Creating an Opportunity Society

Creating an Opportunity Society PDF Author: Ron Haskins
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815703937
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Americans believe economic opportunity is as fundamental a right as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. More concerned about a level playing field for all, they worry less about the growing income and wealth disparity in our country. Creating an Opportunity Society examines economic opportunity in the United States and explores how to create more of it, particularly for those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill propose a concrete agenda for increasing opportunity that is cost effective, consistent with American values, and focuses on improving the lives of the young and the disadvantaged. They emphasize individual responsibility as an indispensable basis for successful policies and programs. The authors recommend a three-pronged approach to create more opportunity in America: • Increase education for children and youth at the preschool, K–12, and postsecondary levels • Encourage and support work among adults • Reduce the number of out-of-wedlock births while increasing the share of children reared by their married parents With concern for the federal deficit in mind, Haskins and Sawhill argue for reallocating existing resources, especially from the affluent elderly to disadvantaged children and their families. The authors are optimistic that a judicious use of the nation's resources can level the playing field and produce more opportunity for all. Creating an Opportunity Society offers the most complete summary available of the facts and the factors that contribute to economic opportunity. It looks at the poor, the middle class, and the rich, providing deep background data on how each group has fared in recent decades. Unfortunately, only the rich have made substantial progress, making this book a timely guide forward for anyone interested in what we can do as a society to improve the prospects for our less-advantaged families and fellow citizens.

Creating an Opportunity Society

Creating an Opportunity Society PDF Author: Ron Haskins
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815703937
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Get Book

Book Description
Americans believe economic opportunity is as fundamental a right as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. More concerned about a level playing field for all, they worry less about the growing income and wealth disparity in our country. Creating an Opportunity Society examines economic opportunity in the United States and explores how to create more of it, particularly for those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill propose a concrete agenda for increasing opportunity that is cost effective, consistent with American values, and focuses on improving the lives of the young and the disadvantaged. They emphasize individual responsibility as an indispensable basis for successful policies and programs. The authors recommend a three-pronged approach to create more opportunity in America: • Increase education for children and youth at the preschool, K–12, and postsecondary levels • Encourage and support work among adults • Reduce the number of out-of-wedlock births while increasing the share of children reared by their married parents With concern for the federal deficit in mind, Haskins and Sawhill argue for reallocating existing resources, especially from the affluent elderly to disadvantaged children and their families. The authors are optimistic that a judicious use of the nation's resources can level the playing field and produce more opportunity for all. Creating an Opportunity Society offers the most complete summary available of the facts and the factors that contribute to economic opportunity. It looks at the poor, the middle class, and the rich, providing deep background data on how each group has fared in recent decades. Unfortunately, only the rich have made substantial progress, making this book a timely guide forward for anyone interested in what we can do as a society to improve the prospects for our less-advantaged families and fellow citizens.

Building an Opportunity Society

Building an Opportunity Society PDF Author: Lewis D. Solomon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351530496
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Twenty-first-century US policymakers face a great challenge: How can federal government help more people achieve the American dream? Specifically, how can we provide greater opportunities for less-prosperous individuals, enabling them to succeed through hard work, on their merits, and take increased responsibility for their lives? Lewis D. Solomon sees this as the challenge of our time. He seeks to thread the fine public policy needle between social democratic efforts to perfect the world and those who negatively view public sector programs. Based on the premise that capitalism is not inherently unjust and defective, and American capitalism's structural features do not inexorability thwart opportunity, Building an Opportunity Society offers the possibility of more limited, carefully structured, cost-effective, empirically verified federal policies and programs. Solomon first provides the background and context of many existing domestic challenges and problems that the current and proposed federal policies and programs seek to address. He then analyses the federal safety net that keeps Americans from poverty and helps reduce income inequality. Finally, he presents a lifecycle analysis of current federal policies and programs, preventive and remedial, designed as part of the Entitlement State, but if restructured could facilitate the building of an Opportunity Society. Solomon challenges policymakers to take a fresh look at how best to achieve society's goals for all citizens.

Generation Unbound

Generation Unbound PDF Author: Isabel V. Sawhill
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815725590
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Over half of all births to young adults in the United States now occur outside of marriage, and many are unplanned. The result is increased poverty and inequality for children. The left argues for more social support for unmarried parents; the right argues for a return to traditional marriage. In Generation Unbound, Isabel V. Sawhill offers a third approach: change "drifters" into "planners." In a well-written and accessible survey of the impact of family structure on child well-being, Sawhill contrasts "planners," who are delaying parenthood until after they marry, with "drifters," who are having unplanned children early and outside of marriage. These two distinct patterns are contributing to an emerging class divide and threatening social mobility in the United States. Sawhill draws on insights from the new field of behavioral economics, showing that it is possible, by changing the default, to move from a culture that accepts a high number of unplanned pregnancies to a culture in which adults only have children when they are ready to be a parent.

Building an Opportunity Society

Building an Opportunity Society PDF Author: Lewis D. Solomon
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412855195
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Twenty-first-century US policymakers face a great challenge: How can federal government help more people achieve the American dream? Specifically, how can we provide greater opportunities for less-prosperous individuals, enabling them to succeed through hard work, on their merits, and take increased responsibility for their lives? Lewis D. Solomon sees this as the challenge of our time. He seeks to thread the fine public policy needle between social democratic efforts to perfect the world and those who negatively view public sector programs. Based on the premise that capitalism is not inherently unjust and defective, and American capitalism’s structural features do not inexorability thwart opportunity, Building an Opportunity Society offers the possibility of more limited, carefully structured, cost-effective, empirically verified federal policies and programs. Solomon first provides the background and context of many existing domestic challenges and problems that the current and proposed federal policies and programs seek to address. He then analyzes the federal safety net that keeps Americans from poverty and helps reduce income inequality. Finally, he presents a lifecycle analysis of current federal policies and programs, preventive and remedial, designed as part of the Entitlement State, but if restructured could facilitate the building of an Opportunity Society. Solomon challenges policymakers to take a fresh look at how best to achieve society’s goals for all citizens.

