Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Now that students are back in school, there is something missing in the classroom. What is missing are cell phones. Last month, the public schools in the District of Columbia banned cell phone use during school hours, joining many other school districts who have done the same. The reason for these new rules should be obvious but are worth mentioning. More than 95 percent of teenagers have access to a cell phone and would be inclined to use…

Kerby Anderson Matt Taibbi worked for many years as a contributing editor for Rolling Stones and now is the publisher of Racket News. After the horrible news of the school shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, he made an insightful comment about the way the media covers such issues. “You don’t know who’s crazier, the shooter or some of the people who are talking about the shooter.” His comment seemed to sum up all the media commentary that occurs after…

Kerby Anderson I have two neighbors that illustrate what is happening and will continue to happen in the housing market. One neighbor just sold their house for a much lower price than anyone in the neighborhood would have expected. The other neighbor bought two homes and used them as rental properties. They now live in one of the homes. People living in the other rental home haven’t paid their rent in four months, and they had to go to court…

Kerby Anderson The National Assessment of Educational Progress is often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card. For most of the states, this hasn’t been a report card you would want to show anyone. But four southern states stand out because they have shown improvement. Alabama and Louisiana had math and reading scores higher than they were in 2019, before Covid. Mississippi fourth graders topped the country in math and reading. If you look at recovery statistics, Alabama was first…

Penna Dexter To address what they see as the problem of social inequities between students, education bureaucrats have implemented “reforms” in grading practices aimed at promoting ”equity” in student outcomes. In a new survey conducted by the Thomas Fordham Institute, an education-policy think tank, 52 percent of teachers said their school or district had adopted at least one of these so-called  “equitable” grading policies. The survey reveals a distinct lack of enthusiasm among teachers for these policies. One of the…

Kerby Anderson Yascha Mounk has been watching the battle over the impact of social media on young Americans. On one side are psychologists, like Jonathan Haidt, who has written about this for many years and has published his book, The Anxious Generation. On the other side are the skeptics who remind us that we tend to exaggerate the impact of new technologies. Mounk says, “In this battle, I have until now chosen to be a non-combatant.” What changed his mind?…

Kerby Anderson Kenneth Rogoff is a Harvard University economics professor. On an X post, he identified himself as the Harvard economist who predicted back in 2018 that “A decade from now, Bitcoin is more likely to be $100 than $100,000.” He obviously, got that prediction wrong since Bitcoin has consistently been at or above $100,000 for months. He explained his mistake by saying that he was far too optimistic about the U.S. coming to its senses about sensible crypto regulation. As…

Kerby Anderson David Brooks writes in The New York Times about “America’s New Segregation.” He isn’t talking about racial segregation but instead is focusing on class segregation. Essentially, we are talking about self-segregation. He quotes the book Diminished Democracy which observed that Americans used to join cross-class community organizations like the Rotary or the Elks clubs. But gradually, highly educated people left them for professional organizations filled with others more like themselves. Dan McLaughlin agrees with David Brooks but then…

Kerby Anderson Six months ago, I recorded a commentary on the idea of universal basic income. UBI is a fiscal program to pay a regular income to everyone without any conditions. At the time, I quoted research that showed that giving people free money didn’t improve their situation. I wanted to return to this discussion because of an article in The Argument, which is a new left-wing publication with an impressive list of contributors. Kelsey Piper writes that “Giving People…

Kerby Anderson Today is Labor Day. Although this day was set aside to honor trade and labor organizations, I believe it is a day when Christians can also consider how they view work and labor. The Bible has quite a bit to say about how we are to view work, and so I devote part of a chapter in my book, Making the Most of Your Money, to a biblical view of work. First, we are to work unto the Lord in…

Penna Dexter The year was 1977. I was a baby Christian living in a suburb of Los Angeles. I volunteered to man the book table at an event at our church put on by a new organization: Focus on the Family. Before the program even started, attendees were stopping at my table, buying books with titles like DARE TO DISCPLINE, HIDE OR SEEK, PREPARING FOR ADOLESCENCE, WHAT WIVES WISH THEIR HUSBANDS KNEW ABOUT WOMEN.  A kind man approached to thank…