After more than a decade of conservatives' dominance of public bioethical debate, progressive bioethics is finally in ascendance. Editors Joanthan Moreno and Sam Berger map this new landscape with Progress in Bioethics, an anthology featuring contributions from progressive and nonprogressive bioethicists alike. They tackle substantive policy issues such as stem cell research, conscience clauses, and health care reform. More generally, they discuss the meaning of progressive bioethics, its place in the political arena, its stance toward biotechnology, and its interplay with religion. And most importantly, they seek to apply the fundamental progressive values of social justice, critical optimism, and practical problem solving—values that are needed now more than ever to restore ideological balance to the politics and policy of the life sciences.

Please join CAP and Democracy: a Journal of Ideas for a lively panel discussion led by Jonathan Moreno, Senior Fellow at CAP, Editor-In-Chief of Science Progress, and co-editor of Progress in Bioethics. The panel will include Jonathan's co-editor, Sam Berger, Democracy editors Michael Tomasky and Clay Risen, as well as two contributors to Progress in Bioethics, Kathryn Hinsch of the Women's Bioethics Project and Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics in Society.

In the aftermath of regulatory failures that led to an unprecedented global financial crisis, the rules of the road are being rewritten. The House of Representatives passed legislation late last year and the Senate Banking Committee is hard at work behind closed doors to develop its own plan. Are the changes pending in Congress bold enough to fix the U.S. Financial System?

Author Bob Pozen's new book, Too Big to Save, offers a sophisticated analysis of the origins of the crisis written for experts and non-experts alike and is chock full of detailed prescriptions for reforming various economic policies. Rob Johnson was recently named executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a newly formed research and grantmaking organization formed to develop fresh approaches to economic theory and policy.

Please join the Center for American Progress for an event, using Pozen's book as the launching pad, where these two astute students of the crisis will talk about what they think we need to do and whether the legislative process is likely to produce it.

Copies of Too Big to Save? will be available for purchase at the event

Please find reviews of this book here and here.

As the international community prepares to convene in London on January 28 to coordinate its efforts in Afghanistan, please join the Center for American Progress for remarks by National Security Advisor James L. Jones on January 25, 2010 on the administration's strategy in Afghanistan and the region.

Jones' speech will be followed by a panel of experts on Afghanistan analyzing the upcoming London conference, the state of the Karzai government in Afghanistan, and the international community's nonmilitary efforts in the country. The panel will include Paul O'Brien, vice president of policy and advocacy at Oxfam International, J. Alexander Thier, director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the United States Institute of Peace and James A. Bever, Director of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force at USAID. Panelists will assess U.S. progress on the "civilian surge," efforts to improve Afghan governance and tackle corruption, recent proposals for reconciliation with elements of the insurgency put forth by the Karzai government, and ways in which the United States can improve its own coordination and capacity on the civilian side.

The Center for American Progress and the Progressive Book Club are pleased to announce the first event in the 2010 season of their joint authors series, "Moving Forward: Foundations of a New Progressive Era." The CAP/PBC series is designed to examine a range of issues emerging from the intersection of history, philosophy, political theory, and public policy. Each event features a different topic and authors with live and online audiences debating and discussing the issues raised.

Our first event of 2010 will feature historian Jackson Lears, author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920, and presidential scholar, Sidney Milkis, author of Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy, discussing the cultural and political changes of the original progressive era and how these ideas continue to influence American politics today.

Click here to get both books at a discounted rate when you join the Progressive Book Club

Copies of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 and Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy will be available for purchase at the event.

Community colleges is being heralded as a key player in reviving economic opportunity for workers and national competitiveness for the United States. A key drive of this intense interest is the Obama administration's American Graduation Initiative which is poised to infuse more than $12 billion into the nation's 1,000+ community colleges over the next 10 years. This investment has the potential to be transformative.

Yet, will it be a thoughtful transformation? Community colleges have evolved since 1947 to embrace three core activities: university transfer education, occupational education, and developmental education. They currently exist in more or less tension with one another. The integration of these activities through the lens of student success is the key to realizing the promise of community colleges as engines of economic opportunity and competitiveness.

The Eurasian region is critical to U.S. energy security. With its abundant natural resources and large economic base, Eurasia presents opportunities to address supply concerns and to develop new markets. However, as the gas disputes between Russia and Ukraine have demonstrated, it is also the locus of important challenges to the interests of the United States and our allies.

Please join the Center for American Progress for an event featuring Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar, special envoy for Eurasian energy, who is the senior State Department official responsible for energy issues relating to Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. In his talk, Ambassador Morningstar will offer the first comprehensive public statement of Obama administration policy on this subject.

The massive street protests following Iran's presidential election of June 2009 highlighted Iranians' disapproval of their ruling regime. Continuing protests during subsequent Iranian holidays and observances have showed that Iran's opposition movement remains vital, and also signaled that Tehran's grip on power may be somewhat vulnerable if the international community steadfastly supports Iranians' basic rights. Though the administration has not ignored human rights in Iran, the issue remains an underutilized lever of American foreign policy. By including human rights in the basket of issues discussed in multilateral negotiations while making public statements of support for human rights in Iran, the Obama administration may create openings for serious and lasting concessions from Tehran.

With large demonstrations expected during the February 11 anniversary of Iran's 1979 revolution, likely to be followed by another government crackdown, this forum will examine the policy options currently being debated by the administration, and discuss ways to effectively harness human rights promotion to pressure on the Iranian regime.

An overwhelming quantity of direct observations and analyses published by scientists in various disciplines around the world demonstrates that human activity has warmed the planet and altered the climate. The severity of the projected impacts of continuing on our current greenhouse gas emissions path has only increased in recent years.

Please join the Center for American Progress for an educational event featuring two respected scientists who have both helped author reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Dr. Michael MacCracken and Dr. Christopher Field will explain the IPCC's assessment process, how we know what we know about human-caused climate change, what we have learned since the 2007 IPCC report, and why the science must inform public policy in the United States.

At the end of World War II, America had all the money—and all the power. Now, after the Great Recession of 2008, America is cash poor. In The End of Influence: What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money, world-renowned economists Stephen Cohen and Brad DeLong argue that this loss will have grave consequences for America's standing in the world, even as it opens up new opportunities for a new multilateralism. Our new era will be marked by a loss of American power to dictate foreign policy, a loss of American soft cultural power, and a loss of entrepreneurial innovation worldwide. The End of Influence exposes these alarming trends—and tells us what we can do to maintain stability in the world.

Please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion with co-authors Stephen Cohen and Brad DeLong about the topics in this new book.

Copies of The End of Influence: What Happens When Other Countries Have the Money will be available for purchase.

Families across the country are struggling with declining incomes and high unemployment. Meanwhile, Wall Street is raking it in: This year they have seen their profit and bonuses return to the same levels as previous years, thanks in part to the infusion of taxpayers' dollars to keep them afloat during the peak of the financial crisis. Everybody can agree that this is hardly fair. However, not everyone agrees on what to do about it.

There is a growing debate over the merits and feasibility of using the tax system to raise much-needed revenue and curb future risk taking and speculation by the financial industry. The financial transactions tax—a small tax on the trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other financial instruments—is one possible option. However, would it work?

Please join the Center for American Progress and the Center for Economic and Policy Research as we discuss taxing Wall Street—why we should do it, how we can, and the best options moving forward.

Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate change, will be speaking about the lessons of the COP-15 summit in Copenhagen last December, the significance of the Copenhagen Accord that was negotiated there, and the path forward over the coming year and beyond. This will be Stern's first public speech since the January 31 deadline for inscribing mitigation targets and actions in the Copenhagen Accord.  An expert discussion panel follows the address.

Due to inclement weather, this event has been postponed. We will notify you of a new date and time as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.

It is inevitable that as global warming intensifies hurricanes, exacerbates drought, and adds to resource shortages, we will need to prepare for extreme conditions and responses, and this includes human migration. Some estimates suggest that as many as 200 million people could become climate migrants by 2050. The panelists will therefore discuss the implications of climate migration with regard to adaptation strategies, frameworks for addressing internal and international movements, and new, comprehensive strategies to deal with unique challenges.

Please join us for a discussion of this delicate intersection of climate change, development, and human migration.

Spain is currently undergoing a renewable energy revolution, with the Navarra region set to be the first in Europe to be self-sufficient in renewable energy. Navarra, Europe’s sixth largest producer of wind power, currently sustains approximately 70 percent of its electricity needs from renewable energy sources, including 900-megawatt capacity of installed wind power, ranking it ahead of the United Kingdom, Sweden, and France.

