The Weekly Wonk

Higher education is in crisis, in large part because - as Kevin Carey points out in his new book, The End of College - students (and their parents) are paying more and getting less. The announcement that Sweet Briar College will close at the end of this year illustrates how untenable the current system is. On this episode, Carey, director of New America's education policy program, talks with ProPublica's Marian Wang about his book and how information technology will facilitate the creation of institutions that serve what Carey calls the "big middle" in education, who are currently left behind or saddled with debt. 

If you use a smartphone or your kid has a tablet, you should already be wondering how we can educate, engage, and retain diverse talent in tech. But experts say you should also be curious to know why Ida B. Wells is Aliya Rahman's favorite data scientist. On this episode, Anne-Marie Slaughter talks with Rahman, program director of Code for Progress, as well as Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer at the White House, and Jessica Rosenworcel of the FCC, about how leadership can make an impact in tech.

We can make planet-wide, always-on, high-speed(ish) Internet communications a reality for everyone. In other words, a universal Internet is possible, say Alan Davidson, New America's Vice President for Technology Policy and Strategy and Director of the Open Technology Institute (OTI), and Danielle Kehl, a policy analyst with OTI, in this conversation with Anne-Marie Slaughter (and in New America's Big Ideas series on CNN). According to Davidson and Kehl, now that the goal of internet everywhere for everyone is on the horizon, global and local participation and investment are the keys to getting to that finish line.

Borders are perhaps the biggest and most contentious issue when it comes to trade, immigration, diplomacy, and innovation. Twenty years after NAFTA and with the Trans-Pacific Partnership on the horizon, it's time to update the United States' border-sharing relationships with its neighbors. One provocative way to start the conversation: Let's create a North American passport, say Andres Martinez and Daniel Kurtz-Phelan in this conversation with Anne-Marie Slaughter (and in New America's Big Ideas series on CNN). Martinez and Kurtz-Phelan point out that the privileges of movement and access shared among the United States, Canada, and Mexico should reflect just how interwoven our respective economies--including education, manufacturing, and research, in addition to trade itself--have become.

In the story of the American Dream, the moral is that with hard work, making a comeback or reinventing yourself is possible. Inherent in that moral is the viability of second chances. Real life for the long-term unemployed in America tells a different story, say Rachel Black and Aleta Sprague in this conversation with Anne-Marie Slaughter (and in New America's Big Ideas series on CNN). Black and Sprague report that for America to have a real second-chance economy, we must make policy changes that will remove barriers for dreamers of the American Dream to re-enter our economy.

Instead of working harder to be more productive, we need to work smarter by taking time out to relax and connect with friends and family. In study after study, the research shows that by taking breaks in between periods of focused attention, we will get more done and could even make strides toward greater gender and class equality, says Brigid Schulte in this conversation with Anne-Marie Slaughter. According to Schulte, author of the best-selling book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, it's when we hit the pause button that our brains unlock their most powerful creativity and innovation.

How do we prevent atrocities like those in Bosnia and Rwanda from happening again? Over the course of her career, Samantha Power - U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Problem From Hell, has approached this question from diplomatic, military, and historical angles. The subject of a 12,000-word profile in this week'sNew Yorker, Power spoke recently with Anne-Marie Slaughter as part of New America's Leadership, Innovation, and Ideas series. In this excerpt from their conversation, Power and Slaughter discuss how the U.S. government, civil society, and the United Nations can innovate to pursue a peaceful and secure global future.

We all know that increasingly, Hispanic Americans are at the forefront of national conversations about politics, and not just in the context of the electoral landscape or immigration debates. Anne-Marie Slaughter talks with Heritage senior fellow Mike Gonzalez about his book, A Race for the Future, and why conservatives need to embrace demographic change and craft a message to Hispanic voters that prioritizes community and opportunity above the polarization of the status quo.

What can the history of investigative journalism – or global muckraking, as Columbia professor Anya Schiffrin calls it – teach us about the future of human rights? More than anyone might think, as Schiffrin tells Anne-Marie Slaughter in their discussion of Schiffrin's new book, Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Journalism from Around the World.

How do we win a war that can't be seen? Anne-Marie Slaughter goes behind the cyber curtain to find out by speaking with ASU Future of War Fellow Shane Harris about his new book, @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex. Harris, who has been reporting on intelligence as a journalist for 15 years, talks on this episode about his unprecedented access to how the NSA works and why our response to the threat of cyber war – rather than the risks of harm - will have a bigger impact on cyberspace in the 21st century.

