Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Nation's Report Card keeps school reform arguments going

10/28/2015

Less than one week after President Obama called for an end to so much testing in public schools, we have the results of yet another test to occupy our attention.

Yes, kids, grownups can be exasperating.

But the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, known affectionately as the Nation’s Report Card, is effective in that it illustrates two things. One that the right kind of testing can help schools improve, or at least know where improvement is needed. The other is that Americans never will stop arguing over how to

The time to pass laws concerning driverless cars is now

10/27/2015

I remember the day my wife’s grandfather no longer could drive safely.

That wasn’t his assessment, of course. The man who used to regale us with stories about his first Model T still wanted to get behind the wheel and go. He just couldn’t always remember how to do it.

It wasn’t the state’s assessment, either. Not too long before, he had told me in a telephone conversation

The days of getting tough on crime are ending

10/21/2015

While we’re still in the spirit of the fictional 1980s character Marty McFly and what he encountered when he traveled to October 2015, consider there is one more thing “Back to the Future” failed to predict. Politicians and police are no longer trying to get tough on crime.

If you were around in the ’80s, you’ll know how absurd that would have sounded. You can almost hear Dr. Emmett Brown. “What else are you going to tell me about 2015, future boy? That an avowed

Utah's liquor laws aren't so crazy, after all

10/20/2015

If you look at it in the traditional way, which is to say, like a cynic, the news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week was hardly earthshattering. Utah ranks among the states with the lowest rates of death due to cirrhosis of the liver.

Of course, the traditionalist would say. Cirrhosis is a drinking disease, right? In Utah, because of the predominant religion, people don’t drink as much.
But look closer. Pennsylvania also ranks low on the list — lower than Utah. So does Massachusetts. What do they have in common?

Ironically, or not, those states were part of a time.com Money story earlier this month identifying “the states with the craziest liquor laws.”

“For sheer strangeness alone it’s hard to beat Pennsylvania…” the story said, referring to its Quaker roots and its strict laws allowing liquor to be sold only through 600 state-run stores. But if Pennsylvania has Quakers, “Massachusetts has Puritans.”

Ed Snowden continues to vex politicians

10/14/2015

The question was simple enough. Is Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor?

It may have been the shortest one Anderson Cooper asked during the first debate among Democratic candidates for president on Tuesday. But if there is any issue that transcends the predictable left-right political responses that dominate the Internet and talk radio, this is it. That’s true even though, let’s face it, bad guys no longer make a lot of domestic cell phone calls; and even though it’s unclear whether Snowden and the National Security Agency will play any role in next year’s election.

Utah's testing laws can make you dizzy

10/13/2015

This is what happens when state lawmakers are too eager to hop onto bandwagons.

The Utah Legislature passed a law allowing parents to opt their children out of any test mandated by the state or federal governments. Then lawmakers passed a law requiring students to pass a civics test before being allowed to graduation from high school.

Faced with this contradiction, state school board members now say you may opt your child out of the civics test, as well, but it means you will be opting

Here's why we should fear driverless cars

10/7/2015

You have to go back more than a century to find a time when the world anticipated the certainty of a new invention the way it does today.

With the announcement Tuesday that Toyota expects to sell self-driving cars by 2020, the list of manufacturers with similar goals — Apple, Google, Nissan and Tesla, to name four — lends an air of certainty to the notion that we are approaching what I call a “movie dating” moment.

If we can bank and shop online, why can't we vote?

10/6/2015

If you live in one of 90 Utah cities, you may rush home one day this week, yank open your mail box and find it: your official ballot for next month’s municipal election, including the all-important question of whether you want to raise your taxes to help pay for transit and roads.

It will be an interesting question to answer, considering you won’t have to use transit or any roads to make your voice known.

Welcome to the new polling place of the 21st century. Earl Long, the colorful former governor of Louisiana (and brother of the even more colorful Huey Long) once said of his political power, “I can make them voting machines sing Home Sweet

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