LyrArc Article Gist
Paul Peterson, a professor who heads the Program on Education Policy at Harvard, says that public school education has not done as well as private or charter school education. In two areas character or values, and school discipline, public schools lag far behind private schools or charter schools. Private schools score 59% and 46% in these two areas, public schools lag far behind at 21% and 17%, in the 2016 Education Next Survey, says Peterson. He says by appointing Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, the Trump administration sees the need to think how public schools can benefit from improvement in these areas.

LyrArc Article Gist
How does a poor nation in Asia respond to the quagmire that is the Middle East? Iran War impact on fuel prices in Pakistan- increase in gasoline prices by 55 rupees per liter, long lines at the gasoline pump,  schools closure for 2 weeks for 40 million children, public employees put on 4 day week and half of public employees put on remote work from home.

LyrArc Article Gist
According to a report from the Southern Education Foundation about 51% of the students from pre-Kindergarden to 12th grade in the U.S. were eligible for the federal program of free and reduced price lunches, using an analysis of 2013 federal data. With the highest proportion of students in poverty concentrated in states in the southern and western U.S.. States all across the south, including Texas, show high concentrations approaching 60-70%, and states in the west such as California show about 50-60%. Midwestern states such as Illinois and Michigan show rates over 50%. The implications of this data are that these children from poor and sometimes chaotic backgrounds trail other children in educational development, are less likely to have educationally enriching activity, and more susceptible to dropping out or never attending college. Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation says the map showing this is striking. He points to the disinclination to invest in young people today, compared to the focus on leadership in areas of creating opportunity and upward mobility in the decades of the 50's through the 80's. Michael Rebell of Teachers College at Columbia University, says reaching this point where a majority of public school children are from poor backgrounds has happened sooner, and the trend has accelerated over time. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Share of US Counties where 95% of Kindergarteners are vaccinated against Measles drops to 28% from 50% in Washington Post Investigation of 44 states December 2025. 95% vaccination rate is what experts say is needed for "herd immunity" or overall protection in a class. Washington Post examination of data shows marked deterioration from 2018-2019 school year to 2024-2025 school year data and public records. That is 5.3 million children are exposed from lack of herd immunity from measles now compared to 3.5 million children earlier increase of 1.8 million children. This Wash. Post investigation shows 19,000 schools are exposed and one can go to this article to find on a map how your school district and country are doing in the 44 states. A big problem is emerging from public skepticism and politics in vaccination. For generations schools required vaccination proof- by 1980 all 50 states had laws covering students first entering school. And caught in vaccine politics legislatures are creating religious and other exemptions that have weakened laws. Wash. Post says it's examination shows not a single County in Idaho, Louisiana, Oregon Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin meet the 50% vaccinated requirement for measles required for herd immunity. This could mean more of these diseases will be brought back home including whooping cough to affect elderly and infants. Democratic districts such as in St Louis and Chicago also see drop in measles vaccination rates. In the sense that newly decolonized countries since 1950 such as China and India have emerged with good health systems and mandated vaccination , other public health action, there is a great need for the US to focus on bringing back the public awareness that existed after the 1940's in the US that resulted in significant advances in public health in the US in the FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ and Reagan administrations. It shows there is no victory in public health. A lot of work needs to be done, as much of the gains can get undone by events and public awareness is necessary. As pharmaceuticals, chemicals and plastics and bad nutritional habits took over American lives there is an effort under Kennedy at HHS to tackle that health crisis, but it brings with it challenges that date from the pandemic and different responses in different parts of the US to mandatory vaccination which also have to be met through education not social media. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
At Stuyvesant, the most selective of New York public schools the student body is 74% Asian, 19% WHite, 3% Latino, and 1% African American. Mayor Blasio of New York is using the Discovery Program to limit the entry to the program which accounts for about 5% of the overall admissions to kids from schools that have a poverty rate of 60% or higher instead of to economically disadvantaged children in the city.  Two views are presented here. One that of the New York schools chancellor, Richard Carranza who says "I just don't buy the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admissions to these schools." Mayor Blasio of New York says that only 10% of Black and Latino students get offers from the specialized high schools even though they account for nearly 70% of the city's high school population. The other view is that the state is failing in its secondary schools system because New York state tests show only 47% of the city's third through eighth graders proficient in English and 43% in Math, with the number for Black and Latino students dropping to 34% for English and 25% for Math. This means about half or two thirds of New York state's school children cannot read proficiently and the numbers decline with socioeconomic conditions. Even Mayor Blasio is working at the fringes as the problem is deeper and needs to be fixed at another level than by tweaking which segment of the economically disadvantage children should have access to the best schools such as Stuyvesant.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Kevin Warsh was appointed by George W. Bush in 2006 as Fed governor. He was the youngest governor in Fed history at that time at age 35 years. His education is public schooling in California, a degree in public policy at Stanford and a law degree from Harvard. His term at the Fed was 2006 to 2011. During the financial crisis he gained experience, and after term at Fed was lecturer at Stanford Business School, and scholar at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Warsh was considered by DJT for the position of Fed chair but was considered to lack enough experience compared to Powell who was made Fed chairman. In 2026 Warsh 56 years old and with more experience was considered by DJT as the top choice when Hassett was retained at the National Economic Council NEC.

