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France should export a warning, not its tax ideas

French economist Gabriel Zucman has come to California bearing a familiar French solution to a fiscal problem: another tax. Once based at the University of California, Berkeley, Zucman is back and campaigning for Proposition 40, which would impose an allegedly one-time 5% tax on the net worth of Californians worth more than $1 billion. Zucman, who coauthored the proposition, estimates that the tax could raise about $100 billion and claims that 90% of the proceeds would go to health care. The California Legislative Analyst’s office is far more cautious, saying it would raise only ...

Students take up to 88 standardized tests before high school, but more testing doesn’t improve learning

The public K-12 school system in the United States has become pervasively shaped by standardized testing. I began teaching mathematics in 2005, four years after the federal law No Child Left Behind was enacted. This law expanded state testing and tied test results to school performance. Most districts changed their curricula to focus more on the content and skills covered on state tests. Many school districts increased their instructional weekly time for English and mathematics, with average increases of 47% for English and 37% for mathematics from 2001 to 2007. To make room for ...

Dear Annie: New city, new heart

Dear Annie: My girlfriend, “Lucy,” and I started dating three years ago, during our senior year of college. After graduating, we both got jobs in the same city where we had gone to school, and we ended up moving in together to save money. Living together was surprisingly easy, as we’re both pretty low-maintenance people. Anyway, Lucy is a good partner. She’s always encouraged me to push myself to pursue my passions. She’s the reason I ended up applying to a dream job even though it was across the country. I never thought I’d actually end up landing it. But I did. I moved ...

Antique Halloween candy labels can command surprising premiums

The origins of trick-or-treating are not entirely certain. Countries throughout Europe have had traditions of costumed revelers traveling from house to house and receiving treats since at least the Middle Ages. Ancient Roman Saturnalia festivals, medieval European mummers’ plays, cakes given ...

What Americans can learn from the French protests

On Monday, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez admitted that police have “lost control” as some cities continue to see massive waves of looting and mayhem. Social media brims with images of stores being ransacked, cars burning, and mask-wearing goons running wild. In Limoges, the beautiful Hotel de Ville was burnt to the ground. But the chaos, as is so often the case, began peacefully. And many supporters and leaders of the protests have condemned the violence. I think that violence has more to do with France’s miserable record of assimilating immigrants from North Africa ...

Our failed Constitution

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) The U.S. Constitution was ratified to create and to restrain the government. It established boundaries beyond which the government may not venture, even when it invokes national security, public order, economic necessity, emergency or the will of a popular majority. Its purpose is not to make government more powerful but to keep the government off the people’s backs. By that measure, the American Constitution is a failure. Formally, the document ...