CITIZENS: NEWSFEED

Sorry, it’s Malignant: Why Scientists Need a New Approach on Climate Change

Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:25:08 -0400

The world's scientists are struggling with the unsettling feeling that the more they talk about climate change, the less progress they make. In fact, in some opinion surveys they're losing ground. But before we start dumping on the public for its scientific illiteracy or unwillingness to take the long view, consider this scenario:

You're sitting in the doctor's examining room, on one of those absurd benches. The doctor comes in and gives you the worst possible news, that you have cancer.

The doctor takes the time to explain why she thinks you have cancer, and the level of confidence she has in the test results. She explains the biological process of cancer, what's known about how it starts and how it spreads. Don't let your senses deceive you, the doctor warns. You may feel okay now, but this disease will kill you if nothing is done, and we've got to start fighting this right now.

Then she walks out without telling you what your treatment options are.

This is essentially what the scientific community has been doing to the public about climate change. The scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused by humans remains unshaken, but the public consensus is fragile enough that it trembles based on a snowy winter or a set of indiscreet e-mails.

Scientists generally try to avoid making unwarranted assumptions in their work, but when they move on to communicating with the public, they repeatedly leap to a demonstrably false conclusion. As pioneering social scientist (and our colleague and mentor) Daniel Yankelovich points out, scientists persist in believing that if they just give the public the relevant facts, people will be able to sort them out, think through the policy options, and start making decisions.

In the real world, that's not what happens. Being inundated with information about a problem doesn't help people sort out different ways to address it. The public can and does come to firm, workable decisions, but the process takes a lot more time than most scientists believe. Information matters to the public, certainly, but other things matter too: values, confidence that the people advocating change understand and respect your point of view, a sense of inclusion in the decisions.

All those things aren't part of the classic "scientific" model of knowledge, but they are part and parcel of the way people make decisions about complex, unfamiliar problems.

Or, think of it this way:

You chase the doctor out into the hallway and ask, "But how do we fight this? What treatments are there? What choices do I have?"

The doctor leads you into another room. "Don't worry, the answers are all somewhere in here," she says. "Let me introduce you to the sales representatives of the radiology machine manufacturer and several competing pharmaceutical companies, who will try and sell you their solutions. Those half-dozen people over there are from the insurance industry, and they'll be having a parallel discussion of how much you can afford. We also have a wide selection of promising experimental procedures that will take years to develop. And these folks here are a spiritual healer, who will offer you crystals and a selection of herbs and spices, along with the owner of the largest leach farm in Louisiana. I don't really recommend you listen to either of them, but they'll both be shouting at the top of their voices during the entire process. Plus, they come up first in Google searches."

The scientific community – and the climate skeptics, for that matter – believes this is an information battle, and that with a few more charts and graphs, people will become lay scientists, and everything else will fall into place. That's not the way this is going to work.

So what does the scientific community need to do? We'd suggest three steps:

Connect climate change and the energy crisis. Obviously, these two things are connected, but too few people in the climate science world spell it out. World energy demand is projected to rise 40 percent over the next 20 years, mostly because of rising demand in developing countries like China and India. A billion Chinese buying cars and Ipods has enormous and obvious implications for both oil prices and climate change.

Step up to the plate as a credible, neutral explainer of the choices.This debate comes down to a few practical choices about how we get our energy. What kind of power plants do we build? What do we use to fuel our cars? Those are the choices people can grapple with. They're practical, not theoretical. You can sum up the pros and cons pretty quickly. These are our treatment options. And they're decisions society will have to make. Unfortunately, neither the media not the political leadership has taken on this task. This leaves a void science can fill. The scientific community could serve the nation by helping Americans understand our options for addressing our energy and climate challenges – no spin, no hyperventilating – just lay out the choices with their pros and cons.

Don't ignore economics. Believe us, nobody else is viewing this as a purely scientific debate. "How much will this cost" is a perfectly legitimate part of the discussion. So are the economic benefits of moving to alternative energy, and the potential costs of doing nothing and letting climate change and energy shortages reshape our planet. If there ever was a case for an interdisciplinary approach, this is it.

This all comes back to one of the fundamental roles of the scientist in society: not just to find out the facts, but to explain what they mean to the rest of us. If the world fails to solve this problem, it won't be because we failed to understand the diagnosis. It'll be because we failed to understand our treatment options. We expect doctors to help us understand and weigh those options, and to respect our right to make the final decision. It's only fair to expect climate scientists to do the same.

Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson are Public Agenda executives and authors of "Who Turned Out the Lights? Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis."

