Brookings Press Blog

"Creating an Opportunity Society" discussed by Ron Brownstein in National Journal and Duncan Currie in National Review

This important new book by Brookings senior fellows Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill continues to receive coverage, garner praise, and spur discussion. In the National Journal, Ron Brownstein said that the book “collects decades of pragmatic insights into the challenge of re-creating an economy that works for all.”

In the National Review, Duncan Currie writes that policymakers “will find a veritable armory of intellectual firepower in Creating an Opportunity Society. . . . The authors have thought long and carefully about their subject matter. In many ways, their fair-minded and illuminating discussion is even more valuable than their proposals. Creating an Opportunity Society overflows with keen social and economic insights. It deserves the attention of conservative and liberal policymakers alike.”

- Learn more about author Ron Haskins

- Learn more about author Isabel Sawhill

- Read about Creating an Opportunity Society and view an interview with the authors

Clive Crook discusses “Creating an Opportunity Society” in Financial Times: “book is full of excellent analysis and proposals”

In his Financial Times column, Clive Crook finds much to like in Creating an Opportunity Society, the new book by Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill.

The great virtue of this book—a comprehensive policy manual and the outline of a new social contract—is not just in recognizing that upward mobility in the U.S. is less than it should be, but is in calling for action, and in insisting on fiscal discipline. Its real strength is its distinctively American remedies, with their emphasis on rewarding effort rather than idleness, and insisting on personal responsibility.

Crook applauds the bold centrist and fiscally responsible policies Haskins and Sawhill outline to beef up spending on early education, improve schools, provide incentives to work, and postpone having children until after marriage.

- Read the column

- Learn more about Creating an Opportunity Society

The Cost of Doing Nothing: Not Enacting Health Care Reform Comes with a Hefty Price Tag

An op-ed in the Boston Globe argues that Congress failing to deliver on health care reform carries a significant economic cost. Linda Bilmes, coauthor of The People Factor, and Rosemarie Day, deputy director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority of Massachusetts, write:

Less health insurance equates to more premature deaths, and shorter life expectancy. It also impairs the quality of life—and hence the productivity—of those who are living. This is evident in comparing the health of Americans who live in states with high levels of insurance with those who do not.

Bilmes and Day argue that the current debate over whether the country can afford the estimated $850 billion price tag of health care reform misses the point. Doing nothing comes with a hefty cost, as well, because the uninsured impose big financial and economic costs on the United States.

- Read the op-ed

- Learn more about The People Factor

Is America truly the “Land of Opportunity”? Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins dispel 5 myths

Hard work + talent = financial success

For generations, Americans have believed that this formula will allow them to get ahead in our land of opportunity. But do Americans really enjoy more economic opportunity than people in other countries? Is each generation better off than the previous one? Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill provide somewhat surprising answers to such questions in a myth-busting piece in Sunday’s Washington Post (October 31).

- Read “5 myths about our land of opportunity”

- Learn more about Haskins and Sawhill’s new book Creating an Opportunity Society

Brookings Asks “Is America Really an Opportunity Society?”

On Tuesday, October 27, Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill will discuss their new Brookings Press book, Creating an Opportunity Society, which explores how to help more people achieve the American Dream. The event will be moderated by E.J. Dionne, Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at Brookings. Panelists will include David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times; Linda Gibbs, Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services for New York City; Haskins and Sawhill, both senior fellows in Economic Studies at Brookings; and Juan Williams, senior correspondent for NPR and political analyst for Fox News Channel.

- Register for the event
- Check out David Brooks’s column in The New York Times
- Read E.J. Dionne's column in The Washington Post
- Learn more about Creating an Opportunity Society

HOPE VI and the New Promise of Public Housing in America’s Cities

Book launch hosted by current HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and former secretary Henry Cisneros

Among lessons learned, HOPE VI has taught us that replacing public housing with vouchers isn't always the best option for displaced families. “Many of them ended up in new ghettos of Section 8 because they took the path of least resistance and because landlords were unscrupulous and piled people on top of each other to get the money,” said Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under President Bill Clinton. “In some cases we didn’t improve people’s lives as we could have done,” he added. Today, current HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan faces many of the same challenges.

On July 14, the current and former HUD secretaries teamed together to host a discussion on the next steps for urban revitalization and opportunity. Secretary Donovan announced new funding for the current HOPE VI program and outlined the future of Choice Neighborhoods.

In the new book From Despair to Hope: Hope VI and the New Promise of Public Housing in America’s Cities, Cisneros and co-editor Lora Engdahl document the evolution of HOPE VI, one of the most ambitious urban redevelopment initiatives yet. The authors also chronicle the major federal effort to replace desolate public housing with mixed-income communities, and discuss the lessons learned.

- Learn more about the book, From Despair to Hope

- Read articles on the event from CQ Politics and Next American City

What happens when mayors take charge of schools?

