As part of their latest effort to rebrand the GOP as a more caring party, House Republicans are scheduled this week to put forward a student lending bill called the “Smarter Solutions for Students Act.” But the label is misleading. A more appropriate name would be the “Making College More Expensive Act.” (Indeed, that’s what [...]

Thursday on Bloomberg Television, Robert Borosage made the case for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Bank On Student Loan Fairness Act, which would set student loan interest rates at the same rate banks get from the Federal Reserve discount window: “There is a universal consensus that we have to educate the next generation. And now college is [...]

“It’s always hard to tell for sure exactly when a revolution starts,” wrote John Tierny in The Atlantic recently. “I’m not an expert on revolutions,” he continued, “but even I can see that a new one is taking shape in American K-12 public education.” Tierney pointed to a number of signs of the coming “revolution:” [...]

Do you think that student loan debt is only a problem for college students and perhaps their parents? Think again. The escalation of student loan debt in the past decade is a millstone around the neck of the entire economy, and you are touched by its effects. Especially if you or someone you know has [...]

I had the privilege of hearing Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot speak about austerity the other night and it was as fascinating as you might imagine. I think most people who read this blog wouldn’t be surprised by what they said, but I think many in the audience were people who may be depending upon more mainstream sources and were very surprised — and alarmed — by what they heard. It’s hard to wrap your mind around. The CEPR does yoeman’s work in providing the data and analysis that informs all of us and I’m very grateful for them. And Chris Hayes is also doing something on his show that’s very important — telling stories about how austerity affects real people.

By now it’s become clear to anyone willing to pay attention that our nation’s obsession over education standards and testing has gotten out of hand. In a moment of sanity last week, a leading proponent of the new standards-aligned tests defected from the run-up to implementation and called for a moratorium on the high stakes associated with the Common Core and its new tests.

By now, there have been plenty of negative reactions to last week’s defeat of sensible gun regulation in the U.S. Senate due to the power of the gun lobby to have more sway with senators than popular opinion has. In his Rose Garden address, President Obama was incredulous that legislation favored by 90 percent of [...]

Now that every major media outlet has weighed in on the budget that President Obama introduced last week, the conventional wisdom is that Obama has proposed a “balance” of new revenues and spending cuts with an emphasis on sacrificing “entitlements” enjoyed by old people in order to increase “investments” in children. This sensibility was most [...]

Everyone at all familiar with the Judgment of Solomon has to be aghast as political leaders reverse that Biblical wisdom and proceed to “split the difference” over who gets whose way on matters affecting children. Instead of putting the interests of children first, there’s a prevailing wisdom among political centrists inside the Beltway that “compromising” [...]

No offense, but the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building in Washington, DC is not a pretty sight. Crossing the National Mall on 4th street, you pass between the glisteningly modern National Air and Space Museum and the sculpted brown stone of the National Museum of the American Indian to come face to face [...]