LyrArc Article Gist
The school as an extension of the caring nurturing family, starts with the good motivated teacher, one student at a time. The example of teachers at a Union city public school in New Jersey. At one time a failing school it is now an example of what can be done with good motivated teachers. David Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of the book: "Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of the Great American School System and a Strategy for America's Schools." Kirp reminds us that the answers are closer to us than we think, the nurturing influence of the schools extends the work of the family, more intuitive, and resembling more of the ways we think and feel children respond to good teachers.

LyrArc Article Gist
School enrollment in New York city for public schools has dropped from 1 million to 900,000 in 2024. Some families in NYC moved to South Carolina, and US birthrates are dropping. The migrant children fill this gap in city schools. Teachers have been adept at integrating children of different backgrounds. This is another side of the migration issue even as Biden has closed the border with Mexico for unlawful migration.

LyrArc Article Gist
15% or 1000 of 6800 Yale Students get free tution at $75,000 cutoff income level for free tution since 2020.  With $200,000 as the new cutoff for incomes getting free tution it would cost Yale $72 million more, $72,000 being the tution cost per year and additional 1000 students getting free tution at the new cutoff income level. This suggests it only costs Yale $72 million to look like it is doing something for the middle class that cannot afford Yale's high undergrad tution. But what is Yale doing about the high undergrad tution? Yale Tution goes up from 31,000 in 2005 to $48,000 in 2015, and up further to $72,000 per year for undergrads in 2025. In percentage terms the increase in last ten years is 50% and comparing 2025 to 2005 over 20 years it is up 232%, and comparing 2015 to 2005 it is up 55%. There is no slowdown in the increase in cost of tution at Yale for affordability. Middle class is being squeezed. Parents have to go into savings to send a child to these upper tier schools, as reported in WSJ, with incomes of $250,000 not enough to payoff huge tution fees of undergrads when there are 2 or 3 kids going to college. For Yale it is about business as usual as it can afford the additional $72 million for 1000 more students to be added at free tution- its endowment is at an hefty $44 billion which can easily handle that $72 million added cost to look good in front of the public while leaving things the same in terms of affordability and cost. All down the line at the second tier schools the situation is the same, only down the line when it comes to state universities do things change, but only a bit. It leaves Americans with the feeling that this system is also fundamentally flawed like the health care system and needs complete overhaul. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Do you ever wonder how Japan keeps it streets so clean. There are no litter bins or street sweepers to be seen. This report in the BBC News looks at Japan's cleanliness ethic starting from school days for children growing up with the idea that clean is what you make happen with your own two hands and a broom. That is all it takes and a sense of personal responsibility infused into the culture from school days as children.  For 12 years of school life from elementary school to high school cleaning the school is part of the school routine for students. The social consciousness was developed in this way and children as they grow up learn to take pride in their cleanliness and in the cleanliness of their surroundings. This carries over to cleaning up the neighborhood.  In India's Swachh Clean India campaign their are street clean sweepers in addition to people themselves taking on the job of cleaning. This is ok for public facilities like railway stations underbridges and other public facilities, but for neighborhoods and schools making cleaning a part of the routine in schools is a good idea that needs to be universally adopted as part of Swachh India, Clean India campaign. This also holds true for all Asian and Latin American, African nations which could learn from the keeping the country clean efforts of Japan and more recently India. As India shows not having done this well before is no reason for discouragement, getting started and keeping it going, building public awareness and support is the key. This is particularly true for developing countries because it is easier to prevent illness and disease by increasing levels of hygiene and sanitation, saving hundreds of millions of dollars for large countries like India and Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, for days and productivity lost. It also pushes countries to the next stage of development faster through infrastructure development and quality of public services, quality of life.    ...