Join us for a discussion about the role that community partners play in schools that have an expanded school calendar. A new report from the Center for American Progress will launch the discussion. The report profiles community partnerships that four traditional public schools and one charter school have further developed to carry out their expanded school schedule. The lessons that these schools and community providers have learned—invaluable to practitioners and policymakers alike—will be shared.

A new policy brief examining how the successes of expanded learning time schools can be scaled up in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will also be highlighted.

Opinion research shows the public does not believe government is capable of effectively and efficiently executing its responsibilities. This mistrust is a significant barrier to advancing policies to address even the most popular goals. For attitudes to change, the public first and foremost will have to see government acting responsibly and working to deliver maximum bang for the buck. We need a government that does what works.

Please join the Center for American Progress for the launch of our new "Doing What Works" project featuring a major address by President Obama's Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients.

The Great Recession has brought new attention to the plight of low-income Americans and particularly those experiencing disparate hardships. This includes low-income men of color who were trying to overcome multiple challenges of employment, families, and mass incarceration well before our current economic times. While there is still a need to discuss immediate fixes, significant attention must be paid to long-term solutions and the government systems that most affect low-income men's lives—employment efforts, fatherhood programs, child support enforcement, and the criminal justice system.

Join American Progress for a two-panel event on low-income men. The first panel will consist of experts focused on the current state of policy and future opportunities for legislative reform. The second panel will feature representatives from model fatherhood and youth employment programs that provide comprehensive services to low-income men.

Despite the ongoing foreclosure crisis that is leading to millions of families losing their homes, it would be a mistake to eliminate homeownership for low- and moderate-income families as an achievable policy goal. On the contrary, we need not have a false debate about either going back to past homeownership strategies or abandoning a home of one's own as an option for millions of working American families.

Please join the Center for American Progress and NCB Capital Impact as we discuss the future of homeownership and how Shared Equity Homeownership programs can put us in the right direction and provide a new way forward for federal homeownership policy.

It is inevitable that as global warming intensifies hurricanes, exacerbates drought, and adds to resource shortages, we will need to prepare for extreme conditions and responses, and this includes human migration. Some estimates suggest that as many as 200 million people could become climate migrants by 2050. The panelists will therefore discuss the implications of climate migration with regard to adaptation strategies, frameworks for addressing internal and international movements, and new, comprehensive strategies to deal with unique challenges.

Please join us for a discussion of this delicate intersection of climate change, development, and human migration.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama said, "I do not accept second place for the United States of America." But the truth is that when it comes to the clean energy economy, the United States isn’t even coming in second. Amidst growing concerns about clean-energy jobs going overseas, this conference will discuss what it will take for the U.S. to regain its competitiveness in the global clean energy economy.

The Apollo Alliance and Center for American Progress will bring together policymakers, academics, business and labor leaders, and other experts to discuss what policies will support the United States in becoming not only a consumer of clean-energy technologies but also a leading producer of them.

The inadequacy of teacher evaluation systems has received a great deal of recent attention. Many districts have systems that don't give teachers useful feedback, don't differentiate among teachers, and give very few teachers unsatisfactory ratings. States and districts also fail to use the information from teacher evaluation systems to make important decisions about teachers’ careers, such as whether to award tenure, how to compensate teachers, and what career advancement opportunities are appropriate.

A number of states and districts are rethinking their evaluation practices, prompted in part by the Obama administration's focus on teacher effectiveness within a number of federal education programs. Join our expert panelists for a dynamic conversation about what a new generation of systems could look like and how state and local policy might support their development.

After a five-year investigation, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility concluded in a report released in February that Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee "exercised poor judgment" for their role in drafting the 2002 memos that authorized the use of techniques otherwise understood to constitute torture in detainee interrogations. However, a Department of Justice official overruled OPR's recommendation and determined that the officials should not be referred to their respective bar associations for investigation of professional misconduct, spurring criticism of the investigation and broader questions about the lawyers' intentions.

Please join the Center for American Progress and the Alliance for Justice for a discussion about the OPR report and next steps toward torture accountability. A screening of Alliance for Justice's short documentary film, "Tortured Law" will proceed a panel discussion moderated by Ken Gude, Associate Director of the Center for American Progress International Rights and Responsibilities program.

The United States has no coherent, planned career navigation system, although work and learning choices impact how much Americans pay for education, how much we earn over our lifetime, and even access to health and retirement benefits. In this way, career guidance is as essential as education and training to ensuring economic opportunity.

In its paper "A National Approach To Career Navigation for Working Learners," the Center for American Progress seeks to open a national dialogue about how to leverage emerging models of career guidance from the public, nonprofit, union, education, and private sectors to develop a national vision and approach to career development.

Join us as Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, discusses financial regulatory reform.

Progressivism On Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.

Today nearly half of American women are unmarried. More than ever, women are the sole supporters of themselves and their families. Yet they are more economically insecure than other groups, experiencing higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and a lack of health insurance.

Unmarried women in particular face gender-based discrimination, low-wage jobs that do not offer adequate income or benefits, an uneven burden of caregiving, and outdated policies that too often do not apply to modern families. Public policy must catch up to today's America and ensure that the promise of America is available to all.

Join us for a discussion of a new report by the Center for American Progress and Women's Voices. Women Vote outlining relevant legislation in the current Congress that will advance the economic security of all Americans, focusing on unmarried women.

Copies of this report will be available at the event.

On his first day in office, President Barack Obama committed "to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government." To help meet that goal, the administration has issued an Open Government Directive, a new memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act, and attorney general guidelines, as well as an effort to open up data to developers, advocates, and the public via Data.gov.

Join us for this three-panel event, where our panelists will discuss the administration's open government initiatives and their effect on the public.

Join us as Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, or NOW, discusses the future of the women's movement in the second event in the spring Progressivism On Tap series.

Progressivism On Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.

Patricia Sullivan's 2009 book, Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement, is the first major history of America's oldest civil rights organization and destined to be a classic in the field. Sullivan unearths the little-known early decades of the NAACP's activism, telling startling stories of personal bravery, legal brilliance, and political maneuvering.

The Center for American Progress and the Progressive Book Club are pleased to discuss the NAACP's historic achievements and its vision for future civil rights activism with author Patricia Sullivan and current NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous.

Click here to get the book at a discounted rate when you join the Progressive Book Club.

Copies of Lift Every Voice will be available for purchase at the event.

Join us as Tod Lindberg, editor of Policy Review and author of The Political Teachings of Jesus, leads a discussion on rethinking conservativism during the third event in the spring Progressivism On Tap series.

Progressivism On Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.

In the years before the capital markets fueled a subprime deluge and bad money chased out good, a range of policies and programs effectively created sustainable, affordable homeownership. Participants in these programs were much more likely to sustain homeownership than comparable borrowers in subprime loans, even as economic conditions worsened. Proven on the ground, these programs point to a way forward that provides access to affordable homeownership for those who are ready for it. Their record also helps put to rest the myth that lending to underserved communities--as opposed to poor lending practices--drove the crisis.

At this CAP forum, experts will examine evidence derived from close analysis by academics across the country, with research demonstrating that we know how to do affordable lending that works. Panelists will discuss how this research should inform the discussions of the system of housing finance for the future.

Within a week of becoming president, Barack Obama gave his first formal interview to Al Arabiya, one of the leading Arabic-language television news channels. In the interview, he discussed his desire to reach out the Muslim world and the importance of language in his efforts.

A little over a year later, Internews and Middle East Progress bring together Nabil Al Khatib, executive editor of Al Arabiya, and Howard Schneider, staff writer and former Jerusalem bureau chief at the Washington Post, to discuss the changing role of Arab media in covering the region and promoting progress.

Join us as Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at Center for American Progress, and Spencer Ackerman, national security correspondent for The Washington Independent, lead a discussion on progressive foreign policy during the final event in the spring Progressivism On Tap series.

Progressivism On Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.

President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2011 budget proposes nearly $4 trillion in federal spending, and Congress is currently starting its budget review process to examine whether funding the president's proposed budget makes sense.

But this review process fails to include nearly 25 percent of the government's spending. This other budget is made up of tax expenditures, which deserve as much scrutiny as direct federal spending in order to reward programs that work.

Please join the Center for American Progress's Doing What Works project for an event that addresses the broad issues related to scrutinizing tax expenditure spending, using energy tax expenditures as an example.

