill said during the lecture. “Right now, the proportion born outside of marriage is about 40 percent. It’s higher than that among African Americans and lower than that among the well-educated. But it’s no longer an issue that just affects the poor or minority groups.”

Download Sawhill's slides » | Download Ron Haskins' slides »

The power of evidence-based policy is finally being recognized, Haskins added. “One of the prime motivating factors of the current evidence-based movement,” he said, “is the understanding, now widespread, that most social programs either have not been well evaluated or they don’t work.” Haskins continued:

Perhaps the most important social function of social science is to find and test programs that will reduce the nation’s social problems. The exploding movement of evidence-based policy and the many roots the movement is now planting, offer the best chance of fulfilling this vital mission of social science, of achieving, in other words, exactly the outcomes Moynihan had hoped for.

He pointed toward the executive branch, state governments, and non-profits implementing policies that could make substantial progress against the nation’s social problems.

Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at Brookings and co-director, with Haskins, of the Center on Children and Families (CCF), acknowledged Haskins and Sawhill’s “powerful and unique intellectual partnership” and their world-class work on families, poverty, opportunity, evidence, parenting, work, and education.

Haskins and Sawhill were the first to be awarded jointly by the AAPSS, which recognizes their 15-year collaboration at Brookings and the Center on Children and Families, which they established. In addition to their work at CCF, the two co-wrote Creating an Opportunity Society (Brookings 2009) and serve as co-editors of The Future of Children, a policy journal that tackles issues that have an impact on children and families.

Haskins and Sawhill join the ranks of both current and past Brookings scholars who have received the Moynihan Prize, including Alice Rivlin (recipient of the inaugural prize), Rebecca Blank, and William Julius Wilson along with other distinguished scholars and public servants.

Want to learn more about the award’s namesake? Read Governance Studies Senior Fellow and historian Steve Hess’s account of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s time in the Nixon White House in his book The Professor and the President (Brookings, 2014).

Israel apologized to Turkey today for the May 2010 incident on board the Mavi Marmara naval vessel, part of a flotilla to Gaza, in which nine Turks were killed from Israel Defense Forces fire. The apology came during a 30-minute telephone conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, orchestrated by President Barack Obama, who was ending his 3 day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Erdogan accepted the Israeli apology, and the leaders agreed to begin a normalization process between Israel and Turkey, following the past three years, when relations were practically at a standstill. (Last December, I wrote about the beginnings of a Turkey-Israeli rapprochement, and discussed more of the policy implications here.)

This development allows the two countries to begin a new phase in their relationship, which has known crisis and tension, but also cooperation and a strong strategic partnership.

The U.S. administration played a key role behind the scenes in creating the conditions that paved the way for an Israeli apology and Turkish acceptance. Undoubtedly, a close relationship between Turkey and Israel-- two of America’s greatest allies in the region-- serves United States’ strategic interests globally and regionally. At a time when the Middle East political landscape is changing rapidly, it was imperative to end the long impasse between Ankara and Jerusalem.

Over the past year, Turkey and Israel have also come to realize that repairing their relationship and re-establishing a dialogue is at their best interest, as they face great challenges in their immediate vicinity (first and foremost, the Syrian civil war).

United States officials emphasized that this is the first step in a long process. Nevertheless, the parties will have to make a great effort to overcome years of distrust and suspicion if they want the relationship to work. No one is under the allusion that relations will go back to what they were in the “honeymoon” period of the 1990s but modest improvement can be made. It will not be an easy task, and for that to happen it is essential that the parties not only talk to each other, but also listen to one another and begin to respect each other’s sensitivities. In order for this rapprochement to be successful, United States will have to continue to oversee discussions between Turkey and Israel, and remain heavily engaged in this process.

A 2010 publication of the U.S. Geological Survey caused major excitement in Cyprus, an island that at the time was suffering from the economic collapse of its neighbor and major trading partner, Greece. According to the publication, the seabed of the Eastern Mediterranean could contain up to 120 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas.3 Three years later, the Cypriot administration has high hopes that natural gas exports may get Cyprus—the third smallest European Union member state—back on its feet, after its own financial collapse in 2012. Unfortunately for the Cypriots, the reality on the ground is sobering, and it is currently unclear whether Cyprus will become a producer, or an exporter, of natural gas. Around Cyprus, other countries hope to benefit from the energy potential as well, including Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. In the Israeli Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), in particular, substantial reserves of natural gas have been found, though the verdict is out whether these will in fact all be produced.

Exploration of Cyprus’s offshore concessions is at an early stage. Energy majors such as ENI and Total are among the first to explore possible gas (and oil) reserves and they expect results not before 2015. To date, only two test wells have been drilled by Houston-based Noble Energy. Proven reserves have been downgraded since and are currently estimated to be between 3 and 5 tcf. At this level of reserves, investing in a natural gas liquefaction terminal, which the Cypriot administration has supported, is not economically viable. A better alternative would be to construct a pipeline to Turkey, which has a large and rapidly growing market for natural gas.

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• Politics Trump Economics in the Complex Game of Eastern Mediterranean Hydrocarbons