Your Taxes at Work

Francie Grace — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:08:15 -0500

Kudos to USA Today for an amazing chart on where our federal taxes go. This one is interactive and tells you exactly what's happening to the federal taxes someone with your income level pays, broken down by the amount that you personally pay for budget items from national defense and health care on down to agriculture and international affairs. It also serves up comparisons to previous years, going all the way back to 1940.

K-12: Do We Need National Standards?

Scott Bittle — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:58:51 -0500

What should American students learn? And should they all be learning the same things, from Maine to California?

This is an old argument, but it's been given new and relevant life by the "common core" standards released for comment this week. A joint project of the nation's governors and chief state school officers, the core standards initiative is supposed to set out benchmarks for English and math in K-12 classrooms, and could have a huge impact nationwide. All but two states have been involved in the process to develop the standards. Each state would still have to decide whether or not to adopt the final product, however.

There are both pros and cons to the idea of national standards, but two observations stand out for us. Firstly, Public Agenda's research has consistently found that the public supports the idea of standards, broadly speaking (although we haven't asked about national vs state or local standards recently). The last time we looked at this, we found most parents and other stakeholders say standards are "necessary, but not sufficient" to make progress. Social problems and funding were also major concerns.

The second observation comes from our work in Nebraska, where Public Agenda ran Choicework public engagement forums helping state officials and citizens work through the process of setting statewide school standards. We found most Nebraskans in the forums seemed to think setting standards for basic skills like English and math was a common sense idea - it was in other areas, like history, that this proved to be more controversial.

If you want to weigh in, the Core Standards Initiative is seeking public comment through April 2.

"Climate Deadlock" & The Public's Learning Curve

Scott Bittle — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:49:36 -0500

For much of the past two weeks, there's been a major debate over how the world of science should deal with so-called climate deadlock. Political action on the issue seems to have stalled, a new poll shows the public is worrying less about global warming, and climate skeptics are more vocal in the wake of "climategate." Should scientists push back harder, or stick to the data?

A lot of this debate, we think, misses a key point about how the public grapples with complicated problems. Scientists, along with journalists and many other "expert" groups, have an unrealistic view of how the public thinks about problems, says Daniel Yankelovich, Public Agenda's founder and a pioneering social scientist.

The public has a "learning curve" on tough problems, moving from initial consciousness of a problem, to working through the possible solutions, and then finally, resolution about what to do. Establishing the facts is only one part of the challenge.

There are all kinds of other potential barriers to moving forward, such as wishful thinking or denial, a lack of urgency, or a lack of practical choices. Values, options, and how problems are framed are as important here as information. So is time, because people need time to weigh different alternatives.

That's very different from the classic "scientific" way of understanding problems, and it suggests a different approach, based on helping the public move through the various obstacles they face. For more on this, take a look at the presentations for the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference by Yankelovich and Jean Johnson of Public Agenda, co-author of Who Turned Out the Lights? Your Guided Tour to the Energy Crisis. The book is another good resource, along with updates from our Twitter feed, @TheEnergyBook.

Ask Teachers How To Gauge Effectiveness

Francie Grace — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:23:50 -0500

By Jean Johnson

Reprinted from the Views & Feedback section of the March 2010 edition of Minnesota Educator

According to the official Web site for "The Simpsons," Bart's teacher, Mrs. Krabappel, "performs her job as adequately as possible" and offers her students "minimal educational" support. In real life, this would be a pretty strong indication that she's not as effective in the classroom as she could be. At the other end of the spectrum, extraordinary teachers often have qualities that seem to defy description—that special ability to captivate students, a genuine knack for making thorny material comprehensible and fascinating at the same time.

So how do you judge good teaching? What kinds of changes should schools make to develop, support and retain effective teachers? It's the hot topic in education, and it's a crucial question: How can we promote and honor excellent teaching if we don't agree on what it is? But while education experts and officials weigh in, it's also essential to consider what classroom teachers have to say about the subject.

Learning Point Associates and Public Agenda, two non-profit research organizations that focus on educational issues, took this question directly to nearly 900 public school teachers across the country in a recent opinion survey underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Joyce Foundation. (See story on study details, page 8).

So what's the best way to judge a teacher's impact according to teachers themselves? The response of the students is criterion No. 1. Nearly all teachers (92 percent) say that the level of student interest and engagement is an "excellent" or "good" indicator of teacher effectiveness. Seventy-two percent say that how much a teacher's students learn compared with other students is another useful criterion. Feedback from principals and administrators is also a good method, according to 71 percent of teachers.

