Word: progressives
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...intelligence community seems to share that assessment. While still a "work in progress," the National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan, due out after the U.S. elections, portrays a country on a "downward spiral," says a Pentagon official who was briefed about the report. The key reasons: a revitalized Taliban, inadequate U.S. and NATO forces, the funds generated for the Taliban by narcotics, and a government so consumed by corruption and inefficiency that it cannot offer a reasonable alternative to the insurgents...
There has been progress, of course. More Afghan children are in school today than at any other time in the nation's history, and the private sector is growing. But such good news is easily undermined by the increasing insecurity and Afghanistan's rampant corruption. Ashraf Ghani, a former Finance Minister, says his nation has reached a fork in the road. "It is not inevitable that we go to that downward spiral," he says. "If we take the right road, we can get to the destination of a stable and eventually prosperous Afghanistan...
...progress in Iraq is fragile and easily reversed. And it will be a shame, after going so far, to just turn around and let it collapse, because a collapse in Iraq is not just a collapse in Iraq. It could lead to a Middle East that looks like Iraq now,” Scowcroft said...
...teach to the test, but of letting - or perhaps even encouraging - struggling students to drop out before they can lower average test scores. But Spellings is trying to address this problem with new regulations that will set a uniform graduation rate so that a high school's annual progress will now be measured both by how students perform on standardized tests and by how many of them graduate within four years...
...Although high schools are currently required to meet graduation targets each year, states have been setting the bar for improvement, a system that has led to a lot of variation across the country. The Education Trust report found that in half of states, even the tiniest bit of progress was deemed sufficient. In a few states, simply not doing worse than the previous year was good enough. "A 50% graduation rate holding steady should not be viewed as progress by anyone," says Daria Hall, assistant director for K-12 policy development at the Education Trust. "We obviously need more reliable...