South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Digital Learning In Schools

The PBS News Hour reports on the use of digital learning in the public schools of Wake County, North Carolina.

Around The Dial – 4/11/11

Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:

• Robert Kuttner channels “Keynes’ Ghost.”
• Free Exchange asks “what the economists knew.”
• Economix notes that 18% of men ages 25-54 aren’t working.
• Ezra Klein is unimpressed by the policy and politics of the budget deal.

SBN In the News: April 2011

Anything But Normal

Christina Romer, the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, argues that there is nothing “normal” about an unemployment rate of almost nine percent.

Regardless of the cause of extended high unemployment, it is a disaster for families, the economy and government budgets. Thus, if I am wrong, and more unemployment is structural than the current evidence suggests, this is no excuse for washing our hands of the problem. Only the nature of the needed policy response would change. Instead of focusing on increasing demand, we would need policies to help workers and jobs find one another, measures to move workers to where the jobs are (or vice versa), training programs and better education.
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And even though today’s unemployment appears mainly cyclical, it could turn structural. The longer that unemployment remains high for cyclical reasons, the more likely that job prospects for unemployed workers will be permanently damaged. In a number of European countries in the 1980s, for example, prolonged recession appears to have caused normal unemployment to rise sharply. Getting cyclical unemployment down quickly is the surest way to prevent that from happening in the United States.

Around The Dial – 4/8/11

Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:

• Paul Krugman notes that some things never change.
• The Economic Policy looks at the GOP’s 2010 budget proposal.
• Off the Charts points out the flaws in the “tax migration” myth.
• Mark Schmitt explains “the biggest risk shift ever.”
• The National Skills Coalition reports on Congress’ hearings about workforce training.