Brookings Institute

Media technology is an integral part of children’s lives in the twenty-first century. The world of electronic media, however, is changing dramatically. Television, until recently the dominant media source, has been joined by cell phones, iPods, video games, instant messaging, social networks on the Internet, and e-mail.

WHAT ARE THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COSTS OF FAILING TO EDUCATE ALL OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN?
Edited by Clive Belfield and Henry M. Levin
While the high cost of education draws headlines, the cost of not educating America's children goes largely ignored. The Price We Pay remedies this oversight by highlighting the private, fiscal, and public costs of inadequate education.

Lois Dickson Rice, Elaine Maag, David Mundel, Kim Rueben
Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
In 1997 Congress enacted a number of tax benefits directed toward helping middle- and upper-middle income groups meet rising college costs. This shift in goals and strategies raises concerns about the fairness and effectiveness of the evolving federal approach to higher education.

Demilitarizing What the Pentagon Knows About Developing Young People: A New Paradigm for Educating Students Who Are Struggling in School and in Life
Hugh B. Price, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
While many students are celebrating their graduation from high school or college, thousands of other adolescents have either dropped out of school or are chronic underachievers. Hugh Price examines the successful tactics the U.S. military uses to engage and train young people - and offers provocative new strategies for schools.

America's economic and social progress depends on a well-educated public. As Congress prepares to revisit federal education policy, Brookings continues to examine those efforts and to explore ways to improve our children's education. On Wednesday (March 28) a panel of experts and policy-makers examine No Child Left Behind and proposals to improve the nation's teacher workforce, and on Thursday (March 29), the Hamilton Project proposes ideas for education issues ranging from preschool quality to college affordability.

Alice M. Rivlin, Senior Fellow and Director, Greater Washington Research Program
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee: I wish this hearing were about how to make education more effective for the young people of the District, rather than about who is in charge of doing so. It is good news that the city's political and educational leaders all realize the need for radical change in the schools.

Susan M. Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
The federal system of student financial aid is broken. Information about aid eligibility is hidden behind a thicket of complicated paperwork, and is also highly uncertain. Concrete information arrives just a few months before or even months after students enroll in college— far too late to affect enrollment decisions. Economic theory and evidence suggest that the costs of complexity and uncertainty are high: many high school students won't even start on the path to college if they aren't certain they can afford it.

Jason Furman, Senior Fellow & Director, Hamilton Project
This paper discusses a framework for education policy, from early childhood through post-secondary education, along with major reform ideas consistent with that framework. We present evidence showing that education is critical to broad-based economic growth. Investments in education yield large returns to both society and the individual.

Jens Ludwig and Isabel V. Sawhill, Hamilton Project
Success by Ten is a proposed program designed to help every child achieve success in school by age ten. It calls for a major expansion and intensification of Head Start and Early Head Start, so that every disadvantaged child has the opportunity to enroll in a high-quality program of education and care during the first five years of his or her life.

Hugh B. Price, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
The debate over equal access to education continues in the Supreme Court, Congress, and the nation's statehouses. Brookings scholar Hugh B. Price argues for promoting inclusion in secondary education for children of color, allowing them the opportunity to attend selective public schools with strong academic programs that feed graduates into elite colleges and universities.

The Hamilton Project, launched last year at Brookings to advance economic strategies and policy options, is examining the full spectrum of early childhood, K-12, and higher education, and ways that we can promote opportunity and growth through our nation's education system.