This is the season of generational twaddle. At graduation ceremonies across the country, politicians, authors, actors, and businessmen take to the stage to tell young people they are fantastic simply because they are young. This year, the ritual is more pathetic than usual because there’s a presidential election in the offing.

One year after the Fukushima disaster, nuclear energy policy is moving in two opposite directions. While much of the world, led by Germany, is embracing caution and winding down nuclear energy ambitions, the US, Britain, France and Russia are poised to boost their nuclear estate.

As Congress looks for ways to balance the budget and reduce the national debt, large cuts to their own compensation should be given serious consideration.

In 2008 Barack Obama carried voters under age 30 by a 66%-32% margin, according to the exit poll. In contrast, he carried voters 30 and over by only 50%-49%. But it doesn’t look like the Millennials are still 2-1 Democratic, at least to judge from two recent polls conducted in late November and early December.

What is the outlook for renewable energy in electricity generation--particularly wind and solar power--as a substitute for such conventional fuels as coal and natural gas?

Sponsored by AEI's Program on American Citizenship, Frederick M. Hess, AEI's director of education policy studies; Meira Levinson, associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; and David E. Campbell, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, have commissioned leading researchers and scholars to explore the issues of citizenship and schooling by looking at domestic and international data, teacher training, and schools and classrooms.