The Obama administration has pledged an unprecedented amount of money -- upwards of $100 billion -- toward transforming the education sector in an effort to meet the demands of the knowledge economy. National Journal LIVE hosted a panel discussion to take stock of the administration's key education initiatives, along with state-led efforts, and to examine how the weakened economy may be affecting such programs. Panelists also discussed Race to the Top, reauthorization of No Child Left Behind and Common Core, among other topics.
Watch video from the entire event below. Highlights from the discussion appear after the jump.
Continue reading Assessing The State Of U.S. Education.
In an interview with National Journal earlier this year, Frederick Douglass Foundation Chairman Timothy Johnson recommended that conservatives face the issue of race head-on in order to broaden their base. Johnson's words of advice came before the NAACP voted last week to condemn extreme elements within the Tea Party movement.
"As I travel throughout North Carolina and elsewhere across the country, I see more and more blacks joining the Tea Party movement," Johnson said in a statement in response to the vote. "The overwhelming number of black Republican candidates this election year itself speaks volumes and proves the Tea Party movement has nothing to do with race."
Still, in interview excerpts in the video below, Johnson acknowledges that there's work to be done in order for conservatives and the Republican Party to improve outreach to African-American voters.
This week another deadline will almost certainly pass without a resolution of Iraq's months-long electoral drama. Despite the fact that Iraq's constitution calls for the Council of Representatives to choose a new president by July 14, the major parties remain deadlocked over a governing coalition. Both Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and former prime minister Ayad Allawi are still trying to coax smaller blocs of Sadrists, Kurds and other potential kingmakers into a majority coalition.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces are on schedule to cut force levels to 50,000 by summer's end, and almost daily bomb attacks by Al Qaeda in Iraq and other potent extremist groups threaten the nation's weak institutions. For an update on the tenuous situation in what has become America's "other war," National Journal spoke recently with Ad Melkert, the special representative of the United Nations secretary general to Iraq and head of the U.N. mission in Baghdad.
Read edited excerpts of the interview here.
Long accustomed to viewing Thailand as a stalwart Asian ally and favored tourist destination, Americans can be forgiven for confusion over the recent news out of the country. A two-month anti-government protest by the "red shirts" of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) recently paralyzed Bangkok. In May, the government responded with a crackdown that left scores of protesters dead. Those deaths damaged the standing of sitting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose government claims the protests were organized and bankrolled by exiled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted in a military coup in 2006. Even while offering to end the political crisis with a vague reconciliation plan, Abhisit has called for Thaksin to be extradited to Thailand to face terrorism charges.
This week, Thaksin's former foreign minister and current lawyer and adviser, Noppadon Pattama, was in Washington for talks with U.S. officials. National Journal spoke with him about the tense situation in Thailand. Edited excerpts of their interview follow.
Continue reading Political Crisis In Thailand.
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