When America celebrated its 250th birthday this weekend, I expected to feel the same exhilaration I experienced during the Bicentennial in 1976.
Instead, I felt something else.
Fifty years ago, I was a law student in Boston. I stood on the Esplanade with my mother listening to Arthur Fiedler conduct the Boston Pops as fireworks illuminated the Charles River. Like millions of Americans, I believed I was witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of our nation.
Analysis: Something much bigger than immigration is happening at the Supreme Court, and I don’t think most Americans have noticed it yet. The Roberts Court isn’t just deciding controversial cases. It may be quietly redefining how the federal government itself is supposed to work.
Over the last week, the Supreme Court decided three important immigration cases. As usual, the news media immediately divided into two camps. One side said the Court was anti-immigrant. The other side said it was simply enforcing the law.
I think both sides are missing something much bigger.
Analysis: Former Vice President Mike Pence has a new book out arguing that Republicans need to return to the Reagan-era version of conservatism and move away from the populism associated with Donald Trump. Pence sees Trump populism as a departure from conservative principles. Many conservatives, myself included, see it differently.
The real debate is not whether Ronald Reagan was right for his time. The real debate is whether the world that Reagan confronted is the same world we face today.
In the last article published Monday, I described a contradiction hiding in plain sight: Oklahoma operates one education system—CareerTech—that works, and another—traditional K–12—that struggles to produce consistent results.
That raises a deeper question. Can a large, statewide system actually be fixed? Or are we stuck with whatever we have? Oklahoma already knows the answer—because we’ve lived through it.
Oklahoma has something almost no one talks about. We run two completely different education systems—side by side, funded by the same taxpayers, serving many of the same students.
One is widely respected across the country. Employers praise it. Students line up for it. Other states try to copy it. The other struggles year after year. Parents are frustrated. Outcomes lag. Confidence erodes.
Most Oklahomans know both systems exist. Almost no one stops to ask the obvious question: How can the same state produce both a national model and a systemically failing system at the same time?
