The South is moving quickly to the head of the pack in education reform. Following the lead of Louisiana’s Recovery School District, Tennessee is taking several low performing schools out of the jurisdiction of local school boards and placing them in a state-run Achievement School District, where well known charter operators like KIPP are taking […]

Millennials might finally be ready to retire their hipster ways and join the American suburban bourgeoisie.  Sixty-five percent of Gen Y renters (18-34) have a stronger intention to buy a house now than they did this time last year, according to a new study by PulteGroup. This figure has some people excited about the housing market’s […]

Editors’ note: What follows is the fourth part of an exchange on Russian-Western relations following from David Kramer and Lilia Shevtsova’s monthly column at The American Interest Online (see especially their February 21 essay, “Here We Go Again: Falling for the Russia Trap”). On March 12, Thomas Graham responded with his essay, “In Defense of […]

China may soon overtake the US as the world’s leading oil importer, and Washington couldn’t be happier. Due in large part to the shale gas revolution, America is becoming less dependent on foreign oil; in January, crude oil imports were down 8 percent from August. China, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction, with its […]

In just a few years, a neighbor’s basement may serve as a college classroom, the local YMCA as the dormitory, and a degree might come at the cost of one year’s tuition at a private college. That’s the idea behind Tim Cook’s Saxifrage school, an alternative (as yet unaccredited) to college profiled in the WSJ: Saxifrage is woven […]

The dreaded college tuition bill is only the most obvious cause of parental headaches. Miscellaneous items tucked into the fine print are also draining their pockets, like a “globalization fee,” a “parking/pedestrian fee,” and a “student success fee.” It’s a cunning sleight of hand, as Propublica reports: “It’s a way for colleges to increase the cost […]

The debate over immigration is heating up just as immigration itself is slowing down. According to the NYT, [a]ll across Mexico’s ruddy central plains, most of the people who could go north already have. In a region long regarded as a bellwether of illegal immigration — where the flow of migrants has often seemed never-ending — the streets […]

At a ceremony last weekend, President Ma of Taiwan unveiled two gleaming new patrol ships that will increase Taiwan’s presence around disputed waters in the East China Sea. “We will not concede one step” in defending Taiwan’s claim on the islands there, said Ma at the ceremony. The announcement builds on the “water war” incident back in […]

Spain has just announced that it, like France, will miss its deficit target this year. Its deficit is now 6 percent of GDP,  far from the target of 4.5 percent. The EU is now debating relaxing Spain’s terms, but it’s unclear exactly what they have in mind, as the FT reports: The European Commission had […]

The United Nations yesterday approved the first ever global arms trade treaty in an effort to regulate the multibillion-dollar international weapons trade. The treaty is supposed curb the ability of countries like Iran and Russia to sell weapons to countries like Syria, though implementation of the agreement is still years away and no actual enforcement system […]