“Don’t teach your kids to fear the world,” writes Arthur C. Brooks, public intellectual and happiness researcher at Harvard. “Teaching them that the world is a dangerous place is bad for their health, happiness, and success.” This is a great message for K-12 school educators to remember as they head back to school this year. There is no doubt teachers face a heavy task. They are not only delivering content or raising test scores. They are shaping the hearts and minds of a generation grappling with what can feel like relentless gloom.
Turn on the news—or browse the average social studies curriculum—and it is hard to escape the drumbeat of crisis. Climate catastrophe, democratic collapse, political assassinations, economic inequality, racial injustice, mass shootings, mental health epidemics, and disruption from artificial intelligence. The list is long and, for many young people, it is overwhelming. Educators rightly want students to be aware of the world’s problems. But in the process, they may unintentionally teach gloom and despair.
Today, it is not enough for educators to sound the alarm. Rather, the job of teachers and professors is to equip young people with the mindset and motivation to face an uncertain world with agency, purpose, and—above all—hope. Here are five ways to do this during this new school year.
The first step is to recognize that hope is more than an attitude, but a practice that can be learned.
In the first episode of his “Back to School” series, PPI’s Bruno Manno sits down with Preston Cooper from the American Enterprise Institute to talk about the effects on higher education from the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The war over affirmative action in college admissions has entered a new phase.
For decades, conservatives have campaigned against racial preferences while saying they favor race-neutral strategies for achieving racial diversity, such as giving a boost to economically disadvantaged students of all races. Now, however, the Trump administration is moving the goal posts. Their new stance is that class-based affirmative action is also illegal if it is aimed at promoting racial integration. In late July, the Department of Justice issued a stunning memorandum declaring that “criteria like socioeconomic status, first-generation status, or geographic diversity must not be used” if a university’s goal is to further racial diversity on campus.
The move represents a major blunder by the Trump administration — and a significant opportunity for colleges. By expanding its opposition to racial preferences to now include preferences for economically disadvantaged students, the administration moves from a strong political position to a very weak one. Furthermore, the attack on economic affirmative action will almost surely lose in court. The administration’s overreach gives colleges, which have been playing defense for years, a chance to finally put Trump on the hot seat. They should press the question: Why, exactly, is Trump seeking to end economic affirmative-action programs that benefit working Americans of all races?
The roughly 19.6 million undergraduates returning to campus this school year face bad news about bleak job prospects after graduation. Many will leave college indebted and ambitious, only to discover that the entry-level rung of the career ladder is no longer what it once was. They will end up in a job that doesn’t require their degree or be unemployed.
A recent article in The Atlantic titled “The Job Market Is Frozen” by staff writer Roge Karma tells the story of his younger brother who graduated with honors from a top U.S. private university. Over a six month period, his brother completed 576 job applications, received 29 responses, and had four interviews, none of which led to a job. Roge is an economist, so he was motivated to examine the situation in more depth.
He concludes that “Unemployment is low, but workers aren’t quitting and businesses aren’t hiring. What’s going on? Call it the Big Freeze. A job market with few hiring opportunities is especially punishing for young people entering the workforce or trying to advance up the career ladder, including those with a college degree.””
WASHINGTON — As partisan battles rage over library books, school choice, and the future of the U.S. Department of Education, a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) warns that both major political parties have abandoned serious efforts to improve public education. “A New Compact for Educational Excellence,” authored by PPI Director of Education Policy Rachel Canter, warns that while Republicans pursue an ideological push toward privatization, Democrats have retreated from reform and ceded ground to defenders of a broken status quo.
Recent federal data underscore the scale and urgency of the challenge: fewer than one in three eighth graders read at grade level, 40% of fourth graders fall below basic literacy, and NAEP scores remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, seven in ten Americans express dissatisfaction with the nation’s schools, according to Gallup.
“We are sending millions of children back to school this fall, but we’re doing so without a clear plan for how to help them succeed,” said Canter. “Too many national and state leaders have abandoned the charge of improving America’s public schools, putting the future of millions of children at risk. Now is the time to rally behind a new compact with families that restores excellence, choice, and accountability to public education.”
Canter outlines a sweeping nine-point reform agenda to rebuild public education and restore national confidence in schools:
A goal of universal literacy by fourth grade; numeracy by eighth grade; and reading and math skills by graduation that enable students to succeed beyond high school.
