This report is the culmination of a year-long effort to study the efficiency of the nation's public education system and includes the first-ever attempt to evaluate the productivity of almost every major school district in the country. In the business world, the notion of productivity describes the benefit received in exchange for effort or money expended. Our project examines the academic achievement a school district produces relative to its educational spending, while controlling for factors outside a district's control, such as cost of living and students in poverty.

Our aim for this project is to kick start a national conversation about educational productivity and encourage states and districts to embrace approaches that make it easier to improve achievement and sustain educational efficiencies. Join us for a conversation about this groundbreaking report. We will talk with the researchers who created the report as well as with other experts in the area of school productivity.

Jobs, jobs, jobs; as the nation’s unemployment rate seems unable to move far from the 10 percent mark, many are asking where the jobs will be in the next decade. The answer—for a multitude of reasons—seems to be in health care. The shortages in many health professions make the imperative to focus on preparing workers for the health field even stronger.

Colleges and universities will be key players in meeting the needs in the health care professions and we should be fostering growth in health care education. For-profit schools have emerged as new and growing players in the education scene. But for a strong workforce ready to address the current and impending shortage, we need graduates with high-quality educations who choose to work in high-demand fields. That’s why it is important to understand the role that for-profit colleges play in training health care professionals and the quality of the services they provide.

For-profit colleges claim to be playing an important role in training the health care workers of tomorrow. But who are they training? Are students receiving a quality education from these schools?

Please join us for a discussion of these and other questions related to the role of for-profit colleges in training the health care workforce.

The Affordable Care Act provides an opportunity to create integrated, cost effective, high quality health care systems for Medicare recipients—and eventually all Americans—through the creation of Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs. One of the most challenging questions facing ACOs is how to provide integration without sacrificing competition and the decreased cost and increased quality it produces. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice have already been carefully scrutinizing these issues. Will some ACOs threaten competition and eventually raise costs for consumers? To what extent can ACOs overcome the barriers set up by current antitrust regulation? How should the lessons from health care reform educate the role of antitrust enforcement and regulation? How should we approach health care antitrust issues in an era of ACOs?

Please join us for a discussion of these and other questions related to implementing the Accountable Care Act in a way that enhances competition, provides better care, and lowers costs.

EVENT POSTPONED: Due to inclement weather this event has been postponed to a future date. We apologize for any inconvenience.

On Thursday, January 27, 2011, the Center for American Progress will host a discussion that explores politicians’ recent promises to restore civility to policy debates, and delves into the harm caused by heated rhetoric on Capitol Hill and across the United States.

Too often, immigrants, Muslim Americans, gays and lesbians, African Americans, Arab Americans, and others are portrayed as alien and dangerous to our democracy and society. Such bombasts inflame a toxic political environment and thwart pragmatic policy solutions. The assassination attempt against Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords jarred the political class, forcing public officials to commit to more comity across political party lines. Yet a return to their legislative arenas reminded them that past attempts at civility failed because compromising on contentious issues is seen as political weakness rather than a statesmanly reach for solutions.

Panelists will challenge the stereotypes against whole groups of people, provide historical perspectives of current attempts to restore civility, and suggest how to move forward on unresolved issues.