If You Give Up On Democracy, You

Higher Education Isn't Just A Personal Investment. It's A Public Good That Pays Off In A More Competitive Workforce And Better-informed And Engaged Citizens. Every Year, We Spend Nearly $100 Billion On Corporate Welfare, And More Than $500 Billion On Defense Spending. Surely Ensuring The Next Generation Can Compete In The Global Economy Is At Least As Important As Subsidies For Big Business And Military Adventures Around The Globe. In Fact, I Think We Can And Must Go Further - Not Just Making Public Higher Education Tuition-free, But Reinventing Education In America As We Know It.

In The '90s It Was Irrational Exuberance. Now It May Be Irrational Doom And Gloom.

Now, Inventiveness And Empathy, Those Qualities, If They're Together In The Same Person, You've Got An Entrepreneurial Genius. But They Do Tend To Be Slightly Separate.

To Be A Skilled Politician, You Have To Be Genuine. To Really Make It Work, You Have To Love People. You Have To Love The Contact, You Have To Love The Energy, You've Gotta Love Inspiring People And Getting Their Adulation In Return. You Can't Separate What's Genuine From What Is Necessary.

We Are Creating A One Size Fits All System That Needlessly Brands Many Young People As Failures, When They Might Thrive If Offered A Different Education Whose Progress Was Measured Differently. Paradoxically We're Embracing Standardized Tests Just When The Economy Is Eliminating Standardized Jobs.