A larger voice for parents in school policies and decisions.
A high-quality early childhood education program for every family that seeks one.
A bridge from K-12 to adulthood.
An expansion of public school choice and school autonomy.
An unwavering commitment to accountability for all schools that receive public dollars.
A new model for the teaching profession.
A strong but targeted national role.
A civic education that teaches our children what it means to be an American.
“If we want every child in America to succeed, we must give families real choices within the public system, support schools in enacting effective policies and programs, and demand better outcomes from every school that receives public dollars,” said Canter.
The Reinventing America’s Schools Project seeks to refocus national leadership around proven strategies to improve public schools and educational achievement. We believe that American public schools must prepare children academically to be successful adults and citizens; families should have a voice in their child’s education, including a choice within the public system to find a school that best fits their child’s needs; and, though education is the province of the states, the federal government must protect the promise that every child will have access to a quality public education.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.
After nearly three decades of slow but steady increases in reading achievement, the scores of our fourth and eighth graders stagnated after 2015 and have fallen precipitously since 2019 for all but the highest performers.
Though the pandemic caused immediate and severe learning loss, reading scores have continued to erode even as the country passed the fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 shutdown. Nationally, as of 2024, fourth and eighth graders are back to where they started at the advent of the reading assessment.
In simple terms, the share of fourth graders falling below the “basic” level of literacy has risen to 40%.3 Fewer than one-third of U.S. eighth graders can read at grade level. The picture is similarly bleak in math — stagnation just prior to the pandemic, followed by significant declines since, with the deepest drops among the lowest-performing students. The results in all grades and subjects show a widening gap between the highest and lowest performers, all while test scores remain below pre-pandemic levels, despite the Biden administration’s infusion of $190 billion in federal pandemic relief.
These results from the National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, spawned alarming headlines upon their release in January 2025: “American Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows,” blasted the New York Times; “Kids’ Reading and Math Skills Are Worsening, New Test Scores Reveal. What’s Going On?” USA Today fretted. The dire data posed no mystery to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which summed up the situation bluntly: “America’s Schools Keep Flunking.”
American parents share the conclusion of the Journal’s ed board about the state of public schooling. August 2024 public opinion polling from Gallup shows satisfaction with education remains among the lowest it has been this century, with three in ten parents somewhat or completely dissatisfied with their child’s education and more than half of the wider public feeling the same.
A January 2025 Gallup survey about the general mood of the nation from two weeks before the recent NAEP release shows even lower satisfaction with public schools, with seven in ten respondents reporting dissatisfaction.
Despite this crisis, the consensus that policymakers and advocates reached in the early 2000s about the importance and urgency of improving educational outcomes has long since disintegrated, torn apart by the social controversies that now dominate education rather than ideas about how to improve teaching and learning. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is attempting to eviscerate, if not shut down, the U.S. Department of Education and to redirect federal education spending from public to private schools.
Democrats opened the door to these attacks by abandoning the Clinton-Obama legacy of school reform and lining up behind teachers’ unions defending the K-12 status quo. As a result, they’ve forfeited their party’s historical advantage on educational issues. But if Democrats can no longer claim the mantle of the party of education, neither can Republicans, who have abdicated responsibility for the majority of the nation’s schoolchildren by focusing on private school choice to the exclusion of nearly everything else.13 Ninety percent of American children attend public schools, and yet neither party is speaking to them or their families.
The consequences for the country and our children of continued inaction are severe. “Looking at this data, it’s clear that we’re in enormous risk of losing an entire generation of learners unless we show some focus and leadership,” Jane Swift, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, told a reporter after the NAEP scores became public. In short, we’ve arrived at another “Nation
at Risk” moment, but this time, U.S. political and business leaders aren’t stepping forward to galvanize national action to fix our chronically underperforming public schools. Senator Michael Bennet was pointed in a recent interview about the vacuum of national attention and leadership, stating, “…We’ve abandoned our aspirations for our kids when it comes to their education, period. We can’t tolerate a system that creates the kind of outcomes we’re seeing. …We have a national interest in the fact that our reading scores are below where they were three decades ago. We have a national interest in the fact that our kids feel like the system we have — whether it’s K-12, higher education, or workforce development — is not preparing them to succeed in this economy.”
