Ford School Public Events

Policy Talks @ the Ford School

A 2012 Josh Rosenthal Education Fund Lecture

Lecture by General Michael Hayden, retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the CIA and NSA. View the Web stream

Students in the U.S. currently rank 25th in math and 17th in science among their peers in other industrialized countries. Yet research shows that 80 percent of future jobs will require literacy and skills in these areas. To meet future workforce needs and maintain our global competitiveness, we must improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills among students and increase access to STEM careers particularly among underrepresented populations. Afterschool programs have begun to play a significant role in developing new informal science education approaches for students across the country. This panel will explore future workforce demands in STEM fields, provide statewide examples of how STEM afterschool initiatives are developing college and career-ready students, and discuss the importance of informal science education initiatives for student success.

How big is the current cultural, economic, and social divide? How does it differ from the divide Michael Harrington brought to light 50 years ago in his book, The Other America? What is the role of government as inequality rises? What can be done to close the gap? Syndicated columnist, Clarence Page, will moderate this debate between Jared Bernstein and Charles Murray on the future of inequality in America.

The financial crisis lay bare how the financial system failed the nation but left hidden the many ways in which that system still fails the most vulnerable Americans. In No Slack, Michael S. Barr explores how low- and moderate-income households cope with financial stress, use financial services to make ends meet, and often come up short.

Policy Talks @ the Ford School

Doug Elmendorf is the eighth director of the Congressional Budget Office. Before he came to CBO in January 2009, he was a senior fellow in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. As the Edward M. Bernstein Scholar, he served as co-editor of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and the director of the Hamilton Project, an initiative to promote broadly shared economic growth.

This Ford Policy Union, a public debate event, will feature Peter Navarro and Phil Potter discussing US-Chinese trade and security issues.

Income inequality among the families of school-age children in the US has grown sharply in the last 40 years. In this talk Sean F. Reardon, Professor of Education at Stanford University, will describe his research findings from three studies that examine the relationship of income and income inequality to educational outcomes. The first focuses on trends in the 'income achievement gap' (the test score gap between children from high- and low-income families) over the last 50 years, using data from 13 nationally representative studies conducted between 1959-2009. The second investigates the relationships among income, achievement, and the selectivity of the colleges in which students enroll, using data from the high school classes of 1982, 1992, and 2004. The third study investigates the association between national income inequality levels and a country's income achievement gap, using data from 19 OECD countries in 2001-2009. Dr. Reardon will conclude the talk with some discussion of the causes and implications of patterns and trends identified in the research.

Despite our sluggish economy and the global economic uncertainty, building lifelong financial security is not a pipe dream in 21st century America. But for most Americans, it's become a do-it-yourself proposition, as a result of the decline of traditional pension plans in the private sector.

TIAA-CREF's CEO Roger Ferguson will look at the current retirement landscape, discuss how it has changed over time, and consider some of the challenges we now face as a nation in funding retirement.

You are invited to attend a campus lecture delivered by

Dr. Rajiv Shah

Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)