  The tech industry now admits it has a woman problem. On this week's episode, fresh ideas for how to address that issue across the tech sector – and other male-dominated industries, too. Liza Mundy, Director of New America's Breadwinning and Caregiving Program, sits in for Anne-Marie Slaughter and speaks with Joan C. Williams, Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California Hastings, about her cutting-edge research.

How should we fill the information gap on Ebola and the Syrian Civil War, which the mainstream media addresses only when there's a new patient or attack? According to News Deeply founder and CEO Lara Setrakian, it's by providing accurate, accessible, and focused content – day in, day out. And that's where News Deeply comes in. On this episode, Anne-Marie Slaughter talks to  Setrakian about her single-subject news platforms, Syria Deeply and Ebola Deeply, and why we need them to tell some of today's most important stories. 

It's possible, says Perry Bacon, Jr., who believes that only local journalism can sustain democracy where it is most active these days—at the state and municipal levels. On this week's episode, Bacon talks with Anne-Marie Slaughter about why we need a New York Times in every state and how—in this moment when global digital storytelling is thriving and local papers are shedding thousands of jobs—we might begin to get there.

In this episode, Slaughter talks with historian Khalil Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library, about why the story of police violence against people of color seems to be repeating itself from Rodney King to Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown.

One week of presidential politics in the spring of 1987 changed political journalism forever and not for the better. So says noted political writer (and alumnus of three presidential campaign trails) Matt Bai in his new book, All the Truth is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid. On this episode, Bai speaks with Schmidt Family Fellow Christopher Leonard to tell us how Gary Hart's failed presidential bid fundamentally shaped this modern age of political tabloid journalism and what he thinks that means for the future of democracy.

“The poor” aren't other people – they're us. According to recent scholarship, by the time we're 75 years old, 59 percent of us will fall below the poverty line at some point in our lives. Factoring in related experiences like near-poverty, unemployment, or use of public assistance, that number climbs to a staggering 80 percent. In this episode, Ford Academic Fellow and SUNY-Albany professor Virginia Eubanks talks with New America Managing Editor Fuzz Hogan about the biggest thing we can do to address inequality in this country: recognizing that poverty is a majority issue and something that impacts us all.

Promoting diversity in education was one the biggest and most widely practiced ideas of the 20th century. But as Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel P.S. Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of History at Harvard, argued in last week's edition of The Weekly Wonk, diversity isn't getting us where we need to go to help students who are truly disadvantaged. She has another big idea to make higher education a real pathway to social mobility: directing resources to students who are the first in their families to attend college. In this episode, Slaughter and Brown-Nagin outline the stakes for how reaching out to first-generation students can make college, in the words of Horace Mann, a “great equalizer.”

Conventional wisdom and media narratives suggest that visible populist movements like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street emerged in response to the financial crisis of 2008. New America Fellow Yascha Mounk disagrees. In a recent article for Foreign Affairs (“Pitchfork Politics”), he argues that this surge in populism is part of a more complex trend, dating back to the 1990s and a steadily growing disenchantment with government. On this episode, Mounk and Slaughter discuss the impact of reading this rise in populism as part of a longer-term story and explore ways—in Mounk's words—to “channel populist passions for good.”

Why do veterans miss war? That's the question that has animated the latest work of Sebastian Junger, the best-selling author and filmmaker whose recent film, Korengal, picks up where his Academy Award-nominated war documentary Restrepo left off. The answer, he says, could have broad social implications. On this episode, Junger and Slaughter discuss those implications, and explore how both evolution and gender shape the experience of war – and peace - for men and women.

Why are some Americans choosing to fight malaria in Malawi over meth in Minnesota? In other words: why do we tend to romanticize development work abroad while neglecting problems down the street? On this episode,  Anand Giridharadas, New York Times columnist and author most recently of The True American, tells us how this disconnect illuminates a fundamental misunderstanding of the biggest problems that plague our society.

Most of us can easily remember our favorite teachers. Yet as a whole, American society devalues the profession – eroding the enthusiasm of educators with debates over teacher pay, tenure and testing. That dynamic is nothing new, says Dana Goldstein, a former New America Fellow and the author of the new book, “The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession.” On this episode, Goldstein explains that if we want a peaceful future, we must learn from the education wars of the past.

No, you're not imagining things: news media today is dominated by white male voices. Lauren Bohn wants to change that. The co-founder of the startup Foreign Policy Interrupted explains what we lose when we don't hear the perspectives of women and minorities on the news – and how she's planning to disrupt the same old talking points and talking heads.