On April 8, Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev will meet in Prague to sign the New START, the successor to the original landmark Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The historic treaty makes good on President Obama's top priority for the "reset" of U.S.-Russia relations.

Please join the Center for American Progress for an event featuring William J. Burns, the Department of State's undersecretary of state for political affairs, who will discuss the first year of the Obama administration's Russia policy and the future of the bilateral relationship.

The event will also mark the launch of the Center's report "Assessing the Reset and the Next Steps for U.S. Russia Policy," written by Dr. Samuel Charap.

In the years before World War II, Franklin Roosevelt's fiercest, most unyielding opponent was neither a foreign power nor "fear itself." It was the U.S. Supreme Court.

Beginning in 1935, in a series of devastating decisions, the Supreme Court's conservative majority left much of FDR's agenda in ruins. The pillars of the New Deal fell in short succession. It was not just the New Deal, but democracy itself, that stood on trial. In February 1937, Roosevelt struck back with an audacious plan to expand the Court to fifteen justices - and to "pack" the new seats with liberals who shared his belief in a "living" Constitution.

The ensuing fight was a firestorm that engulfed the White House, the Court, Congress, and the nation. The final verdict was a shock. It dealt FDR the biggest setback of his political life, split the Democratic party, and set the stage for a future era of Republican dominance. Yet the battle also transformed America's political and constitutional landscape, hastening the nation's march into the modern world.

Providing new evidence and fresh insight, Supreme Power shows why understanding the Court fight is essential to understanding the presidency, personality, and legacy of FDR—and to understanding America at a crossroads in its history.

Copies of Supreme Power will be available for purchase at the event.

The insideIRAN.org project at The Century Foundation and the National Security Network have convened a year-long advisory group of North American, European, and Iranian participants well connected either to their respective countries' policymaking on Iran or, in the case of the Iranians, to civil society and the Green Movement.

At the group's first meeting on February 19 in Washington, D.C., a consensus was reached that U.S. policy toward Iran should pursue such a multitrack approach. Instead of viewing the policy options starkly as a choice between a military attack or acquiescence to a repressive regime that likely orchestrated a rigged presidential election, the advisory group agreed that a more nuanced "middle way'" should characterize U.S. policy.

A report generated by that meeting, including recommendations for the Obama administration, will be the focus of the panel discussion at an upcoming Center for American Progress event.

In honor of the first anniversary of the signing of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act and National Volunteer Week, this event launches the new book by CAP Visiting Fellow Shirley Sagawa, The American Way to Change: How National Service and Volunteers are Transforming America.

With a prologue by CAP President John Podesta, this book provides a new perspective on how to solve the nation's most pressing domestic problems by engaging ordinary Americans in in innovative ways. After an introduction by the author, this event will feature a panel discussion moderated by Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Job creation is paramount for developed and developing countries alike—in the wake of the global recession. Policymakers have emphasized at recent forums like the G-20 that economic recovery requires the creation of good jobs and worker and social protections to create a virtuous circle of economic growth and rising living standards- all of which will improve resilience in the face of future crises.

Please join us at the Center for American Progress to discuss the importance of employment creation and worker/social protections, and how to build these institutions around the world. Several countries in the developing world are looking to build or improve existing institutions— ministries, expertise, and laws—to protect their populations under economic stress. Developed countries see positive returns as developing countries prosper in terms of improved global stability, new sources of aggregate demand to spur the global economy, and a more even competitive playing field.

This event is scheduled following the G-20 labor ministers meeting hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor and the International Monetary Fund/ World Bank spring meetings making this discussion particularly timely.

Even though a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia seems a distant possibility, large stockpiles of weapons in both countries still threaten each population. New proliferation challenges have emerged in South Asia, North Korea, and Iran and could spark a new nuclear arms race. And the greatest threat is the prospect that nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of terrorist organizations.

The Center for American Progress is honored to host Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-PA) and The Honorable Ellen O. Tauscher, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, for an event on a new nuclear security agenda for the United States. Following Sen. Casey's remarks there will be a discussion with former Ambassador to the Ukraine Steven Pifer and Lawrence J. Korb, CAP Senior Fellow and former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan. This discussion will be followed by remarks from Secretary Tauscher on U.S. objectives for the upcoming NPT Review Conference.

From minimum wage to safety to equal opportunity protections, U.S. Department of Labor regulations affect the lives of every working American. The Obama administration has taken a different approach from one that allowed some employers and other regulated entities to circumvent the rules that make our workplaces safe, healthy, and equitable. On April 26, the DOL will release its agenda to increase transparency, protect workers and responsible business owners, and prevent workplace violations.

Through its regulatory agenda and nonregulatory initiatives, the Department of Labor is aiming to change the culture of compliance so that employers and others in the department’s regulated communities understand that the burden is on them to obey the law, not on the DOL to catch them violating the law. Please come April 29 to hear top DOL officials discuss this agenda.

The Great Recession has deepened a long-term trend (briefly reversed in the late 1990s) toward a hollowing out of America's middle class, with job growth predominantly at lower and higher incomes and growing wage inequality. Even after the job losses of the recession are erased, a deeper challenge remains: how to create good, well-paid jobs to sustain and grow America's middle class.

Please join The Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress for the first of two conferences addressing the implications of the competitive global economy and rapid technological change for the challenge of creating high-paying jobs in the United States.

It is no secret that most school districts do a poor job of providing meaningful feedback to teachers on their strengths and weaknesses, supporting new and struggling teachers, and dismissing chronically ineffective teachers. Peer Assistance and Review, or PAR, programs are attempting to address many of these shortcomings in a number of districts throughout the country.

Yet at present the PAR programs operate in few districts, and the programs don't serve many teachers in the districts in which they do operate. Should more districts adopt Peer Review and Assistance programs? How can existing programs better meet their intended goals? Join us for a conversation to address these questions and others.

The International Labor Organization estimates at least 12.3 million adults and children are victims of forced labor, bonded labor, and commercial sexual servitude at any given moment. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 established the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the State Department to combat these forms of modern slavery. The TVPA requires an annual assessment of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” and governments’ efforts to assess them.

The 2010 report will be released in June and ranks the United States for the first time. Please join us for a keynote address by Luis CdeBaca, ambassador-at-large for the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, who will preview the forthcoming report. The keynote will be followed by a discussion from a panel of experts who will address a range of issues including the report’s implications for both domestic and foreign policy and to what extent this issue is part of the State Department’s “Smart Power” approach to foreign policy.

Arizona's enactment of the harshest immigration control measure in the country has re-ignited a national debate over comprehensive immigration reform. Opposition to the law has come from across the political and community spectrum—from faith leaders to immigration and civil rights advocates to the leaders of cities and states across the country.

Federal courts have previously found state and local laws similar to Arizona's to be unconstitutional, ruling that only the federal government has the power to regulate immigration. But Congress has not yet acted on comprehensive immigration reform.

What impact would a law similar to Arizona's have on cities, counties, and law enforcement, and how should immigration be addressed? These questions and others will be answered by Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, Arizona, who is currently handling this crisis in his home state; Mayor John DeStefano of New Haven, Connecticut; and Arlington County Board Member Walter Tejada.

EVENT CANCELLED: Due to scheduling conflicts this event has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Our dependence on oil is not sustainable. The United States has only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we use one-quarter of the oil produced annually. One in five barrels of U.S. oil comes from countries that the State Department considers to be "dangerous or unstable." The BP oil disaster is a tragic reminder of the human, economic, and environmental costs of oil dependence. And growing worldwide oil demand—led by China—will put additional upward pressure on oil prices. The United States needs comprehensive clean energy and climate policies that would decrease our dependence on this expensive and unstable commodity.

Please join Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and a panel of experts to discuss the national security, economic, and environmental consequences of our dependence on oil.

American Progress is pleased to present our annual Progressive Party, an evening of celebration in support of our work and our mission and a rededication to our goals and our work on behalf of all Americans.
The Progressive Party is a chance to pay tribute to a year of hard work, acknowledge and assess obstacles to change, and recommit ourselves to a bold and progressive policy agenda.
American Progress hopes to surpass last year's fundraising goal in this critically important year of big challenges and big opportunities, and we need your help.
 

A national dialogue is developing around America's relationship with food. As it moves forward, there is a need to recognize that far too many low-income children simply do not have enough nutritious food to eat. More than 16 million of them live in food insecure households. This threatens the health and well-being of children and generally places great strain on their families.