LyrArc Article Gist
There are about the same number of borrowers 3.6 million instead of 3.4 million yet over 10 years Parent Plus Loans have grown by 61% or $44 billion to a whopping $115 billion burdening parents and students. Yet no one mentions that it is the colleges that are causing much of this increase with their failure to control costs. The government is now stepping in and it is up to parents to do their homework on school value so that this overburdening with debt that colleges take for granted becomes a thing of the past. If colleges cannot control costs they should feel public dissatisfaction and be ruled out. Colleges and Universities act as if they are not in a market system economy where costs cannot be simply passed on, costs have to be managed or consumers of a service will turn down that product.

LyrArc Article Gist
Anthropic's settlement for $1.5 billion at $3000 a book, and it's efforts in Education that conflict with the Nation's need to get 4th graders to Read and Learn. Anthropic's website shows it trying to get into Education and to measure the Economic Index from effects of AI. Yet the pretensions to goodwill for the public cause is not supported by facts, facts that the AI companies have nothing to show for the dismal situation for Global Literacy that is the case today. Literacy in the US that is dismal with about two thirds of 4th graders not able to read and comprehend the English language at a level of proficiency in American schools. These AI purveyors care only for the money they can make using vast amounts of electricity for these servers, and pretensions for public purpose are intended to smooth their access to public resources not some genuine interest in whether kids can read, which requires the hard work of the teachers in the public and private schools of this Nation and others in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The Movement for Global Literacy is Lyrarc's effort to support reading and learning and Lyrarc serves this purpose without such massive funding and without charging for the public service to the Nation and to other Nations in the world community. Anthropic settlement of $1.5 billion at $3000 a book for its AI bots use of copyrighted books, can lead to future litigation for OpenAI model that consumes vast amounts of data. Anthropic was founded by siblings Daniela and Dario Amodei after leaving OpenAI in 2021 in San Francisco. It hired Google Books Turvey to scan books for its large language models on a massive scale to train Claude its version of OpenAI's ChatGPT.  An investment of $4 billion by Amazon and additional $2 billion by Google provided funding. In this way it is a competitor to Microsoft funded OpenAI which made early advances in AI.  This article in WSJ says by making the settlement for $1.5 billion Anthropic is trying to make it harder for Open AI to scan material easily without paying for the access and thus blocking it's rival.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Teachers are packing up classrooms for the last time says this report in WSJ. Worn out by the covid pandemic, under staffed schools and political battles teachers are leaving in large numbers. About 300,000 public school teachers and other staff left the field during the 27 months of the pandemic, according to Bureau of labor Statistics data. More teachers are thinking of doing the same, A National Education Association poll conducted in 2022 found 55% of teachers saying they would leave earlier than planned. Teachers are finding better pay and working environment in other professions and in business. Teachers of younger students in the early grades say teaching should be about kids learning but that isn't true anymore. 