Standardized testing is probably the most controversial area, but even here, more than half of teachers (56 percent) say that how well students perform on district standardized tests is a good or excellent way to judge effectiveness, although only 12 percent give testing the top "excellent" rating.

Less experienced teachers are especially likely to be concerned about basing judgments about their performance on this criterion. Half of teachers with less than five years of experience say that district standardized tests are a "fair" or "poor" way to judge their effectiveness.

It's hardly news to teachers that government and education policy experts are focusing on teacher evaluation and proposals to tie teacher evaluation to compensation as key ways to improve teaching and student learning. According to the survey, teachers nationwide are receptive to this approach in some respects. Solid majorities strongly or somewhat favor offering bonus or merit pay to teachers who consistently work harder, whose students consistently show academic growth during the year, or who are certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Teachers also give a thumbs-up to the idea of giving incentive or bonus pay to teachers who work with hard-to-reach students or in tough neighborhoods with low-performing schools. When someone is working hard and doing an excellent job, he or she deserves to be rewarded for it, teachers seem to be saying.

The glitch is that while most teachers support the idea of recognizing and compensating teachers who excel, most don't see this change alone as a breakthrough idea for improving teaching and student learning overall. Asked to consider 12 different approaches for improving teacher effectiveness, only 8 percent of teachers say that “tying teacher rewards to student performance” would be “very effective.” In comparison, 66 percent say that reducing class size would be very effective, and 68 percent say the same for developing alternative programs for students with severe discipline problems.

As most teachers see it, improving conditions inside the classroom and enhancing the profession overall offer more promising avenues for improving teacher performance than a singular focus on measuring teacher effectiveness and tying compensation to it. What is clear from the survey is that teachers are open to many of these ideas and have their own vital and distinctive perspective to bring to the discussion.

Jean Johnson is Executive Vice President of Public Agenda and head of its Education Insights division, which works to enhance public and community engagement in public education.

Play and Public Life

Allison Rizzolo — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:42:14 -0500

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

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

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

Click here for more about Alison's article on this principle in both child development and public life.

Letter to the Editor: Listening to Immigrants

Allison Rizzolo — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:39:34 -0500

Reprinted from The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Immigration’s New Year” (editorial, Jan. 6):

One crucial point as the Obama administration presses ahead with immigration reform is that reform won’t succeed unless the voices of immigrants themselves are heard.

In our recent report conducted with financing from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, we interviewed more than 1,100 foreign-born adults about their life in the United States.

Despite the worst economic conditions in decades and renewed national security concerns, 88 percent rated the United States as better than their birth country and agreed that they made the right choice in coming here.

As one of our study participants in Detroit, a Lebanese immigrant, said: “The motto of this country is ‘Out of many, one.’ Where else on earth can all these people come together and become as one?”

Immigrants’ strong embrace of American life is a real asset in building a just and fair policy.

Ruth Wooden
President, Public Agenda
New York, Jan. 6, 2010

If it IS broke, fix it

Allison Rizzolo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:07:04 -0500

Reprinted from The Baltimore Sun

Many politicians and other Americans proudly and loudly carry the banner of "change." While important policy changes can occur, deep change in many governmental institutions and practices is about as alien to modern America as democracy is to Iran or North Korea.

One might respond that the U.S. is an open society and leader in global innovation. True. In science, technology and business, we are great at change. And we are a democracy where, in theory, new laws and policy initiatives can be enacted.

Yet, in all too many governmental institutions and practices, 2010 America has its feet firmly planted in the 19th Century. James Fallows, in The Atlantic, recently highlighted how little the structure of Congress and our two political parties have changed since the days of Henry Adams. Even the British House of Lords, after 675 years, was reformed 11 years ago. And in democracies from France and Germany to Japan and Israel, new parties emerge that change their nations' political landscapes and agendas, while we've been left with a D-and-R duopoly for 150 years.

Many ossified and obsolete public institutions and practices exist. Think of America's federal judiciary, state and local governments, public education, voting practices, budget process -- even its Constitution. We may cherish our traditions, but these institutions, as well as our Congress and parties, have become anachronistic. Truly changed institutions could serve the nation far better.

Term limits are sorely needed for the Supreme Court and the federal bench. With lifetime appointments, increasing longevity and the cynical search for the youngest appointees, Supreme Court justices since 1970 have served an average of a quarter-century. Unlike France and Germany, whose top justices are limited to 9-to-12-year terms, America's system has left us with many out-of-touch, unaccountable and often unfit jurists. Term limits would bring more fresh ideas and public accountability and less politicization of the high court and federal judiciary.