The Obama administration, with the leadership of Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, has made a commitment to address the problem while Congress is in the process of reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act. These circumstances provide a genuine opportunity for meaningful change. Charitable efforts and other policies aimed at reducing poverty also play an important role in finally achieving the goal of ending childhood hunger in America. This event will mark the release of a new Half In Ten/CAP paper, "Feeding Opportunity: Ending Child Hunger Furthers the Goal of Cutting U.S. Poverty in Half Over the Next Decade."

Work-family conflict is much higher in the United States than elsewhere in the developed world. The typical American middle-income family put in an average of 11 more hours a week in 2006 than it did in 1979. Families increasingly have all adults in the labor force and as a result fully 90 percent of American mothers and 95 percent of American fathers report work-family conflict.

The United States today has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world due to a political impasse. Families across the income spectrum face work-family conflict in different ways, but they all need short-term and extended paid leave, new workplace flexibility rules,  high-quality, affordable childcare and eldercare, and freedom from discrimination based on family responsibilities. Yet, effective political action to reform our workplace rules has been stymied by the great divide among the poor, the professionals, and the missing middle.

Join us in a conversation about the day-in and day-out challenges posed by work-family conflict among families across different classes, communities, and incomes as well as a discussion about the politics of how we can move policymakers on these issues.

Inequity in the distribution of funds within school districts is an open secret. It's open because teacher mobility patterns and experienced-based salary schedules suggest that teachers in low-poverty schools earn higher salaries, on average, than teachers in high-poverty schools. It's secret because budgets and financial reports do not generally reflect actual expenditures.

The lynchpin of this open secret is the practice of pretending for the purposes of budgeting and reporting that all teachers earn the district average salary. The writing may be on the wall for this practice, however, as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 required that states furnish the Department of Education with a school-by-school report of actual expenditures by March 31, 2010.

Please join the Center for American Progress for the release of two new papers: "Lifting the Fog of Averages" describes the motivation, passage, and enforcement of California Senate Bill 687, which promotes transparency around school-level expenditure reporting; and "Comparable, Schmomparable" explores the data made available by the California law. Lively discussion will touch on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

The Center for American Progress and the Progressive Book Club are pleased to announce the next event in the 2010 season of their joint authors series, "Moving Forward: Foundations of a New Progressive Era." The CAP/PBC series is designed to examine a range of issues emerging from the intersection of history, philosophy, political theory, and public policy. Each event features a different topic and authors with live and online audiences debating and discussing raised issues.

Our next talk will feature historian Julian E. Zelizer discussing his new book, Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security--From World War II to the War on Terrorism. In his book, Zelizer shows that partisan fighting has always shaped American foreign policy and the issue of national security has always been part of our domestic conflicts. Based on original archival findings, Arsenal of Democracy offers new insights into nearly every major national security issue since the beginning of the Cold War: from Franklin D. Roosevelt's masterful management of World War II to the partisanship that scarred John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, from Ronald Reagan's fight against Communism to George W. Bush's controversial war on terror.

Click here to purchase the book at a discounted rate when you join the Progressive Book Club.

Copies of Arsenal of Democracy will be available for purchase at the event.

Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office David Kappos will appear at the Center for American Progress to discuss the role of innovation as a principal driver of economic growth and job creation. Harvard Business Review recently described the USPTO as the "biggest job creator you never heard of" because inventions that can spark new businesses are stuck in the backlog of unprocessed patent applications. Under Secretary Kappos will discuss his agenda for reducing the backlog and speeding the delivery of innovative goods and services to market.

President Obama's Strategy for American Innovation identifies innovation as the foundation of sustainable growth and quality jobs. Under Secretary Kappos will discuss intellectual property's emergence as the currency of innovation and the guarantor of America's competitiveness in the global economy.

The Center for American Progress's "Doing What Works" program invites you to an address by Peter R. Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, on government reform and fiscal responsibility.

Antigay legislation in Uganda has prompted a global outcry and heightened attention to the dangers facing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in Africa. As one of the most courageous defenders of LGBT human rights, Anglican Bishop Christopher Senyonjo of Uganda has spoken out against antigay hate legislation in his country and advocated for LGBT rights.

Bishop Gene Robinson is the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. He was elected to the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003 and has worked nationally and internationally for full human rights for all LGBT people. Bishop Robinson worked on HIV prevention and treatment in Uganda in the 1990s and has been a tireless defender of social justice issues.

Please join us for a lively, illuminating conversation between Bishops Robinson and Senyonjo about what is happening in Africa around LGBT issues, including antigay legislation; religious forces that are fueling hatred; and efforts to push back against that hatred and create a beloved community for all people, gay and straight.

Since September 11, 2001, our country has asked the Coast Guard to take on an expanded mission  without providing it with the resources and support needed to accomplish these new tasks. While spending at the Department of Defense has appropriately been compared to a wide-open spigot, the Coast Guard has been asked to do more with less.

The Center for American Progress will release a new report on June 9, 2010, entitled, "Building a Coast Guard for the 21st Century." The report examines the Coast Guard's budget, personnel, command structure, and defense readiness challenges as well as emerging national security issues that will fall within its purview, and it offers recommendations to move the service forward into the 21st century.

Our dependence on oil is not sustainable. The United States has only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we use one-quarter of the oil produced annually. One in five barrels of U.S. oil comes from countries that the State Department considers to be "dangerous or unstable." The BP oil disaster is a tragic reminder of the human, economic, public health, and environmental costs of oil dependence. And growing worldwide oil demand—led by China—will put additional upward pressure on oil prices. The United States needs comprehensive clean energy and climate reform that would decrease our dependence on this expensive and unstable commodity.

Please join Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and a panel of experts to discuss the national security, economic, public health, and environmental consequences of our dependence on oil.

Law.Gov is a national conversation about broader access to primary legal materials in the United States across all three branches of government and across the federal, state, and local governments. It is a series of workshops across the country that started in January at Stanford Law School and has continued on to major law schools, examining the implications of making the law more broadly available. The workshops have examined copyright restrictions, privacy implications, and the technical underpinnings necessary to provide authenticated access to bulk legal materials.

This workshop will be streamed live on the Internet, and video will be posted after the workshop on YouTube and the Internet Archive.

Please note that attendance on site is invitation-only as space is extremely limited. You will be able to observe the workshop via the webcast and Twitter streams.

Passing health care reform legislation was a historic moment, yet success in reform will be defined by greater access to better care for more people. Critical to success is implementation at the hospital level and Cleveland Clinic’s leader Dr. Delos Cosgrove is on the front lines. Ranked as one of the best hospitals in the world, the Cleveland Clinic is famous for controlling costs and delivering care efficiently. Under his leadership, the Cleveland Clinic has instituted rigorous transparency rules, upgraded the quality of care, and kept care affordable, all while expanding the medical center across America and internationally.

Please join the Center for American Progress as Dr. Cosgrove shares his thoughts on delivery reform and the implementation of the health care reform bill.

Neither the mainstream LGBT community nor the mainstream African-American community has found a way to unite behind common issues of concern. While there has been some effort on the part of the organized LGBT community to support issues of importance to the African-American community and vice versa, it has not been sufficient.

This briefing will begin to reframe and broaden the current discourse on this topic, building on the Arcus Foundation’s work on messaging to the African-American community. We will discuss new polling data and other recent research to highlight issues common to black LGBT people and the broader black community, and discuss how more meaningful collaboration can occur to advance a broader equal rights agenda inclusive of LGBT equality.

John D. Podesta of the Center for American Progress, Douglas Holz-Eakin of the American Action Forum, and John F. Harris of POLITICO invite you to join them for a debate on our judiciary.

Elena Kagan's upcoming confirmation fight promises to put not just one Supreme Court nominee in the spotlight, but also the entire federal judiciary. As a Democratic president appears poised to place his second selection on the Supreme Court in just two years, where are the courts headed? Does the recent direction of the Supreme Court represent a corrective to the liberal Warren Court, or are conservative judges succeeding at rewriting modern constitutional law?

Please join us and two experts on the judiciary—former Bush administration Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand and former Clinton administration acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger—for a debate and lively discussion on the philosophical battle for the courts.

Join us on June 23 at 6:30 p.m. as Jeff Madrick and John Cassidy discuss financial reform and how it can help revive the American economy.  Hosted by Demos at 220 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor, in New York. Sign up for details on how to attend in person.

Health insurance reform is critical to making healthcare markets work for consumers. This event focuses on two key reforms, review of rate increases and the creation of exchanges, and how those reforms seek to spur competition and control costs. We will bring together both state and federal regulators, including key enforcers form the Justice Department and HHS, and explore how they will work together in the years to come to make health insurance reforms effective.