LyrArc Article Gist
A makeover in a state that relied a lot on government services and high taxes to fund these services run by the state. A shift away from this tax funded government run model of services to getting private initiative involved, letting private investors take risks and try out new ideas in education, public services. Sweden has also moved away from reliance on laptops and ipads, on electronic screens for early and middle school education, preferring an older style of binders and writing on paper. Having realized that the electronic screen had not delivered on reading comprehension the way books and reading hard cover books did, and realizing that writing skills come from taking a pen and writing on real paper, rewriting and rewriting. Realizing that education does not require fancy tools, basically good teachers, good books and a basic drive to learn, a curiosity of mind and dedication to putting in the work required. This is something that is also part of Lyrarc's Movement of Global Literacy with Sweden at the forefront in trying out new ideas, and dropping failed ones. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Compensation at Ivy league schools and other private schools for presidents of these schools exceeded 500,000 for 89 presidents. 59 public school presidents made over 500,000. And for 2007-08 the presidents pay at public universities went up by 7.6% for amedian pay of $427,400. Pay at Ohio State 1,346,000. And pay for presidents of University of Washington, University of Virginia, University of Texas system, University of Colorado-Denver, University of Minnesota- Twin cities, University of Michigan system, University of Florida, Georgia State, Arizona State, all exceed 700,000 according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

LyrArc Article Gist
Monica Langley provides an excellent account of how U.S. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, is using the $100 billion from the Stimulus funds in the 2009 Recovery Act to implement the Common Core education program in U.S. states and districts. Common Core is about raising student math and reading scores and standards, and implementing teacher evaluations based on test scores to make teachers accountable. This is the one significant area in which the Obama administraton in the U.S. is likely to leave a valuable legacy. Republicans in Tennessee, including Lamar Alexander, have embraced the program, showing how Duncan is using his persuasion skills to speed up the implementation across political party lines in a period of strong partisan feelings about programs. When governors have hesitated, Duncan has gone straight to the school districts using the funding. Teachers union say the program is moving too fast as evaluations would affect teacher careers, and Duncan agreed to a one year reprieve on the consequences of new teacher evaluations for states applying for an extension. This makes Duncan uncomfortable. He says he has only three and a half years left and he is going tooo slow. Business leaders such as P&G CEO, Robert McDonald, say the only political party they have is their educated workforce. Duncan has persuaded 40 states in the U.S. to sign up for higher standards in reading and math. Democrats see the Duncan initiative as helping poorer schools, which is also important to reduce the increasing inequality in the U.S. Since 2008 high school graduation rates increased by 3 percentage points, with a 5 point gain for black students and a 7 point gain for Hispanic students. After $4 billon in new funding to low performing schools, so called "dropout factories," the number of such schools has declined to 1424 from 1746. Teachers unions are only gradually adjusting to the need for accountability in math and reading scores. Duncan's father was a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, and Duncan grew up in Chicago neighborhoods before attending Harvard and playing for the basketball team. Duncan tutored younger school students in the afternoon at his mother's after school program in a black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. In 2001 he was made the head of the Chicago public school system by Mayor Daley, where he took action to shut down poorly performing schools and reopening them with new staff. All the time he pushed for greater parental choice, charter schools, new teacher talent and using data to track school and student performance. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Liz Goodwin and Riley Beggin report from Hillard Ohio where Amazon is building a large data center using land adjoining a school and a park for children. Parents are collecting signatures for a ban. About 70% of Americans are opposed to the data centers building in their local area, after an aggressive push with tax breaks and incentives provided by some states. Virginia, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio most aggressive data center builders in the US by 2026- construction jobs, and investment, as pros, electricity usage and use of farmland cons. Ohio's governor DeWine paused tax breaks after realizing that it cost the state $1 billion in lost revenue. Amazon says it has invested $70 billion in the state since 2016. Democrat politicians are not taking up the bans because of some unions supporting the data centers for jobs created in construction. Another reason is that politicians in general face attacks from the tech companies donating to campaigns against them if they call for a ban. Sherrod Brown Democrat in Ohio asks data centers to pay for their electricity but has not supported a ban-  “With data centers, we make sure the investors pay for electricity. Not the people who live in Zanesville or Coshocton or in Cambridge.” The big reason to support it from the jobs perspective is stated by the unions. Tim Burga of the AFL-CIO in Ohio says-  “These are creating good union jobs, both in the construction, but also in the keeping them secure and maintaining them."  Now you have a public frustrated particularly in quiet suburbs of America who see this as an intrusion into their lives, which means Republican and Democrat, Red State and Blue State, makes little difference. Construction workers and unions excited about the prospects for decent jobs after the Obama and Bush elites shipped 5 million jobs (Lighthizer USTR estimate) to China over 2000-2016, and transferred $20 trillion in American wealth to foreign countries by blindly accepting unfair trade with China, EU, Canada, Mexico. And see this as part of the MAGA effort to bring back the supply chains to America for all manufactured products in the interests of reliable supply, national security, and the promise of good paying jobs for the communities across America that depended on these jobs since the industrial revolution inthe US at the turn of the century in 1900. It took only 2 decades to wipe them out under what Lighthizer and Jamieson call "shortsighted leadership" of  Republican Bush and Democrat Obama and their corresponding elites. These communities were hit more than once, twice, thrice, four times in fact- in 2009 by the banker's aided and abetted financial crisis, by Bush starting and Obama continuing the Afghan Iraq wars on different pretexts (diverting trillions of dollars that otherwise go to job creation and manufacturing, new technologies), and then by Covid in 2019. This is the America in which the data center building spree is taking place- a plus if done right and with some carefully thought out plan for water/electricity usage costs and for AI guardrails, protection for farmland and areas near parks and schools, and residential suburbs.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Tax credit of $1700 to Scholarship Granting Organizations or SGO's, is part of the One Big Beautiful Act. This means that one gets a direct tax credit to offset taxes due in the tax return, so that a donation to an SGO will cost the one donating nothing. The government allocation for this is $254 billion to 2034 and will help parents with upto 3 times the median wage in the region finance their children's education. Will Blue states (states run by Democrats) under pressure from Education unions favoring public schools oppose the school choice this offers parents. Parents are increasingly frustrated with the public school education system's failure to give children a good education to get jobs and pursue higher education or apprenticeship education.

