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The political leg of policy: the 2021 tax reform that paralyzed Colombia

02.13.22

Colombians were enraged. On May 1st, 2021, amid the third wave of covid-19 cases, a national protest took place where more than 300.000 people blocked roads and cities for more than 50 days. Violence and death sprang on the streets, polarization on social media proved a cracked society, road blockages paralyzed the private sector, and […]

A Call for Nuance: Reframing The Charter School Debate

02.20.19

BY CHRIS GEARY As a former traditional public middle school math teacher and charter high school history teacher, it is clear that the question “are charter schools good or bad?” cannot be answered as simply as anyone would like. Before diving into the implications, it is worth defining what charter schools actually are. Essentially, a […]

Radical Market Electoral Reform

04.10.18

BY SAGAR DESHPANDE and KEN INSLEY The United States of America is the oldest continuous democracy in the world, but despite the storied history of our government, American civic participation remains abysmally low. Americans feel so disconnected from their political system that during mid-term elections, the majority are not participants in their own democracy.  In most states, only about a third of […]

How Changes to the Primary Process Can Improve Democratic Electoral Outcomes

11.16.16

BY JAMES PAGANO As the dust settles on the 2016 Presidential Election, the Democratic Party will begin a process of deep self-reflection. If the past week is any indication, the party will analyze what happened in 2016 with a specific focus on improving its future electoral prospects among rural white working-class voters. The shocking upset […]

Democracy and Governance

Innovating Schools

09.5.14

  One student prepares to run for elected office. Another has just finished an internship in a federal courthouse. A third is taking a college course on Kierkegaard. These students are eighth graders. Education can be transformative. And it can be transformed. RETHINKING EDUCATION REFORM Education reform has been an ongoing effort for the past […]

Scotland Takes Domestic Abuse Seriously – And We Should Too

07.31.14

BY MARYROSE MAZZOLA “Two police officers, a court advocate, and a social worker walk into a room,” might sound like the beginning of a bad joke, but in Edinburgh, Scotland, it’s a new policy norm. This is what’s known as a MARAC (Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Committee) meeting. Here, up to a dozen domestic abuse service […]

Fairness and Justice

Timeout on the Winter Olympics

07.11.14

The Winter Games don’t deserve to be Olympic Games. BY JORDAN WARD, PANGYRUS This article is being published in collaboration with Pangyrus.   The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has a problem. With Stockholm, Krakow, and now Lviv pulling out of the running to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, they’ve been left with slim pickings. […]

International Relations and Security

The Rise of a Narrative: Thomas Piketty at the Kennedy School

04.25.14

  BY JOSH RUDOLPH The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. – John Maynard Keynes Friday afternoons tend to be subdued affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. But the afternoon […]

Justice in Mexico: The Mexican Drug War’s Most Important Change that Nobody Noticed

03.26.14

BY VIRIDIANA RIOS, PH.D While the emergence of civilian self-defense groups in Mexico has gained the most attention as a strategy to fight drug cartels, the most profound change in that country’s security strategy has largely passed unnoticed. Early on 2014, Mexico approved an entirely new national code of judicial procedures that will transform the […]

Fairness and Justice

Why We Need Corporate Tax Reform

02.15.14

BY ELLIOTT LONG  In 1943, corporate income tax collections accounted for 40 percent of total tax collections. By 2012, they accounted for just 9.7 percent—a 76 percent decrease in less than a century. An examination into the factors contributing to this decline reveals several alarming trends that, if left unchecked, will only lead to further […]

When Too Much Remains the Same: Women’s progress in America has farther to go

12.23.13

BY ELIZABETH A. KISLIK In a lecture at Harvard University in mid-October, New York Times columnist Gail Collins discussed how fundamentally women’s roles in American society have changed over the past half-century. Her talk reflected the theme of her 2009 book, When Everything Changed. Collins recalled the days of “executive flights,” on which young, unmarried […]

Jeb Bush on Education Reform in America

12.4.13

BY GOVERNOR JEB BUSH As adults, we are responsible for the educational success of our children. And as adults we can easily thwart young learners. Let me ask you a question. A child enters kindergarten. His mother is a single-parent who works a minimum wage job. Perhaps he lives in the inner city or he […]

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