Three years ago, nearly to the day, the Senate's effort to overhaul our immigration system died. This event spotlights the unprecedented expansion of immigration enforcement in the intervening years. And it seeks to reconcile that reality with a deeply held perception by Americans that our borders remain broken. Arizona is merely exhibit A of continuing public frustration.

Expert speakers from the current administration, the Bush administration, the Arizona state house, and leading think-tanks will assess the federal government's effort to control illegal migration and chart a path forward. Join us for a lively conversation as they shed light on the facts on the ground in Arizona and the efforts of two administrations to reach the goal of secure borders.

The retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens marks the end of a controversial chapter for the U.S. Supreme Court. A new biography sheds light on the career and life of the second longest serving justice in the court’s modern history. In John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life authors Bill Barnhart and Gene Schlickman reveal how Stevens fights for judicial balance and how his story can guide Obama and future presidents in filling Court vacancies.

Please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion with the authors of this insightful and timely new biography.

In the new issue of Democracy, editor and progressive journalist Michael Tomasky argues that the misreading of history—particularly the New Deal and the Great Society—has produced undue and counterproductive frustration among progressives today that only serves to strengthen conservatives. Please join us for a provocative discussion of the Obama presidency in relation to other progressive eras. 

The public sector – government and its nonprofit partners – is rich enough with talent that it should rival the commercial world for innovations in business models, operational efficiencies and technology. But the absence of a profit motive requires different ways of inspiring great ideas and nurturing the best of them into social transformations that improve the world. Please join the Center for American Progress' Doing What Works project for a presentation and release of two practical new guides, produced in conjunction with the Young Foundation: Capital Ideas: How to Generate Innovation in the Public Sector and Scaling New Heights: How to Spot Small Successes in the Public Sector and Make Them Big.

As the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Solicitor General Elena Kagan get under way, please join us for an enlightening discussion with legal expert Dahlia Lithwick on the intellectual history of "the living Constitution" and its relationship to originalism and other contemporary Court debates. 

Please join us for a discussion on the development and future of the progressive blogosphere with two great practitioners, Amanda Terkel of Think Progress and Tim Fernholz of TAPPED.  We will discuss the relationship between the blogosphere and other media outlets and explore how progressive bloggers are seeking to shape public discourse through investigative journalism, opinion writing, and innovative reporting.

Soon the Senate will have an opportunity to ratify the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, to continue mutual, verifiable nuclear weapons reductions in the U.S. and Russia. Although ratification has widespread bipartisan support among national security experts and military leaders, it is unclear what New START’s fate will be in today’s sharply polarized Senate. Please join us for remarks by former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle on the importance of New START to nuclear stability, global nonproliferation, and America’s international leadership. After his remarks, John Podesta will moderate a conversation on the politics and policy of New START between Sen. Daschle and nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, our Progressivism on Tap event this Wednesday has been canceled.  Many thanks to all who signed up and please look for our fall season starting in late October.

While Washington waits to see if the Senate can pass an energy and climate bill this summer, the world waits as well. A successful global response to the problem of climate change depends on whether the United States shows leadership on this critical issue. If the United States does not pass a climate bill that caps carbon pollution, spurs innovation on clean energy technology, and leverages private capital to assist developing countries to make the transition to a low carbon economy, then a solution to global warming will become more and more difficult. On the other hand, U.S. leadership on the reduction of carbon pollution will jump start a global race to create markets in clean energy technology that will benefit all.

This conference will feature engaging conversations among change leaders such as HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Sen. Mark Warner, and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. We will also release major new public opinion research by Peter D. Hart Research Associates on reforms that might help restore public confidence in government. And we will draw on the knowledge of all conference participants—using an interactive problem-solving methodology called DeepDive—to develop solutions for three current problems in government.

Most states fail to hold teacher preparation programs accountable for producing effective teachers, and students pay the heaviest price. Few states require that teacher preparation programs report on teachers’ impact on student growth, or even their teaching skills. Moreover, states rarely take action to ensure that weak programs improve or are shut down.

This lack of state accountability would not matter so much if these programs were consistently producing excellent teachers. But they aren’t.

What might a state accountability system look like that holds teacher preparation programs accountable for producing effective teachers? Join us for a conversation that explores this question and others. We will be releasing a paper by Edward Crowe that outlines a potential accountability model for teacher preparation programs and will talk with a number of experts on teacher preparation and state policy.

This event has been canceled. We apologize for any inconvenience.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently released final regulations implementing the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act’s significant investment in health information technology through financial incentives and subsequent penalties to accelerate the adoption and optimal use of health IT.

How will health IT in general, and electronic health records in particular, support payment and delivery system reform? How will HHS leverage these new regulations—particularly the emphasis on meaningful use of health IT—to support this goal? And what responsibilities will the physician community need to assume to make this vision a reality?

These questions and others will be explored in a conversation between our panelists.

At a time of consequential economic choices for the country, Secretary Geithner will outline a pro-growth strategy on tax and fiscal policy for the 21st century American economy. Following his remarks, the secretary will engage in conversation with a bipartisan audience.

On the one-year anniversary of the Recovery Act investment of more than $1.35 billion in Michigan's advanced energy storage industry, Governor Jennifer M. Granholm will discuss the strategic development of this sector and how Michigan's move to a clean energy economy is helping to create jobs and attract significant investment in the state.

The second week of August each year is dedicated to recognizing the service and contributions of community health centers, CHCs, around the nation. These health centers have a long history of providing quality health care in underserved communities, but what is less often discussed is the economic benefit and jobs these health centers create for their neighborhoods.

Please join us for a discussion on community health centers’ ongoing economic role in their communities. Panelists will discuss health centers’ experiences serving their communities and how the Recovery Act funding enabled them to expand and enhance services. In a paper to be released at the event, Ellen-Marie Whelan will discuss the impact the additional health center funding from the newly passed Affordable Care Act will have in targeted communities, including how much additional economic activity will be generated and how many new jobs will be created.

Charter schools are quickly becoming a major force in public education, supported in part by the Obama administration’s education agenda. The administration is encouraging states to support the expansion of high-quality charter schools by offering states that lift caps on new charters a chance to win grants from the renowned Race to the Top competition. The administration has also singled out charter schooling as a key strategy to turn around 5,000 of the nation’s most troubled schools.

At the same time, Latinos and English language learners, or ELLs, make up an increasing share of the nation’s school-aged children. They are also disproportionately concentrated in the schools targeted by the administration’s school turnaround efforts. Charter schools that take on this challenge of turning around schools will therefore inevitably have to consider how they are going to improve the educational outcomes of Latino and ELL students in these schools.

Join us for a discussion about the role—both current and future—that charter schools have in the education of Latinos and ELLs. A new report by the Center for American Progress and the National Council of La Raza will launch the discussion. We will examine how both the large growth of the Latino and ELL student population and the potential expansion of charter schools will influence the educational landscape, and hear from two high-performing charter schools that have been recognized for their Latino and ELL achievement.

Education policymakers and reform advocates increasingly expect state governments to provide specialized assistance and support to districts and schools, especially those with the lowest levels of student performance. To fulfill this role, they must develop wise policies and operate effective programs. Yet it is quite clear that most state officials are not yet ready to execute the responsibilities that reformers have envisioned for them. Despite this, state education agency responsibilities have become clearer than ever. Among other things, they must operate a greatly expanded, several billion dollar program of federal funds to turn around low-performing schools.

Please join us as we examine the issue of state assistance to low-performing school districts. We will be releasing a paper by William Slotnik that analyzes state education agency efforts to date and recommends they use three levers for change—educational, organizational, and political—that if used together can achieve better results for students.

The Obama administration has mapped out an enhanced partnership with Pakistan that addresses Pakistan’s greatest development challenges, supports Pakistan’s democratic institutions, and assists Pakistan in battling militants. Despite this renewed U.S. commitment to Pakistan, little progress is apparent thus far on the ground.

Please join the Center for American Progress for an informative discussion on U.S. policy toward Pakistan, military-civilian dynamics in Pakistan, efforts underway by the Pakistani military and civilian government to root out militancy, and the disparities between the civilian and military responses to the floods. Panelists will discuss the Obama administration’s strategy toward Pakistan and what the United States can do to support Pakistan’s democracy and struggle against militancy.

Click here to watch the event live.

