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If it's Tuesday, it's TTR. This week, we're showcasing a unique collaboration between the left and the right on education reform, a specific look at the education challenges for the Latino population, an argument in favor of keeping the Social Security retirement age as is, and an analysis of the job-creating potential of transportation investments.
- Can't spell "education" without…AEI? In a remarkable joint venture between the Center for American Progress and the American Enterprise Institute, "nonpartisan" proposals are laid out to deal with the troubling state of affairs in public education. The publication details systemic failures: 70 percent of eighth-graders cannot read on grade level, 1.2 million high school students drop out each year, and only 50 percent of African American and Hispanic students graduate with a high school diploma. It appears the ideologically disparate think tanks reached several policy compromises. In exchange for CAP support of competition through charter schools and multiple kindergarten providers, AEI conceded its hard-line stance on localization, signing off on a policy to encourage common standards that transcend state lines. An agreement was also reached to support the development of comprehensive data systems to help principals, teachers, and students gain timely access to important information. These systems could aggregate information on both individual students and teachers over time, ensuring a greater degree of support for those who may fall behind. Though we shouldn't overstate its significance, this document has potential as a guide for an achievable consensus on education reform. -- JL
- The harsh realities of Latino education. After whites, Latinos are the second-largest group of students in the U.S. -- and only 58 percent of them graduate high school. In a report released last week, the National Council of La Raza examines the ills facing Latinos in the U.S. education system, from Early Head Start (infants and toddlers) to post-secondary education. Most Latinos are educated in schools with poor resources, and they have a harder time getting financial aid for higher education. Language is a culprit, as is school funding. Though Latino students are by and large native-born U.S. citizens, 40 percent are English Language Learners, most of whom drop out of high school -- in eighth grade, two thirds of ELLs score below the basic achievement level for math and reading, so it's no wonder why. The report suggests that Latinos would be a useful benchmark to gauge the efficacy of education reform. -- CP
- Retirement age: yet another class disparity. [PDF] The Economic Policy Institute has a new research paper arguing against raising the Social Security retirement age. The paper reveals the class and race biases underlying arguments for raising the age that Social Security recipients can access their benefits. As educated, high-income workers with "interesting and secure jobs" many of those making these policy suggestions do not see postponing retirement as a big deal, but it is a whole different world for low-income workers who have spent their lives working in grueling manufacturing or sales jobs. For these workers, life expectancy hasn't grown much and they get fewer years of retirement, on average, than their higher-income counterparts. In short, we should not make sweeping policy changes based on the assumption that all social classes will be able to shoulder the burden of later retirement equally. -- JB
- Recovery in motion. Adding to the growing stack of reports documenting how recent government outlays can resuscitate the economy, the Economic Development Research Group, in a study commissioned by the American Public Transportation Association, finds that all federal and state spending on public transit in 2007 generated an average of 36,108 jobs per billion dollars spent. While the document lacks a comparison of the job-creation effectiveness of transit investment with other types of disbursement, it demonstrates that investing in the transport operations creates jobs at a higher rate than investing in capital improvements -- no big surprise. It's one additional reason to think it was unwise for the Recovery Act not to fund transit operations, an oversight many communities will continue to pay the price for unless Congress corrects it. -- MK
-- TAP Staff