With 50 state governments, and similarly permanent municipal and county governments, America seems geographically set. However, major issues are often no longer so easily parceled into state, municipal/county and national silos. Many issues -- from land use to economic development -- defy political boundaries. Regional transportation and air-quality bodies link contiguous areas, but in most cases we haven't developed authorities with power to address issues that connect regions with shared interests.

It may be heresy to suggest greater centralization of public education. Yet, Democrats and Republicans calling for national standards recognize that we are one country, not a collection of 19th Century island communities. Beyond the huge inefficiencies of having 14,000 school districts¸ our high geographical mobility, together with the need to draw talent to specialized nodes of enterprise, suggest that common student and teacher standards, curricula and funding levels are essential for American competitiveness.

Few public practices are as archaic as our Tuesday elections. Initiated in the agrarian days of the 1840s, this tradition owes its existence to farmers' need for a day of travel to vote that neither interfered with the Sunday Sabbath nor Wednesday market days. Today, midweek voting (without the day off) has been partially blamed for our relatively low voter turnout. In a good U.S. presidential election turnout barely exceeds 50 percent, but participation in countries with weekend elections routinely tops 80 percent.

Many things are wrong with U.S. government budgets, including the very process of developing single-year budgets based on cash-basis accounting. One-year budgets obscure and discourage thinking about long-term consequences of either present tax and spending decisions or future entitlement program costs. Many national governments use multi-year budgets and accrual accounting to recognize long-term costs of obligations when they are incurred.

Perhaps America's deepest institutional rigidity is exemplified by its Constitution itself. Yes, it is a remarkable model for the world and a tribute to the genius of the Founders. Of the 17 amendments ratified since the Bill of Rights, some have modified electoral practices, some have made law and some have been downright foolish. Given the cumbersome amendment process and the near-impossibility of changing, eliminating and codifying significant new rights, we are left with a brilliant document that, nonetheless, is extraordinarily difficult to modify to reflect realities and thinking of the 21st, rather than 18th, century.

How different is our Second Amendment, providing for the right to bear arms at a time of citizen militias, from the old Swiss constitutional right to a decent burial? Bearing arms and burials are not unimportant, but are they the stuff of constitutions? Canada rewrote its constitution in 1982 to codify a modern Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Netherlands rewrote its constitution the following year to get rid of dated "rights" and add new "social rights."

Wouldn't it be nationally energizing and engaging of the public to hold a new Constitutional Convention? This would allow debate of possible new "rights" -- e.g., of every child to a good education, of every American to basic health care, "freedom from want" and minimal governmental interference in citizens' nonharmful behaviors. It also would enable rethinking the Senate and Supreme Court, rolling major amendments into the Constitution itself, and leaving many matters to legislatures. And, without discarding many superb aspects of federalism, it would enable us to reconsider what states' rights and powers should be.

At a time of widespread discontent with the "dysfunctionality" of government, we may not need a new revolution, as Jefferson prescribed for each generation, but we do need much more than our current m.o. of tinkering at the margins.

Andrew L. Yarrow, vice president and Washington director of Public Agenda and an adjunct history professor at American University, is the author of the forthcoming book, "Measuring America." His e-mail is ayarrow@publicagenda.org.

Sustainability and Intergenerational Solidarity

Allison Rizzolo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:36:29 -0500

Reprinted from the Journal of the American Society on Aging

Sustainability has marched to center stage in the American political and cultural lexicon as the first decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close. Advanced by environmentalists, proponents of new strategies of international development, and those concerned about a fiscal future burdened by debt, the notion of sustainability has morphed into a broader conception of how we, as stewards for our planet, should bequeath a holistically livable world to future generations. After centuries steeped in Enlightenment philosophies of progress and a deep American faith that we can make an “ever more perfect” society, sustainability arguably is a more modest goal: How do we leave a world to our children and grandchildren that is at least as good as what we now have?

Aside from being grounded in the realities of looming environmental, economic, and other dangers, including ones exacerbated by the current financial crisis, sustainability also reflects a mindset that is at once fearful yet also more spiritual in understanding the relationship and duties of humans to each other and to the earth across generations and time. The pessimistic perspective can be found in a recent AARP
poll revealing that a majority of older Americans believe that they will pass a damaged societal baton—a less good world—on to future generations. And at the other end of the life cycle, younger Americans express repeatedly that they do not expect life to be as good for them as it was for their parents.