John D. Podesta of the Center for American Progress, Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum, and Jim Tankersley of the National Journal invite you to join us for a debate on policy responses to the U.S. budget deficit.

The previous decade began with record budget surpluses but ended mired in red ink, with larger deficits projected far into the future. With the economy now headlining public debate in Washington, progressives and conservatives are of very different minds on how and when to address our current and long-term fiscal challenges. As midterm elections and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts approach, what should policymakers do to help bring the federal balance sheet back towards the black?

Please join us as John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, engage in lively discussion and debate on a sensible solution for U.S. fiscal policy.

The Center for American Progress will feature a panel discussion around the book Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter by Joan C. Williams, founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. The revolution in gender roles has stalled—in the United States, women's workforce participation and men's household contributions both leveled off in the 1990s. Jumpstarting that revolution, Williams argues, requires opening up a national conversation about gender pressures on men. One key is to understand how men's identities are intertwined with the mandate of work devotion. Is this mandate required by competitive economic pressures, or is it the contemporary equivalent of the joust—a ritual that enables men to prove who is a "real" man?

Please watch the live webcast here.

Join Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree as he discusses his new book, The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates and Race, Class and Crime in America, with Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Sam Fulwood III. The book highlights some of the perplexing issues that drew public scrutiny last year after Cambridge Police Officer James Crowley arrested Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. The arrest sparked countless private and public debates about the lingering impact of race on American society. The cacophony of conversations even engulfed President Obama, who felt compelled to invite the professor and the policeman to a highly publicized White House "beer summit."

In the immediate aftermath of the Crowley-Gates indicident, Ogletree provided counsel to Gates, his friend and colleague. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ogletree was a senior advisor to his former law student and current president of the United States. Now, drawing upon an insider's knowledge of both men and vast experience as a criminal law and race law professor, Ogletree's new book places the Gates arrest and resulting fallout into a context framed by the nation's complicated racial and legal history. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing during the event.

TIME CHANGE: This event will now begin at 12:30 p.m. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Two months before the 2008 presidential election, Alan Khazei capped a 25-year career as a social entrepreneur by persuading Barack Obama and John McCain to appear together on national television to agree that national service was good for America. With their backing, he helped frame the Edward M. Kennedy Service Act, which was signed into law within 100 days of Obama's inauguration—an extraordinary example of effectiveness in action.

In Big Citizenship, Khazei shares his experiences founding and growing his City Year program, saving AmeriCorps, and creating the new national campaign called ServiceNation, offering inspiration as well as practical advice. He addresses how to balance private and public funding, work with all levels of government, build bipartisan support on even the most contentious issues, attract volunteers, and get young people involved.

For social entrepreneurs, activists, idealists, community leaders, politicians, and donors who support not-for-profit organizations, Khazei's story demonstrates not just how to fight for what you believe in, but how to turn ideals into effective institutions that make the world a better place.

On the six-month anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, much has already been accomplished: the Department of Health and Human Services has launched a new high-risk pool program, implemented a reinsurance fund for companies that provide retiree coverage, and provided financial help to more than 1 million Medicare beneficiaries with high prescription drug expenses. Additional components of the new health reform law will come on-line this month, and further steps are anticipated in the near future.

The cohort of health insurance experts who will join us helped shape these initiatives in their role as consumer representatives and staff to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion with many of these representatives to examine why these new protections matter to millions of Americans, and what further steps will be needed to make sure they work.

Registration for this event is now closed. Please watch the live webcast here.

Submit a question to the panelists by posting to CAP's Facebook page, posting on Twitter with the hashtag #ccce, or sending an email to creativeeconomy@americanprogress.org.

The industries that make up the creative economy are a source of pride and global influence and a major engine of American growth at home and abroad. Keeping these industries and those who work in them creating and growing is important to the economic health of America and for job creation. They are a vital source of the creativity and innovation that is central to our society in the 21st century.

Join us for a discussion about the role—both current and future—that the creative economy has in fueling the American economy, our global competitiveness, and the creation of good jobs. The panel will be asked what steps policymakers can take to ensure that Americans gain the economic benefits, in jobs and growth, from the invention and entertainment for which America is world renowned.

Community schools exist in districts across the country and utilize a variety of partnerships and services. Yet many consider community schools to be a strategy that only works in urban areas. In fact, rural community schools exist and can advantage rural students in many significant ways. Likewise, while most community schools keep the building open longer than traditional schools, few community schools have formally extended the length of the school day for all students.

Join us for a discussion on two new ways to develop and grow community schools—as a rural education strategy and through the use of expanded learning time. The Center for American Progress will release two new papers on these topics. The papers and event will encourage policymakers and advocates to consider ways that the community school strategy can be applied in settings not traditionally associated with the model.

Join state and local policymakers, members of the Obama administration, and leaders from the business, academic, and philanthropic sectors for a conversation about the significance of regional innovation clusters to the future of the American economy.

Hear from CEOs and regional leaders who are leveraging the power of clusters—networks of interconnected, geographically concentrated businesses, and related actors in the same industries—to boost entrepreneurship and job growth. Also learn about new directions in federal policy aimed at tapping the potential of clusters to enhance regional and national economic performance.

With the passage of two key political milestones—the August 31 withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq and Afghanistan’s September 18 parliamentary elections—please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion about U.S. leadership, the reliability of partners, and the role and utility of multilateral institutions. Our panelists will address how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have impacted the legitimacy and effectiveness of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, whether multilateral institutions are becoming more or less relevant in the promotion of U.S. national security, and how President Obama's aspirational references to international engagement and partnering play out in practice.

Over the last decade, Hezbollah has reshaped security and political dynamics in Lebanon and the broader Middle East as part of the self-proclaimed “axis of resistance” that includes Iran, Syria, and Hamas.

In his new book, A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Endless War Against Israel, veteran Middle East correspondent Thanassis Cambanis offers the first detailed look at the surprising cross section of people who are willing to die for this movement’s apocalyptic beliefs.

Please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion on Hezbollah’s role in the Middle East, the challenge it poses to U.S. policy goals in the region, and the likelihood and potential fallout of another war with Israel. Elliott Abrams, deputy national security advisor handling Middle East affairs in the George W. Bush administration, will comment on the book and on Hezbollah's evolving regional role and its impact on U.S. national security.

The U.S.-Mexico border has become a symbol in the increasingly overheated debate about immigration. From a distance the border looks like a dividing line. In fact, it's a binational region, and for millions of Americans and Mexicans it is home.

Tyche Hendricks, author of The Wind Doesn't Need a Passport: Stories from the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, brings a fresh perspective to one of the most debated and least understood places. Reporting from emergency rooms and factory floors, farm kitchens and jail cells, Hendricks met American and Mexican ranchers, physicians, police, and naturalists whose lives intersect at the border. She argues that a better understanding of the region—and the way the United States and Mexico are connected there—is essential if policymakers are to reach lasting solutions that benefit both countries.

Join us for a conversation featuring Tyche Hendricks and Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan about the dynamics at play in the borderlands today and their implications for immigration policy and the future of U.S.-Mexico relations.

One of the most serious threats to American security comes from anti-Muslim hate speech within our borders that portrays America as at war with Islam. Such hate speech is on the rise and puts at risk American troops overseas, as well as our security at home. Anti-Muslim hate speech also ignores the truth. In reality, Muslim Americans are an integral part of American society, and their contributions are key to our nation's well-being.

What forces are behind the spike in anti-Muslim hate speech and what is their goal? What are civic and faith communities doing to combat this dangerous trend? What are the global consequences of Islamophobia? How do we change the narrative? Please join our distinguished panel for a lively enlightening conversation on these issues.

The goal of the CoolClimate Art Contest is to engage the artistic community in creating iconic images that address the impact of climate change and spur participation in the climate change debate. Artists were reached through national partnerships with nonprofit environmental and art organizations and a web platform (deviantArt) that reaches 13.8 million artists. Finalists were selected by the following judges:

• Jackson Browne (musician)
• Chevy & Jayni Chase (comedian and philanthropist)
• Mel Chin (artist)
• Dianna Cohen (artist)
• Philippe Cousteau (ecologist)
• Agnes Gund (art collector and advocate)
• Van Jones (environmental activist)
• David Ross (art expert)
• Carrie Mae Weems (artist)

At this special event for environmental and art leaders, the CoolClimate Art Contest winners will be announced in conjunction with a lively discussion about how the arts are a vibrant tool for social change and how the winning CoolClimate Art images can help advance public awareness about climate change.