What We Owe Each Other

What We Owe Each Other PDF Author: Minouche Shafik
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069120764X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

Dream Hoarders

Dream Hoarders PDF Author: Richard Reeves
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815735499
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Dream Hoarders sparked a national conversation on the dangerous separation between the upper middle class and everyone else. Now in paperback and newly updated for the age of Trump, Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Reeves is continuing to challenge the class system in America. In America, everyone knows that the top 1 percent are the villains. The rest of us, the 99 percent—we are the good guys. Not so, argues Reeves. The real class divide is not between the upper class and the upper middle class: it is between the upper middle class and everyone else. The separation of the upper middle class from everyone else is both economic and social, and the practice of “opportunity hoarding”—gaining exclusive access to scarce resources—is especially prevalent among parents who want to perpetuate privilege to the benefit of their children. While many families believe this is just good parenting, it is actually hurting others by reducing their chances of securing these opportunities. There is a glass floor created for each affluent child helped by his or her wealthy, stable family. That glass floor is a glass ceiling for another child. Throughout Dream Hoarders, Reeves explores the creation and perpetuation of opportunity hoarding, and what should be done to stop it, including controversial solutions such as ending legacy admissions to school. He offers specific steps toward reducing inequality and asks the upper middle class to pay for it. Convinced of their merit, members of the upper middle class believes they are entitled to those tax breaks and hoarded opportunities. After all, they aren't the 1 percent. The national obsession with the super rich allows the upper middle class to convince themselves that they are just like the rest of America. In Dream Hoarders, Reeves argues that in many ways, they are worse, and that changes in policy and social conscience are the only way to fix the broken system.

America's Moment: Creating Opportunity in the Connected Age

America's Moment: Creating Opportunity in the Connected Age PDF Author: Rework America
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285146
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
It is time for a new conversation. Amid the biggest economic transformation in a century, the challenge of our time is to make sure that all Americans benefit from the wave of digital revolutions around the world that have permeated and upended modern life. Yet today's economic arguments seem stuck. We need a new vision of a hopeful future and a new action agenda. So many Americans are uncertain about the future. How can there be so many paths to opportunity with so few people traveling them? As a nation, we have to understand what is required to help Americans succeed now, and how to prepare our country for what comes next. We have been here before. A hundred years ago, America experienced the greatest economic transformation and technological revolution in its history. The transformation of the past twenty years—as the world has moved through the information era into the digital age—has turned our life and work upside down once again. It is a time of tremendous change but also of tremendous possibility. Rework America is a group of American leaders who know from experience the challenges we face—and the potential solutions. In America's Moment they suggest a practical agenda for an exciting future. It is illustrated by people who are already showing the way and includes actions Americans can take today in their own communities: preparing people to succeed, using the reach of the Internet and data to innovate jobs and to reach new markets all over the world, using technology to match employers and workers, and transitioning to a "no-collar" working world— neither blue collar nor white collar. Set against the history of how Americans succeeded once before in remaking their country, America's Moment is about the future. It describes how the same forces of change—technology and a networked world—can become tools that can open opportunity to everyone.

Equality of Opportunity

Equality of Opportunity PDF Author: John E. Roemer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674042875
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
John Roemer points out that there are two views of equality of opportunity that are widely held today. The first, which he calls the nondiscrimination principle, states that in the competition for positions in society, individuals should be judged only on attributes relevant to the performance of the duties of the position in question. Attributes such as race or sex should not be taken into account. The second states that society should do what it can to level the playing field among persons who compete for positions, especially during their formative years, so that all those who have the relevant potential attributes can be considered. Common to both positions is that at some point the principle of equal opportunity holds individuals accountable for achievements of particular objectives, whether they be education, employment, health, or income. Roemer argues that there is consequently a "before" and an "after" in the notion of equality of opportunity: before the competition starts, opportunities must be equalized, by social intervention if need be; but after it begins, individuals are on their own. The different views of equal opportunity should be judged according to where they place the starting gate which separates "before" from "after." Roemer works out in a precise way how to determine the location of the starting gate in the different views.

School, Family, and Community Partnerships

School, Family, and Community Partnerships PDF Author: Joyce L. Epstein
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1483320014
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

A Path Appears

A Path Appears PDF Author: Nicholas Kristof
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345805100
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
An exploration of how altruism affects us, what are the markers for success, and how to avoid the pitfalls—with scrupulous research and on-the-ground reporting from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists and bestselling authors of Half a Sky and Tightrope Kristof and WuDunn will inspire you to "change lives for the better, including your own (The New York Times Book Review). In their recounting of astonishing stories from the front lines of social progress, we see the compelling, inspiring truth of how real people have changed the world, underscoring that one person can make a difference. A Path Appears offers practical, results-driven advice on how best each of us can give and reveals the lasting benefits we gain in return. Kristof and WuDunn know better than most how many urgent challenges communities around the world face to­day. Here they offer a timely beacon of hope for our collective future.