The Next Conservative Education Agenda

Frederick M. Hess

When it comes to education, conservatives have been far better at explaining what they are against than what they are for — at least beyond school choice in K-12 and freedom of speech on campus. But conservatives are actually well positioned to lead much more effectively on education, because the left's entanglements with unions, public bureaucracies, and the academy constrain the options available to progressives. It isn't hard to see why the right has tended to play defense on education, but it's time to do much more than that. An agenda that could appeal to the public and dramatically improve education in America is within reach.

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daily findings by kevin lewis

April 02, 2020

No Clue

April 01, 2020

In the Shadows

March 31, 2020

Keeping Company

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Current Issue

Realigning Probation with Our Values

Arthur L. Rizer, III , Nila Bala & Emily Mooney

Probation and other forms of community supervision have the potential to make our criminal-justice system more effective and humane. In its best form, probation can connect individuals to employment, education, housing, and other needed services while keeping them accountable to themselves and to society. But probation has come to be overused and abused in ways that cause more problems than they solve.

Media

March 01, 2020

The Limits of Economic Populism with Donald Schneider

The National Affairs Podcast, Episode 11: a conversation about elites, populism, and ways to address labor inequality.

February 02, 2020

The Crisis of Men without Work with Nicholas Eberstadt

The National Affairs Podcast, Episode 10: a conversation about the causes behind the mass exodus of men from the workforce.

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How to Think about Patriotism

Wilfred M. McClay

Patriotism in the American context has always involved both a devotion to an intricate latticework of ideals, sentiments, and overlapping loyalties, and also a commitment to our unique traditions, culture, history, people, and land. These two types of American patriotism are undeniably in tension, but the tension has been a healthy one throughout our history. Since its founding, our nation's universal ideals have meshed with, and derived strength from, Americans' local and particular sentiments.

the public interest

Fall 1970

Science and ideology in economics

Robert M. Solow

The Public Interest was a quarterly public policy journal founded by Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell in 1965. Throughout its four decades of publication, ending in 2005, it offered incomparable insight and wisdom on a vast range of challenges at the intersection of public affairs, culture, and political economy—helping America better understand and govern itself in a tumultuous time. National Affairs now hosts its archives, free of charge.

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Fall 2012

The Most Dangerous Branch

Joshua D. Hawley

Many conservatives felt betrayed by the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision, sensing they had lost an important political battle at the hands of a supposed ally. Justified or not, this sense of betrayal points to a much greater problem: the fact that the Court is viewed as capable of resolving political disputes at all. Today, the judiciary weighs in far too often on matters that should be left to the political branches of our government — a tendency toward overreach rooted in the Constitution itself.

Summer 2013

Religion and the American Republic

George F. Will

America has generally marked out a division of labor between the institutions of politics and those of civil society, including and especially those of religion. It is as the foremost of our civil-society institutions that religious organizations play a crucial role in sustaining our distinctive system of government — as shapers of citizens, and as limiting counterparts to the state. That is why citizens concerned for our tradition of limited, constitutional government should be friendly to the cause of American religion — even if they are not believers themselves.

Summer 2018

The First American Founder

James W. Ceaser

Americans revere the nation's founders, and it seems perfectly natural that we should. But we are never quite clear about exactly who counts as a founder, and exactly for what. Our country had more than one beginning, and has several uses for its several foundings. In fact, the idea of a national founding needed to be introduced into our political vocabulary and developed into the core of our self-understanding. The concept of the American founding itself had a founder.

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