The winners were selected by public voting on the Huffington Post.

The Center for American Progress, with support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, held a private reception at the residence of the Norwegian Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Wegger Strømmen, to celebrate the launch of the Just Jobs program.

The Just Jobs program, housed within the Center for American Progress, examines ways to extend the benefits of economic integration and trade to all of the workers who power the global economy through the creation of jobs complete with labor rights, social protection such as health care and pensions, appropriate remuneration, and opportunities for economic mobility.

Job creation is central to recovering from the global economic crisis and to rebalancing the global economy toward sustainable economic growth and development. A jobless recovery is not a real recovery. Cultivating aggregate demand and shifting economies from an export-led model of growth to one that is led more by domestic consumption is critical to putting the global economy back on track. Creating jobs—just jobs—and addressing labor market issues are key to this effort.

As developed countries such as the United States struggle with joblessness and their own set of economic challenges it is hard to make the case for supporting these efforts in developing countries. But the health of developed economies and the sustainability of their growth is contingent on promoting rising living standards in other countries. Developed and developing countries are now deeply intertwined, and the global economic recovery and its continued health depend on building strong and stable economies worldwide—not just within our own borders.

Cell phones, smart phones, and other mobile devices are increasingly an essential part of Americans' everyday lives. But as minutes, messages, and megabytes quickly add up, avoiding "bill shock"—a sudden, unexpected increase in your monthly mobile bill—can be a challenge. One in six mobile users—30 million Americans—have experienced bill shock, and more than half those consumers saw an increase of $50 or more.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will join Sarah Rosen Wartell from the Center for American Progress to discuss his consumer agenda, including the proactive steps that the agency is taking to empower consumers with simple solutions for avoiding bill shock. At the event, the chairman will outline the findings of a new FCC paper on bill shock and hear directly from consumers who have experienced an unexpected increase in their mobile bills. The Center for America Progress's Doing What Works program seeks to find ways that government can embrace new technologies to achieve their objectives, such as empowering consumers to make smart choices.

Next year Congress is scheduled to reauthorize legislation that includes Temporary Assistance For Needy Families as well as programming that more directly targets the needs of fathers. Initiated under the George W. Bush administration, the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage programs received some criticism focused on their potential impact on women. Since that time, President Obama has offered some recommendations for reform and progressives are increasingly recognizing the potential of fatherhood programs to not only help men but also women and families.

This event will mark the release of a new CAP and Center for Family Policy & Practice paper that highlights ways in which fatherhood policy can benefit mothers. A panel of experts will offer their thoughts on the paper along with general insights into the current state of the debate and future possibilities for reform.

The Center for American Progress and the Alzheimer's Association invite you to attend a forum on the impact Alzheimer's has on families, the economy, caregivers, and especially women. The panel coincides with the Alzheimer's Association and First Lady of California Maria Shriver's October 15 release of The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's, the largest study ever conducted to look at the effect of Alzheimer's disease on American women as people with the disease, caregivers, and breadwinners.

The report comes on the heels of the 2009 Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything, conducted in partnership with the Center for American Progress, that examined the historical trending of women into the workforce and the failure and opportunity of government, business, and media to adapt to how families live and work today.

EVENT FULL: This event is now full and we can no longer accept RSVPs. Please watch the live webcast here.

The requirements for obtaining a teaching license in most states do not ensure that teachers are prepared to be successful in the classroom. Moreover, the requirements are different for every state, inhibiting teacher mobility and failing to provide a common standard of excellence for the teaching profession.

One potential approach for raising the bar for licensure and creating a common standard for entry into the profession is the performance assessment.

Yet the concept of a performance assessment as a gateway to licensure is in its infancy. Will it differentiate among teachers in ways that teacher evaluation systems have failed to do? Will it inform teacher preparation and professional development? Join us for a conversation with practitioners, researchers, and policymakers that have been involved in this effort. We will be releasing a paper by Linda Darling-Hammond that discusses the ways in which teacher performance assessments can be used to strengthen licensure, teacher preparation, and instructional practice.

Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large for The American Prospect and columnist for The Washington Post, will discuss the labor movement in America. What is the current state of labor in the United States and what prospects does it have for a revival in the future?

Progressivism on Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.

With its Russia policy "reset," the Obama administration is increasingly turning its attention to the former Soviet states of Eurasia, although questions linger about U.S. strategy in the region. Following an initial focus on ensuring the Eurasian states' independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the past decade saw U.S. policy toward these countries devolve, becoming mired in outright U.S-Russia strategic competition. Although that competitive dynamic has diminished significantly over the past year and a half, a coherent alternative—that is, a clear articulation of U.S. interests, capacities, and policy objectives in the region—remains elusive.

Please join the Center for American Progress for an event featuring leading experts and former U.S. government officials to discuss this important set of issues. The event builds on a recent article for Foreign Affairs by Charap and Petersen entitled, "Reimagining Eurasia."

A resurgent right wing is using "values," especially religious values, to attempt to undermine progressive policies on the economy, the environment, national security, and more. Now more than ever, it is important to have a clear analysis of how these reactionary messages are conveyed in the digital age, and to develop powerful, religiously insightful, and positive alternatives.

An innovative new book by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite does just that. Dreaming of Eden: American Religion and Politics in a Wired World develops “public theology,” using the images and stories in our Internet-driven culture as the “stuff” of theology. Religion is rooted in the deep stories we tell, and now we tell them in cyberspace. Dreaming of Eden reveals their digital religious meanings, critiquing some for sabotaging justice and peace, and proposing others to advance a progressive message.

The book exposes the conservative-driven temptation to "escape to innocence" and shows progressives how they can develop and "use emotionally laden, wisdom images that can ‘go viral’ because of the multiplication effect of the digital age."

Please join in a conversation between Susan Thistlethwaite and Jacques Berlinerblau on this controversial and timely subject.

Copies of Dreaming of Eden: American Religion and Politics in a Wired World will be available for sale at the event.

EVENT FULL: This event is now full and we can no longer accommodate RSVPs. A recording of the event will be available here.

John D. Podesta of the Center for American Progress, Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum, and Al Hunt of Bloomberg News invite you to join us for a debate on foreign policy and the U.S. strategic approach toward Iran.

Iran lies at the center of a geopolitical hotspot. Situated between Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Iran controls vast oil reserves, a sizable military force, and most notably a robust uranium enrichment program. The country has been the target of international sanctions for decades and protests in 2009 revealed deep dissatisfaction among Iranians with their government. Should the United States continue international pressure and increased sanctions against Iran or focus on a military solution? Can an Iranian nuclear weapon be prevented? What role should America play in the transition to a peaceful Iranian democracy?

Please join us as Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and Reuel Marc Gerecht, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, engage in lively discussion and debate on a sensible foreign policy solution to Iran.

Heather Boushey, Senior Economist at CAP, will discuss the increasing role of women in the U.S. workforce and the need for more flexible and responsive workplace policies.

Progressivism on Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.

The Obama administration has set an aggressive goal for the United States to retake global leadership in postsecondary degree attainment by 2020. The president's goals will require the highly decentralized system of 4,600 college and universities to increase productivity dramatically.

The concentration of population and economic resources in metropolitan regions makes them engines of America's competitiveness, but many metros cross state boundaries, creating inefficiencies in terms of increased tuition costs, difficulty of transfer and even duplication of fixed costs as states compete for higher education supremacy. Policies that help ease the college-going of metro residents can also help reduce the costs and increase effectiveness of postsecondary education.

Jonathan Chait, senior editor at The New Republic where he writes their TRB column as well as his own blog, will join us for a post-election wrap-up and lessons for progressives going forward.

Progressivism on Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.
 

Throughout history, art has been used to advance discourse on political and social issues. How do artists engage contemporary political and social issues? How is political work developed and incubated? Join the Center for American Progress and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Art's festival "On the Fringe: Eye on Edinburgh" and the Explore the Arts program as artists and policymakers discuss the role of the arts in the political process.

Long an important U.S. ally, and located at a key geographic and economic juncture between Europe and the Middle East, recent changes in Turkey and positions taken by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan have raised a number of questions about Turkey’s role in the region and the nature of the future U.S.-Turkey relationship. Is Turkey’s newly assertive posture the result of democratic changes and adoption of vigorous free-market principles? Has Turkey chosen to align itself with the "East" over the "West," as some have suggested? What are the implications of Turkey’s impressive economic growth, both for Turkey’s domestic politics and for its foreign policy?

Please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion of these questions.