But while today’s economic crisis may make these issues more salient, issues of sustainability and generational interdependence nonetheless transcend periods of relative scarcity or abundance. The current cultural resonance of “sustainability” also bespeaks a new and hopeful recognition of the ties that must bind all people, including future generations.

Thus, the concept is moving beyond environmental or economic discussions of maintaining natural or material resources to become the basis for a new code of mutuality and solidarity. Climate change and the macro economy are of course extraordinarily important, yet interdependence across generations is a more embracing and human way of understanding and approaching “sustainability.” Reducing carbon emissions or debt, cultivating renewable resources or a healthy economy are vital endeavors, but they only indirectly get to the human meanings of why we should engage in them. Those meanings reside in what always has been—but today must be more powerfully emphasized—the imperative for people of all ages to stand together. Intergenerational justice is not merely a matter of equitable resource allocation, but about reciprocity.

The arc of life is one of renewal, in which there is meaningful continuity through the ages only if those who are older maintain and pass on a decent world to their children and children’s children. In practical terms, this means advocating for, and providing, public and private resources that are sufficient for children and young adults to thrive. But this continuity also entails reciprocal responsibilities on the part of the young,
to recognize the needs of elders and not see them as competitors for resources or to blame for all environmental, economic, or other problems. Practically, this means supporting the resource needs for older Americans to have economic security and psychological fulfillment. While acknowledging economic constraints, we must aim to be generous in providing for the present and future needs of children, the elderly, and all people.

It behooves neither a 20-year-old nor a 75-year-old to look out for her own needs alone. Good education, physical and emotional health, and economic opportunities for children and the young must be important to older Americans if they truly care about sustaining their nation and world. Financial security and physical and psychological well-being for the elderly also must be important to young Americans if they want to sustain a healthy and harmonious society of all ages (and social classes and racial/ethnic groups)—ages that they themselves inexorably will march toward as they proceed down life’s path.

Perhaps in these economic times, it is even more important to recognize that sustainability is not a technical matter to be left to scientists, engineers, economists, and other experts. It is a human issue about grandparents and grandchildren, and people of all ages with or without relatives young or old, recognizing their mutual dependence, the imperative to cooperate with and understand one another. It is about living as part of the sweep of time—not living for today— and living for others—not just for oneself. “Successful aging” should no more be confined to gerontologists’ vocabulary than “thriving” should be restricted to that of pediatricians. They are philosophical constructs that apply to all ages. Sustainability is about living the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, “a generation goes and comes, but the earth remains forever,” of Arthur Lovejoy’s “great chain of being” or even Disney’s “circle of life.” The world and humanity can only be “sustainable” if we embrace generativity, the idea that human continuity requires people throughout the life cycle and throughout time to support, guide, and care for one another.

Andrew L. Yarrow is vice president and Washington director of Public Agenda and an adjunct history
professor at American University, Washington, D.C.

New Survey Shows California Parents Want Summer Enrichment Programs but Obstacles Prevent Enrollment

David White — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:02:13 -0500

ASCA Response

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

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

ASCA Response to Public Agenda Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

High School Counselors Get Low Marks from Students on College Advice

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

Can I Get A Little Advice Here?

Francie Grace — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:17:49 -0500
Young Americans tell us they're not getting much help from their high school counselors when choosing a college, career, or in getting financial aid. In the second of our series of reports on college completion, Can I Get A Little Advice Here?, six in ten of young adults who went on to further education gave their high schools poor grades for college advice. Nearly half felt like "just a face in the crowd." With costs rising and college completion rates sinking, this raises serious questions about what kind of help young people need, and whether they're getting it. Read the full report, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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

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

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

By Andrew Yarrow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Report Finds a Majority of Americans Feel Colleges Care More about Their Bottom Line than Education of Students

David White — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:13:38 -0500

Summing Up Public Opinion on Federal Debts and Deficits

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

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

An Opening To Comment On Open Goverment

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

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

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

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

Trillions Of Reasons To Get Serious About Our Fiscal Future

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

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

Will The View Be Clearer At The Summit?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Deficit Commission Is Born: Now What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Squeeze Play 2010

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

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

The Importance Of Play

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shout-Out For College Stories

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

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

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

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

The last day to submit entries is February 19.

Sound Financial Advice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government Waste, and What's Really Being Wasted

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fiscal Sanity: It's Been Done Before

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

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

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

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

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

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

Squeeze Play 2010

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

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

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

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

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

No Teacher Left Behind?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Budget As Board Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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