Are you really as connected as you think you are? New America Fellow Eric Tyler tells us that you might not be -- that's right, even with your hundreds of Facebook contacts. But don't fret. Tyler's big idea? An online accelerator to help you remedy those critical pain points in your contacts and make your network go global.

Quit worrying about China's ascendance. On one important measure, Chinese-American Eric Liu tells us, the U.S. still has the power to keep a competitive edge: Find out what that is, and  what we can learn about America's future from the Liu family immigration story. He's the author of the recently published,  "A Chinaman's Chance" and a 1999 New America Fellow.

Can we break the glass ceiling with dollars bills? On this episode, former Bank of America and Citigroup executive Sallie Krawcheck explains how she hopes a new index fund – offered by her organization, Ellevate – comprised of those businesses that have women in leadership positions might help propel more women into c-suites and corporate boards.

  To be single and 27+ in China is to be declared "leftover." On this episode, Leta Hong-Fincher, the author of "Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China," discusses a destructive new government campaign that's stripping Chinese women of their ambition – and choking the economy.

We're at the beginning of a new global battle –  a race to reinvent government and make it better. That's what The Economist Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait and his co-author Adrian Woolridge argue in their new book, The Fourth Revolution. In the first edition of our new podcast format, Micklethwait tells Slaughter his big idea: governments can, and will, change – and  technology and transparency will get us there.

First, a special summer encore edition of the Weekly Wonk: Brigid Schulte makes the case for working less. Later, a conversation about the situation in Iraq – is it an imminent disaster that calls for immediate U.S. Intervention? Or should we learn from past lessons and proceed with caution?  That conversation features three New America senior fellows –Nadia Oweidat, Douglas Ollivant, Christopher Fussell. And it was moderated by New America Managing Editor Fuzz Hogan.

This week, Atlantic correspondent Ta-Nehisi Coates extends the conversation he started with his June cover story, The Case for Reparations. Later, what history can tell us about modern warfare: New America Fellow and Abraham Lincoln Biographer Matt Pinsker moderates a discussion on how the power to declare war has evolved since the days of our founding fathers.

This week - why soccer means more than goals, how the sport has changed racial politics throughout the world and how FIFA's confused - and sometimes corrupt – politics could threaten the sport's future. Listen to a discussion featuring New America Editorial Director Andrés Martinez, Slate Editor David Plotz and Joshua H. Nadel, an assistant history professor at North Carolina Central University.

This is the final podcast in a series of the best conversations from our annual 10 Big Ideas Conference. First, a discussion about the geopolitics of energy with New America Future Tense Fellow Steve LeVine and Sharon Burke, senior advisor to the International Security Program. The conversation begins with a discussion of Sen. John McCain's assertion at the conference that Russia was using its energy as a geopolitical weapon. Later, put your feet up and listen to the case for injecting more idleness and leisure into our hectic lives, featuring New America Fellow Brigid Schulte, Liza Mundy, the Director of New America's Breadwinning and Caregiving Program, Yves Morieux, a senior partner and managing director with the Boston Consulting Group, and Mark Beeman, a Professor of Psychology and Interdepartmental Program in Neurosciences at Northwestern University.

For the next few weeks, we're bringing you edited versions of the best conversations from our annual 10 Big Ideas Conference. This week,you'll hear first from Andrew McAfee, co-author of The Second Machine Age, and the associate director for the Center for Digital Businessat MIT. He distills the hidden impacts our fast-paced technological innovation, explaining why we're simultaneously in the best of times, and the worst of times. Later, listen to a discussion about how the seemingly-innocuous credit hour has poisoned higher education, and what we can do about it, featuring Amy Laitinen, the Deputy Director of Education Policy at New America, Cathrael Kazin, the Chief Academic Officer of the College of America, Hal Plotkin, the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Education in the U.S. Department of Education, and Libby Nelson, an Education Reporter at Vox.

For the next few weeks, we're bringing you edited versions of the best conversations from our annual 10 Big Ideas Conference. First up: CNN Crossfire Host Van Jones, with some help from our audience, asks Steven Rattner, Chairman of WIllett Advisors and a New America Board Member, about his diagnosis and prescriptions on income inequality in the U.S. Forget Thomas Piketty – listen to Rattner challenge conventional wisdom about the connections between economic growth, mobility and income inequality. Later, Slaughter moderates a discussion about the future of war – how big data and technological advances are blurring the boundaries of the battlefield, and the identity of our enemy. That conversation features Peter Bergen, the director of the International Security Program, Sascha Meinrath, the director of our X-Lab project, Tim Maurer, a Research Fellow at the Open Technology Institute, Tom Ricks, a Senior Adviser on National Security at New America, and Rosa Brooks, a Senior Fellow and Professor at Georgetown.