We couldn’t agree more. The country urgently needs a new vision that refocuses public schools on their core academic mission, ends the retreat from rigor and merit, increases opportunity for learners of all backgrounds, expands parental choice of public schools, closes achievement gaps, and moves to a post-bureaucratic system of autonomous and accountable public schools designed for today’s children.
FACT: 26 of this year’s 80 MLB All-Stars are “international”
THE NUMBERS: Home run leaders, morning of September 3, 2025 –
Raleigh
51
Schwarber
49
Ohtani
46
Judge
43
Suarez
42
Caminero
40
Soto
37
WHAT THEY MEAN:
How “international” is American working life? Some pennant-race season perspective –
Always remembered for Fisk’s 12th-inning, Game 6 home run, the ’75 Series marks its 50th anniversary this fall. That year’s Red Sox roster, with two international players (ace Luis Tiant and middle-reliever Diego Segui, both Cuban-born), exactly mirrored the majors’ 92% U.S./Puerto Rican composition. The Big Red Machine – 20% international, 80% U.S.-born — was more like a 21st-century team, starting Dominican centerfielder Cesar Geronimo, Cuban first baseman Tony Perez, and Venezuelan shortstop Dave Concepcion, with reliever Pedro Borbon in the bullpen and Bahamian Ed Armbrister as a reserve outfielder.
A half-century later, MLB rosters have diversified and internationalized. They’re now 74% U.S.- and Puerto Rican-born, and 26% international. The leagues’ main recruiting spots outside the U.S. are still mainly on the Caribbean littoral — a hundred players from the DR and 63 from Venezuela; 20 from Cuba, 60 from everywhere else — but go deeper into Mexico and Canada, and also draw from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. A rundown:
All Opening Day players*
953
U.S.*
704
Dominican Republic
100
Venezuela
63
Cuba
26
Mexico
11
Canada
13
Japan
12
Curacao
4
Korea
3
9 other countries
13
* An odd number, as it includes players on the DL.
** Includes 16 Puerto Rican players, puzzlingly termed ‘international’ by MLB.
To pull back a bit: Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May Labor Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Workforce release finds 161.3 million people working here in 2024, including 130.9 million “native-born” workers and 30.9 million “foreign-born” workers. (BLS defines ‘foreign-born’ as the total number of “legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants”.) This would mean 19.2% of workers were born abroad. In context, this is slightly below the average for wealthy western countries: the International Labour Organization’s most recent estimate says that as of 2022 in “North America’s” (meaning in ILO geography the U.S. and Canada only), immigrants make up 22.6% of the workforce, a bit less than the 23.3% share in western Europe.
Looked at more closely, BLS’ “foreign-born” stats have immigrant labor shares highest in physically demanding hourly-wage work — construction, groundskeeping, nannies and maids, hired farmhands — and also high in top-end glamor jobs from pro sports to science labs and movie studios. The lowest shares show up in middle- and upper-middle income positions: company managers, health care providers, lawyers and paralegals, teachers, and so on. A sample list, with figures from 2025 or the most recent available year:
Crop-picking farmworkers
58%
Computer science doctorates
58%
2025 Oscar nominees
50%
All farm, fishery, and forestry workers
44%
2024 U.S. Nobelists
43%
Doctoral-level science & tech workers
40%
Construction Workers
36%
MLB
27%
All major-league athletes
25%
Food service
25%
Personal care & services
22%
All science & tech workers (2021)
19%
All U.S. workers
19%
Health care practitioners
16%
Management jobs
15%
Education & training
12%
Lawyers & paralegals
10%
Security services
9%
Bureau of Labor Statistics for all workers, National Science Foundation for engineering and science workers; Motion Picture Academy for Oscar nominations (counting individuals rather than groups and collaborations); official stats from MLB, NBA, WNBA, and MLS, plus outside writers on hockey and football for pro athletes.