School governance in the city

Public schools have been a source of contention when deciding who controls what in school districts. The Economist and The Detroit News take advice from Joseph Viteritti, editor of When Mayors Take Charge: School Governance in the City, in their reports on mayoral control of public schools. When Mayors Take Charge investigates cases of mayoral control in New York, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. The Economist's "Mayoral control of schools in New York: Political prisoners" asserts that “lawmakers in Albany are not thinking about New York’s children or any of their constituents at the moment.” Correspondingly, The Detroit News comments in "Mayoral control of Detroit schools debated" that “parents and constituents are frustrated with what they perceive to be the incompetence of the 11-member school board they fought to elect, ending the 1999-2005 mayoral control.”

Viteritti pools insight from leading experts on how to tackle the factors behind the development of mayoral control and possible ways to improve the system as well its prospects for the future. He is the Blanche D. Blank Professor of Public Policy at Hunter College, CUNY. He previously served as special assistant to the chancellor of schools in New York and as senior adviser to superintendents in Boston and San Francisco. He was also recently the executive director of the Commission on School Governance in New York.

In When Mayors Take Charge, the urgent problem of low-performing urban schools is expertly sliced and diced by a band of historians and political scientists. Policy elites and street-level reformers need to know that mayoral control does matter to democratic participation and managerial efficiency but not necessarily to students' test scores. —Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University

- Learn more about When Mayors Take Charge

- Read the articles from The Economist and The Detroit News

Should Mayors Take Over Schools?

Wall Street Journal article looks at the pros and cons of mayoral control

City schools have been the weakest link in American education, driving middle-class families into the suburbs and contributing to a learning gap between the races. Activist mayors in major cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. have responded by taking control of their public schools. The Wall Street Journal examines this practice in the article “For More Mayors, School Takeovers Are a No-Brainer.” The piece quotes Joseph Viteritti, editor of When Mayors Take Charge, who says:

"There's no compelling evidence that mayoral control improves performance." Still, Mr. Viteritti, a former New York schools official who headed a commission on mayoral control, says the arrangement can spark needed change in a troubled system.

- Read the Wall Street Journal article

- Learn more about When Mayors Take Charge

Working Longer Could Save Your Retirement Plan

Launching into a New Age for Retirement

Retirement seems farther off than anticipated for some, but authors Alicia Munnell and Steven Sass provide a solution in order to keep your retirement plan intact and within reach.

We all know that the third time is the charm, three strikes mean you’re out, and the genie only grants you three wishes. What you might not know, is that the number three could also be the magic number that rescues your retirement plan. Working Longer, a new book from the Brookings Institution Press, tackles the slowly aging question about aging: how can retirement plans be salvaged? Authors Alicia Munnell and Steven Sass conclude that the key to increasing retirement income lies in pushing the retirement age from 63 to 66.

Upon analyzing the pros and cons associated with elderly employees in the work place, Wall Street Journal writer David Wessel describes Munnell and Sass’ suggestion as a silver lining in the problem. In his article “Older Staffers Get Uneasy Embrace”, Wessel surmises that “Lengthening life spans don't mean you have to find a boss who will let you work forever…delaying retirement three or four years—to 66, instead of 62, say—will boost retirement income by a third.” The question is does this theory hold any water? More importantly, when you turn 63 will you be in the position to work for three more years? Munnell and Sass answer these questions and more with their findings in Working Longer.

John H. Biggs, former chairman and CEO of TIAA-CREF, is justified in pointing out that “We have made remarkable progress in improving health and longevity. Now we need to figure out how to finance the substantially longer retirements these gains have produced.”

Regarding Working Longer Briggs also comments that "Anyone who is interested in preparing our country for a better retirement future should read this elegant essay."

Read Working Longer for yourself and find out where you stand on this important issue, because whether you’re three years away from retirement or thirty, a new plan might be the best thing for us all.

- Read David Wessel’s article “Older Staffers Get Uneasy Embrace” on wsj.com.

- Learn more about how Working Longer can save your retirement plan.

Twenty-First Century Gateways

New book examines the popular destinations of immigrants

As we have seen in 2008’s Presidential Election, the issue of immigration has reemerged once again. In Twenty-First Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), a multidisciplinary group of top-flight analysts focus on the fastest-growing immigrant populations in metropolitan areas with previously low levels of immigration—places such as Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C. Today, one in five immigrants live in these gateways. This book explores how the pace of change in this new geography of immigration has presented many local areas with challenges—social, fiscal, and political.

“In their remarkable new book, Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell reveal the new contours of immigrant adaptation and reception in places with little experience of immigration within living memory. Through nine carefully chosen case studies, Twenty-First Century Gateways offers new insights into the promises and pitfalls of America's diverse, multi-ethnic future.”—Douglas S. Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

- Learn more about Twenty-First Century Gateways.