News and stories from the campaign to reclaim individual responsibility and liberate Americans from bureaucracy and legal fear.
Posted 4/10/12 by Common Good
Richard Arum, director of the Education Research Program of the Social Science Research Council, worries that the legal environment of our public schools makes it harder for teachers to maintain order in the classroom. In an article for “America the Fixable,” Arum argues that what began as an effort to improve students’ rights has become an obstacle to good teaching.
Comment ›Posted 4/10/12 by Common Good
Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, believes that micromanaging teachers and principals keeps them from doing their jobs. As part of our ongoing series, “America the Fixable”, she writes that “we've built an education system based on our distrust of educators, and we didn't rethink it when we embraced accountability.”
“For years, well-intentioned policy makers have attempted to safeguard children by micromanaging principals and teachers through mandates and process requirements,” says Kopp. “Our education policies are a patchwork of thousands of top-down regulations that tie educators' hands rather than empowering them with the freedom over how they run their schools and classrooms.”
Kopp envisions a new system based on empowering teachers instead of handcuffing them. She cites the New Orleans charter school example, crediting it with “increasing autonomy along with accountability.” She argues that the New Orleans approach has “become a magnet for mission-driven educators who are drawn to the freedom to innovate and focus on essential work.”
Read the rest of Kopp’s article here.
"America the Fixable" is an online magazine collaboration between The Atlantic and Common Good. It provides a bipartisan forum for the presentation of bold, new ideas to reform America's governmental and legal system--ideas that need to be part of the 2012 debate.
Posted 4/4/12 by Common Good
After three primaries victories last night in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney echoed Common Good's argument that the effectiveness and relevance of government regulations needs frequent review:
"[R]egulations are necessary and critical, but they have to be continuously updated, streamlined, modernizedand regulators have to see their job not just as cracking down on the bad guys but also as protecting economic freedom and promoting enterprise and fostering job creation."
As part of our 2012 Start Over campaign, Common Good is advocating sweeping regulatory reform, offering results-based regulation as an alternative to the status quo of overly rigid, intrusive and complex rules. For more on Common Good's views on regulation, read Philip K. Howard's piece here.
Comment ›Posted 4/4/12 by Common Good
Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, knows a thing or two about making schools work better. In the latest installment of "America the Fixable", Finn shows how restricting the authority of school principals ultimately hurts students.
Under the current system, explains Finn, educational leaders have all of the responsibility but none of the power. Allowing principals to act like CEOs may foster a more efficient system. "If we don't give principals the authority to do their jobs," he writes, "we are going to have few competent leaders for our schools, which means we're not going to have many effective schools or well-educated children tomorrow."
Read the rest of Finn's article here.
"America the Fixable" is an online magazine collaboration between The Atlantic and Common Good. It provides a bipartisan forum for the presentation of bold, new ideas to reform America's governmental and legal system--ideas that need to be part of the 2012 debate.
Comment ›Posted 4/3/12 by Common Good
The basics of Common Good's Start Over campaign--in just one minute!
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Posted 4/3/12 by Common Good
This month, "America the Fixable" takes a new look at our schools and the bureaucratic tangles that hold them back.
Opening the discussion, Philip K. Howard writes that "America's schools are being crushed under decades of legislative and union mandates. They can never succeed until we cast off the bureaucracy and unleash individual inspiration and willpower."
In his essay "To Fix America's Education Bureaucracy, We Need to Destroy It," Howard writes: "Schools are human institutions. Their effectiveness depends upon engaging the interest and focus of each student. A good teacher, studies show, can dramatically improve the learning of students. What do great teachers have in common? Nothing, according to studies -- nothing, that is, except a commitment to teaching and a knack for keeping the students engaged...."
Visit The Atlantic to read the full article.
"America the Fixable" is an online magazine collaboration between The Atlantic and Common Good. It provides a bipartisan forum for the presentation of bold, new ideas to reform America's governmental and legal system--ideas that need to be part of the 2012 debate.
Comment ›Posted 3/29/12 by Common Good
Law professor Jim Maxeiner provides a comparative perspective for the current America the Fixable topic, relating how Europe (and Germany in particular) has more successfully dealt with the issue of obsolete law:
EU issues are American issues: The laws of the EU and of its member states must each be good, up to date and must all work well together. Although the EU has had only a few years' experience, it has already had successes that we have missed. For instance, where we have multiple levels of regulatory reviews (sometimes dozens for a single project or product), Europe embraces the principle of the one-stop-shop. If you get an approval from the EU or from one member state, ideally you should be good to go in the whole EU.
Read Professor Maxeiner’s entire essay here.
Comment ›Posted 3/29/12 by Common Good
With an essay describing his experience in rooting out redundant and obsolete state agencies, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is the latest government official to join the America the Fixable series at The Atlantic:
Legislators eager to demonstrate their enthusiasm for some cause or interest group find creating these entities an easy and generally low-cost way to do so. And while these boards and commissions take up only a minute chunk of Indiana's budget, they devour time, money, and energy far beyond any real contribution they make.
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The problem is that, once created, these activities almost never go away. No legislator sees any glory in eliminating some board their constituents have never heard of. Meanwhile, the interest groups involved and the original sponsors, if they are still around, will take a sunset attempt as an affront or a sign of diminished importance -- and rebel against it.
Learn about Governor Daniels’ successes in eliminating over 70 of these agencies by reading his full essay here.
Comment ›Posted 3/28/12 by Benjamin Miller
Pass through security. Wait for your boarding group to be called. Fasten your seatbelt. Turn off your electronic devices. It’s all part of the routine for anyone flying on commercial airlines.
Much of that routine stems from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations intended to maintain a standard of safety—including that last, most dubious order, to turn off electronics. We’re told electronics can interfere with airplane communications. It’s a pain to shut down your laptop or e-reader during takeoff and landing; but better that than crashing the plane, right?
Comment ›Posted 3/27/12 by Common Good
The latest contributor to our “America the Fixable” series with The Atlantic, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, knows something about how hard it is to cut unnecessary bureaucracy:
In 2000, we attempted to eliminate 141 Florida boards and commissions out of the more than 800 that existed at that time. Only 10 were eliminated and the legislature created another 31.
Governor Bush, a Republican, finds common ground with Democratic Senator Mark Warner’s proposal for a regulatory one-in, one-out policy. He also suggests banning “omnibus” legislation that conceals breaks for special interests and reduces accountability for elected officials.
Be sure to read the full article here.
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