With this in the background, baseball has evolved in parallel with the U.S. generally. Like their top-of-the-economy peers in Hollywood and science, MLB teams now draw from a larger talent pool — this year’s top-ten home-run list features six Americans, two Dominicans, a Venezuelan, and Babe Ruth-like pitcher/slugger Shohei Ohtani — and probably have a higher overall quality of play. U.S.-born players, on the other hand, faced more competition to get their roster slots. It’s probably a mistake to draw too many big-picture lessons or policy ideas from this, but see below for some data on America’s larger workforce trends, and comparisons from the other five big leagues. Coda first, though, for those who weren’t watching in July:
The 2025 All-Star game ended with a six-player “home run swing-off” tiebreaker pitting the National League’s two Americans and a Venezuelan — Kyle Schwarber, Kyle Stowers, and Suarez — against a Cuban-American-Mexican AL trio. (Arozeranda, Rooker, and Aranda.) Ohio native and Indiana University grad Schwarber won it for the NL with a flawless 3-for-3 — three swings, three home runs — at-bat. Not quite Fisk’s 1975 drama, but still pretty good.
FURTHER READING
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
Offer a positive alternative.
Baseball:
The Opening Day rosters featured 245 international players, making up 26.5% of the 953 players out on the grass in the sun, riding the bench, or gloomily parked on the DL.
The International Labor Organization estimates 155.6 million “international migrant” workers as of 2022. That would be 4.7%, or one in every 20, of the world’s 3.3 billion workers. The lowest foreign-born rates are 0.7% in North Africa and 3.7% in East Asia; the highest, in the Persian Gulf monarchies, are above 50%. As above, the U.S.’ 19.2% appears to be a bit below the Canadian and European figures.
A trawl through this report’s back issues (available online to 2003) finds two big trends. One, the “foreign-born” worker share has been rising over time and especially fast in recent years – from the 14.5% share of in 2004, to 16.6% a decade later in 2014, 17.2% in 2021, and last year’s 19.2% – both through both high levels of immigration and the aging of the native-born workforce. (About 4 million Americans retire each year.) And two, foreign-born workers have grown relatively more educated over time — 56% now have “some college” or “BA or higher,” as against 37% in 2004 — meaning the “smile” curve may be flattening out. The Trump administration’s deportation campaign has very likely slowed the first trend — fewer foreign-born maids, groundskeepers, construction crews, and farm hands — and accelerated the second.
And around the leagues:
NBA: If MLB’s scouts spend their road time on Caribbean beaches or in Japan, their basketball counterparts draw more from a more global pool with a European focus. The National Basketball Association’s 2024-2025 season was 28.0% international with 21 Canadian players, 14 French, 13 Australians, 6 Serbs, and a record 5 from Cameroon.
MLS: Majority-international Major League Soccer has so much available foreign talent that it has an “International Rule” capping international players at 241 of the league’s 852 slots. Kind of a squishy rule, though, as it declares Canadians “domestic” to get a North American 50.1% majority player share.
NFL: The least “international” among the big leagues, the National Football League also seems to be the least analyst-friendly, as we haven’t found an up-to-date list of international players. Their 2023 list reported 88 international players with “at least one snap” in 2022. Much like MLB dubiously counts Puerto Ricans as “international,” the NFL’s “international list” includes 7 U.S. citizens from American Samoa. (They also recruit in the independent Republic of Samoa.) The other top sources are 22 Canadians, 19 Nigerians, and 7 Australians.
NHL: The “nation” in National Hockey League is not the U.S. but Canada, even if most of the rinks are now south of the 49th Parallel and won’t freeze even in March without artificial help. The NHL’s 712 players last year included 291 Canadians, 204 Americans, 216 Europeans (topped by Swedes, with Russia and Finland next), and one Aussie.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
At a time when college enrollment is shrinking and public faith in higher education is faltering, the question of how we measure college value has never been more urgent. Against this backdrop, the just-released 2025 College Rankings from Washington Monthly offer a way to measure higher education’s value.
In an introduction to the issue, editor in chief Paul Glastris and editor Rob Wolfe write: “Instead of rewarding colleges for their wealth, prestige, and exclusivity, we measure how much they help ordinary middle- and working-class students get ahead, encourage democratic participation and service to the country, and produce the scholars and scholarship that drive economic growth and human flourishing. These, we think, are what most Americans want from their investments in the higher ed system.”
A recent article in the New York Times seemed to signal an AI-fueled apocalypse for job seekers. The article profiled the plight of recent college graduates who’d expected six-figure jobs with their computer science degrees but were now scrapping for shifts at Chipotle. According to one expert quoted in the Times, the jobs “most likely to be automated are the entry-level positions that [recent graduates] would be seeking.”