For the first time in years, American diplomats seem optimistic about the future of Iran-U.S. relations. Could our progress there help us deal with North Korea? Suzanne DiMaggio, the director of the Southwest Asia Program, shares what lessons she learned from a recent trip to Pyongyang - and why she's increasingly confident the U.S. and Iran will reach an official nuclear agreement this summer. Later, as school draws to a close, we look back at a conversation from earlier this year, about how to make our schools better, with Teach For America Founder Wendy Kopp and Education Policy Program Director Kevin Carey.

We live in an ever-shifting world, where industries are rushing to meet modern expectations and the demands placed upon the global workforce are changing daily. In this week's podcast, former Indiana governor and current president of Purdue University Mitch Daniels speaks about the changing role of education and how schools like Purdue, formally an agriculturally-focused institution, are adapting to meet contemporary innovation. Later, International Security Program Director Peter Bergen engages with Raza Rumi, an analyst for Express News and the consulting editor of the Friday Times, in addition to Kati Marton (a New America board member) and Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists. The group discusses the recent assassination attempt on Rumi, as well as the growing dangers facing journalists working in Pakistan and the fine line they tread.

If you had the choice to work in a start up environment like Google or the bureaucratic U.S. Government, which would you choose? Sure enough, most techies choose the companies with free lunches, yoga classes, and relaxed dress code. In this podcast, Harvard Law School Professor Susan Crawford and Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administraton Dan Tangherlini discuss how we can convince tech talent to choose public service instead of Silicon Valley. Later, New America Fellow Anand Gopal discusses what it was like for Afghans to live through the American invasion, and touches on his new book, No Good Men Among the Living.

Sure, no one wants their kids to end up barren and exploited like the Giving Tree. But most parents do want to instill generosity in their progeny. Wharton Business School Professor Adam Grant, author of the bestselling book Give & Take, tells Slaughter how parents can help nudge their kids towards more caring behavior – and ultimately, more career success. Later, as President Obama kicks off his trip to Asia and dusts off the administration's 2011 "pivot to Asia" strategy, Slaughter discusses the challenges and opportunities in this new rebalancing act with Anish Goel, former senior director for South Asia on the White House's National Security Council, and Sheila Smith, a senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

It may seem like the only way to the corner office is by working 18-hour days and sleeping with your smart phone. It's not – but it's definitely the path to misery, says Arianna Huffington. The President and Editor in Chief of the Huffington Post lays out a new path forward in her new book, Thrive, and tells Slaughter all about how we should really be defining success. And later, ahead of Earth Day, a conversation with New America Fellow Steve LeVine and Russell Gold, the senior energy correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, about the economics of fracking and renewable energy – and the plausibility of a scenario in which we don't eventually extract all fossil fuels from the earth. In other words – will renewables ever win the economic energy game?

Today, we put our information into the "cloud." Soon, we may get our Internet from real clouds. Facebook and Google make Internet connectivity ubiquitous by streaming it from hot air balloons and drones. Of course, it's not that easy. Alan Davidson, director of the Open Technology Institute, helps us understand some of the biggest terrestrial issues that could effect aerial Internet aspirations. Later, 2012 New America Fellow Brigid Schulte and Oxford Economics CEO Adam Sacks make the case for booking that trip to Puerto Rico as soon as possible: They tell us why skipping vacation is bad for us, our employers, and our economy. 

Journalist and former New America Fellow Dayo Olopade exposes the West's big blind spots when it comes to development policy in Africa; we've been looking for solutions to the continent's biggest problems in all the wrong places. Later, New America Fellows and Afghanistan experts Omar Samad, Faiysal AliKhan, and Anand Gopal tell us what we can expect before and after Saturday's presidential election in Afghanistan – and explain why there's a silver lining to the violence leading up to the vote.

Good news for all you F-students out there: You, too, can be president. Well, kind of. This week, journalist Megan McArdle's big idea is that failure is actually the key to success – if you know how to properly harness your fumbles. Later on, Political Reform Program Director Mark Schmitt and Markets, Enterprise and Resiliency Initiative Fellow Zephyr Teachout talk about the implications of an imminent campaign finance ruling and a new bill.

