Congress must fill the leadership void
by Will Marshall, PPI President
President Trump is promising a swift and seamless economic recovery if only the states will hurry up and lift their stay-at-home orders. “Those jobs will be back and they’ll be back very soon,” he said, reacting to last month’s horrendous spike in unemployment.
This is fantasy. Besides ignoring the health hazards of prematurely reopening the economy, Trump is raising false hopes among millions of U.S. workers whose jobs have vanished in the COVID-19 crisis.
In fact, getting everyone back to work once the pandemic is contained will be a huge challenge. It will happen in stages, not all at once, and it will require a well-focused national push to help less-educated and low-wage workers find new jobs, skills and careers.
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To Succeed in the Post-COVID Era, Our Schools Need to Stop Batch-Processing Kids
by David Osborne, Director of the Reinventing America's Schools Project
As school winds down for this year, discussion in education circles has turned to next year. After a spring of uneven distance learning and a long summer, should classes pick up where they were last March—or where they would normally start? Should they ask those who did not participate in distance learning to repeat a year?
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Updated: Interactive Calculator: How Much Federal Support Do State and Local Governments Need?
by Ben Ritz and Brendan McDermott, Center for Funding America's Future
PPI's new state and local government budget tool now accounts for recent exceptional unemployment stats and new CBO projections, plus other fixes and updates. It also estimates state and local governments need $445-$835 billion, depending on whether unemployment benefits and existing reserves are counted.
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With Latinx Students Near 30 Percent of all Public School Students, Latinx Leaders Demand a Seat at the School Board Table
by David Osborne, Director of the Reinventing America's Schools Project
It is time for Latinx communities to build the political power necessary to demand education reforms that benefit their children, several Latinx leaders argue. Within 16 months, 30 percent of all public school students will be Latinx, they pointed out during a recent Progressive Policy Institute webinar. But school boards often have no idea what these students need.
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ICYMI: The Coronavirus Pandemic Showed Why We Need Shorter, Simpler Supply Chains
by Michael Mandel, Chief Economic Strategist
The pandemic’s impact on the economy is the equivalent of scrambling the pieces of a puzzle and then trying to put it back together in a new shape. But one thing is clear: the U.S. economy needs shorter supply chains that can react more quickly in crisis situations. Our inability to generate enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and enough testing swabs, months into the pandemic, is simply unacceptable. Better resilience and flexibility are achievable goals.
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ICYMI: Jumpstarting U.S. Clean Energy Manufacturing in Economic Stimulus and Infrastructure Legislation
by Paul Bledsoe, Strategic Adviser
In his 2016 campaign, candidate Donald Trump famously promised to revitalize American manufacturing and to pass major legislation to rebuild crumbling U.S. infrastructure. So far, in more than three years as President, he has done neither.
But in the face of the unprecedented COVID crisis, economic downturn and the worst unemployment since the Great Depression, many Democrats and some Republicans have begun to urge enactment of ambitious economic stimulus and recovery legislation, including a major infrastructure bill with a job-creating focus.
Properly structured stimulus and infrastructure legislation could help jumpstart U.S. manufacturing, which was already slumping badly under Trump throughout 2019, long before the COVID-crisis. In particular, the U.S. has an opportunity to create high-paying jobs and production in the fast-growing clean energy manufacturing sector, an industry that has been dominated by our global competitors, especially China, for the last decade.
Clean energy manufacturing represents perhaps the biggest single new growth opening for American industry in the coming years, as the transition to zero-carbon global and domestic economies creates unprecedented demand for dozens of clean energy technologies to address climate change. The U.S. is especially well-positioned to capture these markets as our national and corporate laboratories have created far more clean energy innovation breakthroughs than any other nation.
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Webinar: Is the Balanced Calendar the Answer to Educational Equity Under COVID 19?
On Wednesday, May 20th, Deputy Director Curtis Valentine moderated an interactive discussion with leaders from the year-round schooling community on the impact COVID 19 is having on summer learning loss for students and families.
Speakers included Theresa Canady (Educator and Parent, 21st Century Charter Schools in Gary, IN), Dr. Martha James-Hassan (Commissioner, Baltimore City Public Schools and former year-round school educator), Dr. David Hornack (Superintendent, Holt Public Schools in Holt, MI and Executive Director of National Association of Year-Round Education), and Paul Pinsky (Maryland State Senator).
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Webinar: How Telehealth Can Improve Access to and Implementation of Mental Health Services
On Wednesday, May 20th, Deputy Director Curtis Valentine moderated an interactive discussion with leaders from the year-round schooling community on the impact COVID 19 is having on summer learning loss for students and families.
Speakers included Theresa Canady (Educator and Parent, 21st Century Charter Schools in Gary, IN), Dr. Martha James-Hassan (Commissioner, Baltimore City Public Schools and former year-round school educator), Dr. David Hornack (Superintendent, Holt Public Schools in Holt, MI and Executive Director of National Association of Year-Round Education), and Paul Pinsky (Maryland State Senator).
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