Recent research shows that AI is replacing entry-level jobs, similar to how mechanical automation eliminated low-skill manufacturing roles in past decades. However, this expanding definition of “expertise” will eventually create new jobs and pathways for workers to gain skills necessary to stay competitive in a post-AI era. The outcome could be the democratization of expertise and wider opportunities for upward mobility.
WASHINGTON — Two decades after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) reveals how the city’s complete overhaul of its public education system yielded unprecedented academic gains, offering a blueprint to transform struggling school districts nationwide.
The report, “20 Years of Reinvention: Education Reform in New Orleans,” chronicles the city’s bold post-Katrina move to convert its traditional public schools into public charter schools. The move radically redefines the role of the district and shows student achievement surging across nearly every metric: test scores, graduation rates, college enrollment, and school accountability ratings.
“New Orleans proves that it is possible to build a public education system that is both excellent and equitable,” said Rachel Canter, Director of Education Policy at PPI and co-author of the report. “This transformation didn’t happen overnight; it required political courage, sustained leadership, and a relentless focus on student outcomes.”
Among the key findings:
The percentage of New Orleans students scoring at “basic or above” on fourth-grade English tests rose from 44% in 2005 to 54% in 2024, on more rigorous exams.
High school graduation rates climbed from 54% in 2004 to nearly 79% in 2023.
College entry rates jumped from 37% to 65%, now surpassing the state average.
The report attributes these gains to a powerful mix of school autonomy, strong accountability, citywide public school choice, and a robust ecosystem of nonprofit partners.
“New Orleans didn’t just rebuild its schools, it reinvented the entire system,” said co-author Emily Langhorne. “The city separated the work of managing schools from operating them, embraced diverse school models, and prioritized student achievement above bureaucratic tradition.”
While acknowledging that New Orleans’ unique circumstances may not be replicable everywhere, the authors emphasize that the core principles of autonomy, accountability, and choice can be adapted to other urban districts facing systemic failure.
The Reinventing America’s Schools Project seeks to refocus national leadership around proven strategies to improve public schools and educational achievement. We believe that American public schools must prepare children academically to be successful adults and citizens; families should have a voice in their child’s education, including a choice within the public system to find a school that best fits their child’s needs; and, though education is the province of the states, the federal government must protect the promise that every child will have access to a quality public education.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, accelerating the collapse of an already disintegrating city public school system. Prior to the storm, almost two-thirds of New Orleans public school students attended failing schools, half dropped out, and fewer than one in five enrolled in college. The school system suffered severe financial mismanagement, corruption, and crumbling school infrastructures.
Yet in the midst of a national tragedy came an unprecedented opportunity for education reform. Louisiana transferred 80% of the city’s public schools to the state-run Recovery School District (RSD), which, over the next decade, converted them all into charter schools. The elected Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) turned most of its 17 remaining schools into charters as well. In 2018, the state “reunified” the RSD schools with the local school board. By 2020, the OPSB had converted its last two schools to charters, making New Orleans the first large U.S. school district composed entirely of charter schools.
This sweeping education reform led to remarkable academic gains. Over the last 20 years, student outcomes have grown substantially. Despite harder assessments, students have jumped ten percentage points in reading and math at fourth and eighth grade, and graduation and college enrollments have rocketed by more than twenty percentage points. In 2024, not a single New Orleans school was rated as “failing” by the state accountability system.
The New Orleans model will not translate perfectly to all American districts, given the unique circumstances of post-Katrina recovery. Nonetheless, elements of its approach provide a compelling blueprint for large bureaucratic districts. These include:
Significant school autonomy, so school leaders have the freedom they need to craft schools that meet their students’ needs.
Accountability for student performance, including the opportunity for schools to expand and/or replicate if successful, and to face replacement or closure if not.
Full choice between a diverse array of educational models.
Competition for students and dollars among schools.
A board and superintendent largely freed of responsibility for operating schools, enabling them to concentrate on system-wide needs and issues.
The reinvention of New Orleans’ public schools represents both stunning success and critical lessons. If every major American public school system could achieve similar improvements, the effect on children across the nation would be profound.