John Atlas, president of the National Housing Institute and author of Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN, America's Most Controversial Anti-Poverty Community Group, and Steve Kest, Senior Fellow at CAP and former executive director of ACORN, will discuss the history and the future of community organizing. This is a special joint event with the Progressive Book Club.    

Progressivism on Tap is a lecture and discussion series from the Progressive Studies Program at the Center for American Progress, focused on the history and intellectual traditions of progressivism and liberalism.

The federal government can save between $25 billion and $54 billion a year by changing the way it buys goods and services, according to a new analysis from the Center for American Progress.

But reforming a $500 billion annual acquisition system is a massively complex problem. To put the challenge in perspective, Dr. Ashton Carter of the Defense Department and Anne Rung of the Commerce Department will share their perspectives on promising initiatives being pursued by the Obama administration.

CAP's "Doing What Works" project will release Visiting Fellow Raj Sharma's new analysis, which distills a comprehensive procurement-reform agenda into 10 proven strategies. Please join us for what promises to be a lively discussion.

U.S. economic policymakers face the extraordinary challenge of restoring a recession-ravaged economy while simultaneously re-engineering it to thrive in a world of unprecedented global competition. The path forward toward both ends requires unrelenting focus on what then-Senator Obama called in 2008: "...new policies that create the jobs and opportunities of the future—a competitiveness agenda built upon education and energy, innovation and infrastructure, fair trade, and reform."

But are the executive and legislative branches organized well to produce and execute on a coherent strategy? How do America's competitors get the job done? How might the President structure policymaking to ensure a coherent and coordinated strategy for long-term, broadly shared prosperity and drive its effective implementation?

On December 1, the Center for American Progress will release a paper urging the federal government to rethink how it develops and coordinates competitiveness policy. We hope you will join us for what promises to be a lively and provocative discussion with those who have held key roles in government and those who seek to influence them on competitiveness policy.

EVENT FULL: This event is now full and we can no longer accept RSVPs. Please watch the live webcast here.

Military-to-military dialogue between the United States and China has resumed once again after a series of disagreements in 2010 that demonstrated the volatile, “start-stop-restart” nature of the U.S.-China military relationship. Ahead lay the continued challenges of the North Korean nuclear program, international sanctions on Iran, and freedom of navigation in the South China Seas that stress the need for sustained and reliable dialogue that can bring the U.S.-China military relationship to levels consistent with other areas of U.S.-China relations.

Please join the Center for American Progress as it hosts distinguished guest Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will offer his perspectives on the future of U.S.-China military relations. The event will be moderated by Rudy deLeon, Senior Vice President of the Center for American Progress, and David Finkelstein, vice president and director of China studies at CNA.

There is much agreement about the need to rethink the way decisions are made about the teacher workforce. Currently many decisions such as granting tenure, laying off teachers, and determining compensation are made with little regard to a teacher’s impact on student learning. So these actions, instead of rewarding effective teachers and enhancing the profession, do little to improve the quality of the teaching force.

Yet, spurred in part by competitive federal programs such as the Race to the Top initiative, a growing number of states and districts are beginning to incorporate measures of student performance into human capital policies. What kinds of measures of student performance could be used and are being used and what do we know about them? How can these measures inform workforce decisions about teachers in ways that encourage effective instruction? Join us for a conversation with expert researchers and practitioners that addresses these questions and others. We will be releasing two papers to launch our discussion. One paper, by Dan Goldhaber, examines the potential for using value added measures to inform teacher workforce decisions. The other paper, by Jennifer Steele, Laura Hamilton, and Brian Stecher, examines how a variety of measures of student performance are being incorporated into teacher evaluations.

With more than 15 million Americans still unemployed, job creation remains the central economic issue facing U.S. policymakers. Beyond these near-term cyclical challenges, however, lie deeper structural issues in the labor market that have been developing over the last three decades and were reaching urgent levels even before the Great Recession. As the economy begins to recover, policymakers must also turn their attention to the long-term goal of remaining economically competitive in a rapidly changing global economy.

On December 3, The Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress will host the second of two conferences addressing the long-term challenges of creating quality jobs in the United States and preparing American workers for those jobs of the future. As part of the event, The Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress will release three targeted policy proposals by outside scholars to deal with the long-term challenges associated with the new global economy. Following each panel discussion, the conversation will be open to audience questions.

Abortion policy in this country does not treat all women equally. The Hyde Amendment prohibits Medicaid, the federal health care program for the poor and indigent, from covering abortion care in almost all circumstances. Most people think of abortion as a “woman’s issue,” which of course it is. But the Hyde Amendment intentionally discriminates against poor women, who are disproportionately women of color. In this way, it is also an issue of basic civil rights and economic justice. Anyone who cares about fighting racism and poverty must realize that attacks on abortion, and especially on abortion funding, are first and foremost attacks on poor and low-income women of color.

Please join CAP’s Women’s Health & Rights and Progress 2050 programs for an engaging conversation about the impacts of the Hyde Amendment on women of color and a discussion of why progressives committed to economic and racial justice should be part of the fight to repeal it, as we release a new report on this topic.

EVENT FULL: This event is now full and we can no longer accept RSVPs. Please watch the live webcast here.

In advance of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s upcoming visit to Washington, please join the Center for American Progress as it hosts Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, who will offer his perspectives on the critical relationship between the United States and China. The event will be moderated by John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress.

EVENT FULL: This event is now full and we can no longer accept RSVPs. Please watch the live webcast here.

The United States and China are engaged in a critical economic and strategic exchange that will have wide-reaching implications for the American people and for the world. How can the two countries work together in partnership to tackle future global challenges while addressing important concerns at home? What are the prospects for future collaboration? What are the major challenges?

Please join the Center for American Progress as it hosts Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who will offer his perspectives on the strategic relationship between the United States and China. The event will be moderated by Rudy deLeon, Senior Vice President at the Center.

Luis Argueta, critically acclaimed director of The Silence of Neto, presents abUSed: The Postville Raid, the full-length documentary that tells the story of the most brutal, most expensive, and one of the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE raids in the history of the United States. By weaving together the personal stories of the individuals, the families, and the town directly affected by the events of May 12, 2008, the film presents the human face of the issue of immigration reform and serves as a cautionary tale against abuses of constitutional human rights.

Please join the Center for American Progress for a provocative discussion immediately following the film.

The global economy today is inexorably intertwined—for better or for worse. This fact is driven home to workers worldwide by the recent global financial crisis, the ensuing global economic slump, and the subsequent efforts by governments to recharge their economies. But facing political pressures to "do something" about the widespread job losses, governments are tending to insular policies that impede economic integration and trade. This is cause for deep concern because economic globalization has come with a significant legacy of growth that can promote broadly shared prosperity and contribute to economic development. The Just Jobs Program at the Center for American Progress explores how to extend the benefits of globalization to all workers who power the global economy.

As part of the Just Jobs Program, the Center for American Progress is initiating a network of international think tanks and institutions that will undertake a periodic analysis of global employment policies and labor markets. The Just Jobs Network will be a platform for members to share knowledge and experiences and to strategize collectively to garner attention and international momentum behind the creation of just jobs as a necessary means to make economic integration and trade work better for more people.

In fall 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Measures of Effective Teaching, or MET, project to develop and test multiple measures of teacher effectiveness. The goal of the MET project is to improve the quality of information about teaching effectiveness available to education professionals within states and districts—information that will help them build fair and reliable systems for teacher evaluation and address teacher recruitment, training, professional development, and compensation challenges.

Please note: This was a private event.

How can the integration of health care financing and health care delivery across Medicare and Medicaid improve care and reduce costs for this important population? Under what circumstances should these new opportunities move forward to implementation? What are some of the other ways states can improve care for this population? Please join us for a discussion of these and other questions related to improving care for dual eligibles.
 

The Affordable Care Act makes Medicare the engine for achieving systemwide reform through initiation of and experimentation with alternative payment designs—in particular, Accountable Care Organizations and, through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, complementary initiatives to integrate health care.  The success of health care reform will depend heavily on the choices made in defining the law's new policy tools. Will payment reforms be designed around hospital systems or will they encourage new forms of integration among physicians and other health care providers? Will payment incentives limit payment for costs above expectations in addition to rewarding costs that are below expectations? What rights and responsibilities will consumers have in a system where providers are paid on a bundled-care basis and rewarded for more efficient care?

Please join us for a discussion of these and other questions related to implementing the Affordable Care Act's new mechanisms for promoting better care at lower costs.