Democracy Journal

High schools aren’t serving their purpose anymore. Students are tired, stressed, and bored. Nearly a quarter of high schoolers are chronically absent, and many leave school unprepared for the workforce. So how do we fix it?

Luckily, James Kvaal has steps that the next presidential administration can take to correct course and prepare our students, and our country, for the future.

Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to peddle fears about election integrity.

Election integrity is undeniably important, but a serious plan to protect it would look very different. Two years ago, Barbara Comstock and Tim Roemer—both former congresspeople—took to our pages to provide just that.

Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to peddle fears about election integrity.

There’s a long historical link between concentrated corporate power and the rise of fascist states, argues Ron Knox, senior researcher and policy advocate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

As Knox notes, those “who would eventually take power pushed pro-monopoly ideas into the mainstream.” Now, the Big Tech monopolies and their billionaire executives are gaining influence over government faster than we can comprehend. Just look at Trump’s inauguration guest list.

There’s a long historical link between concentrated corporate power and the rise of fascist states, argues Ron Knox, senior researcher and policy advocate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

The kids aren’t okay. Four in ten high school students report persistent sadness or hopelessness, and almost two in ten say they have seriously considered suicide.

What can be done? Andrea Clyne, former president of the National Association of School Psychologists, says we should look to the place young people spend most of their time: school.

Parents and teachers everywhere are worried about kids using generative AI to cheat in school. But is cheating the real problem?

For Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, the answer is no. The much bigger issue is that general-purpose chatbots and AI “friends” can take over the mental effort of schoolwork, potentially stunting young people’s cognitive development.

Donald Trump has plunged the civil service into crisis, but we shouldn’t forget that it had been struggling for decades by the time Trump entered the Oval Office.

This is the argument of Margaret Mullins, director of public options and governance at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. Luckily, she has a plan to fix it.

“All men are created equal,” the founding document tells us. But throughout our history, the principle of equality has had competition.

Reviewing the book, fellow historian Michael Kazin praises Phillips-Fein’s “perceptive portrait” of this strain of thought and reflects on its political significance. “For progressives, the long tradition Phillips-Fein narrates might yield a lesson both sober and hopeful,” he writes.

“All men are created equal,” the founding document tells us. But throughout our history, the principle of equality has had competition.

Technology in the classroom is never far from parents’ and teachers’ minds these days, particularly with the rise of AI. Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten.bsky.social), the President of the American Federation of Teachers, has a ten-point plan for tackling the challenge.

Through open attacks on the rule of law, rising costs of living, and efforts to undermine the courts—Democracy and our writers have been here, exploring what it takes to maintain a democracy in the twenty-first century.

Miguel A. Cardona is calling for us to uplift the teaching profession, prioritize sustainable investment, and improve collaboration between schools, government, and the broader community.

Trump’s dismemberment of the Department of Education provides a “mirror-image roadmap” for the next administration, according to Kevin Carey. However, instead of doing away with the department, Carey suggests replacing it with something three times bigger: The Department of Children and Learning.

The Department of Children and Learning wouldn’t just run our school system. It would also support working parents to access childcare, provide school lunches, and so on. And no, none of this would come at the cost of local control.

As students and educators return to school, the issues impacting the U.S. education system are front of mind: school closures, AI, book bans, literacy rates, the mental health crisis. All of these topics populate the zeitgeist, but where is comprehensive policy to tackle them?

Whether AI is to blame or not, recent graduates are entering a workforce that mirrors the Great Recession. This won’t just impact these new grads for a few years.

Gene Sperling and Josh Waldman believe that if we don’t act soon to improve these conditions, Gen Z will be facing monumental lifetime earnings losses, higher divorce rates, and even shorter life expectancy.

At long last, the Supreme Court has struck down President Trump’s attempts to restrict mail-in voting. But this ruling was a rare win for democracy at a time when the conservative supermajority has taken the Court in a distinctly anti-democratic direction.

In “How the Supreme Court is Attacking Democracy,” Daniel Hanley details the Court’s leading role in the conservative attack on our federal administrative and regulatory agencies, and the dire consequences of that assault.

At long last, the Supreme Court has struck down President Trump’s attempts to restrict mail-in voting. But this ruling was a rare win for democracy at a time when the conservative supermajority has taken the Court in a distinctly anti-democratic direction.

So we’re looking back at a few pieces from our archive that explore where the Court has gone wrong and, most importantly, how we can fix it.

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If we want to defend ourselves and our democracy from authoritarianism, “we must invite people into the process of policymaking,” posits Elizabeth Wilkins (@elizabethwwilkins.bsky.social), president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute.

Economic policy can’t only be born from market indicators and expert analysis, Wilkins argues. It has to take into account how real Americans experience the economy and what changes they, not experts, want most.