Hey, are you busy right now? If you live in America, the answer is probably “yes.” We're busier than ever. Or…are we? New America Fellow Brigid Schulte, the author of the new book, “Overwhelmed,” challenges our basic assumptions about leisure time, and explains how the culture of busyness is changing our brains. Later, New America Fellows Meredith Wadman and Kathryn Bowers dissect the president's science research budget and explore what the plateauing funding levels tell us about our curiosity, national priorities and the future of innovation.

Emily Parker talks about the strange underworld of online activism around the world – and her new book on the subject. Later, New America Fellow and Foreign Policy columnist Rosa Brooks joins Breadwinning & Caregiving Program Director Liza Mundy and New America Fellow Brigid Schulte for a conversation about Rosa's recent "Lean In" rebellion, and what we're all misunderstanding about the work-life balance conversation.

Chris Leonard talks about how farmers are the losers in today's consolidated agriculture industry, and how your chicken can go from “egg to McNugget without ever touching a market where there's a transparent price.” Then, on the eve of the Oscars, Peter Bergen and Liza Mundy talk about whether movies can move policy.

Unlike a classic Hitchcock film, our 1950s-era measurements for progress haven't aged well. Numbers like GDP, consumer price index and the jobless rate “obscure more than they illuminate,” economist Zachary Karabell tells Slaughter, exploring the argument in his new book, The Leading Indicators. Later, New America Fellow Hao Wu and Early Education Initiative Director Lisa Guernsey talk about the unlikely pre-K race between China and the United States, why China is poised to win, and what it could mean for the future of our relationship.

It's official: After a five-year legal battle, Europe has ruled that Google is not being evil– or at least not entirely – when it comes to the search giant's treatment of competitors overseas. But what does this major antitrust decision tell us about why global policymakers are so eager to dismantle monopolies? Lina Khan, a policy analyst for the Markets, Enterprise and Resiliency Initiative and Daniel Kurtz–Phelan unpack the underreported benefits and controversy around trust-busting. Later, New America Fellow Gabe Sherman shares his bleak prognosis for Fox News' future – and what he learned from writing a 600-page biography of Fox News Founder Roger Ailes.

Happy 10th birthday, Facebook! In this podcast, co-founder Chris Hughes joins us in a discussion of the world's largest social network's early days. And, as the Sochi Olympics bring a mix of a excitement and fear, Bailey Cahall, a policy analyst with the National Security Studies Program, and New America Fellow Steve LeVine tell us just how worries we should be for the athletes' safety.

Wondering what to make of President Obama's 2014 State of the Union? Listen to our new SOTU track, a mashup of the president's sound bites and policy analyst reactions to his biggest lines. You'll hear the voices of Lisa Guernsey, Director of the Early Education Initiative; Lina Khan, Policy Analyst with the Markets, Enterprise and Resiliency Initiative; Justin King, Policy Director for the Asset Building Program; Alex Holt, Program Associate for the Education Policy Program; and Bailey Cahall, Policy Analyst for the National Security Program. After that, Political Reform Program Director Mark Schmitt and New America Fellow Perry Bacon grade the president's oratory and proposals.

Jake Sullivan, Vice President Joe Biden's national security adviser and a key engineer of the Iranian interim nuclear deal, spotlights the most overlooked lever for changing policy in Iran– and the administration's long-term strategy. Asset Building Program Director Reid Cramer and New America Fellow Jason DeParle tell us what's missing from the inequality debate, and point to policies that can narrow the divide.

Hey, you! The one with the furrowed eyebrows, hunched over a report warning that developing world innovation is contributing to America's slow, painful decline. Stop worrying! It's time to embrace the rise of countries like China, Center for Global Development Senior Fellow Charles Kenny explains to Slaughter. Later, Open Technology Institute Policy Director Kevin Bankston and New America Fellow Katherine Mangu-Ward suggest big changes to the NSA's bulk surveillance program, and show us how to grade the President's upcoming speech on potential agency reforms.

Former Senator Jon Kyl explains why 2014 may finally be the year our immigration system gets fixed; Teach For America Founder Wendy Kopp, and Education Policy Program Director Kevin Carey discuss a new strategy for educating the world. (Note: the second half of this podcast was recorded in early December, before New York Mayor-elect Bill De Blasio decided to appoint Carmen Fariña as the new city chancellor.)