LyrArc Article Gist
Chip performance that doubles every two years is now the norm. Costs decline proportionately. Of more concern today is investment that pulls educational levels up in schools at even a small fraction of that speed and this investment has sorely been lacking. Investment in infrastructure, in education, in health, in public services that improve the quality of life have declined with the obsession with technology that is showing poor results when it comes to education of children in schools from elementary to secondary to higher secondary schooling.

LyrArc Article Gist
Boris Johnson says outside 10 Downing Street that it is time now to focus on the task ahead- to bring opportunity to every corner of the country, to do this by investing in the National Health Service, in schools, infrastructure and in public services. He calls for the healing to begin after five weeks of wrangling in the election campaign so that the whole country can come together. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Belgians are being asked to restrict contacts to only one person outside their immediate family and wear masks in shops and public transport. Daily cases average 7900 for the week of October 9-15.  Shops, museums and schools remain open. Many restaurants are closed with restrictions on restaurants.

LyrArc Article Gist
This article in The Lancet published in February 2018 throws much light on how the ban on gain of function research on virus was lifted -research that carries with it the danger of increasing transmission of virus if something unexpected happens in the manipulation of a virus. It was lifted in 2018 in the US by officials in the US Health Ministry, NIH and HHS. The Cambridge group of scientists and experts opposed lifting the ban on such dangerous research that could make the virus more contagious through manipulation. Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard School of Public Health wrote at the time that the lab research to create a more lethal strain of virus could lead to "an accidental pandemic" yet he was ignored. The public in America and in the world is unaware of how this created serious risks for public health in the world through the coronavirus.  Did US health officials lift the ban on such research without consulting other countries such as India, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and the EU on its ramifications. Were public health experts and the publics themselves in the US and around the world not drawn into the discussion of public health and the dangers that existed. Not only did officials in HHS and NIH restart the research by lifting the ban but also sent funds overseas for such research- was this a proper or thoughtful action considering the risks involved.  Is enhanced surveillance of virus- a dubious benefit from manipulation of a virus- something a few health officials can decide for the whole world in addition to the US. How are health officials in one or two countries responsible to the people in India, Brazil, Europe and the poorest populations in the world in the world in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, people who have suffered devastating consequences from transmissibility of the virus, including children and older people with health problems. India, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, UK, and other countries worst hit by the coronavirus must ask serious questions about how they can protect their people if institutions in the US and international institutions are seen as failing to protect world public health. ...