How's the US education system performing relative to other countries? How can we improve our own performance?

There are many opinions and narratives about what to do, and in this episode, Xander and Erik dive into the data to understand which hold water, and which are swept away by facts.

Sources

Many of our sources are in our companion articles, which are linked below:

More than a decade after the 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida, the litigation following the 2016 presidential election demonstrated that our electoral system is still not equipped to confront challenges and uncertainties. Five states saw petitions for recounts, but only one state (Wisconsin) conducted a full recount.

"Regardless of your party or political beliefs, the need for transparency is an issue that unites us all. Let’s continue our work to ensure our government remains of, by and for the people.” - U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

Saturday's Tax March brought out thousands around the country demanding President Trump release his tax returns on April 18, Tax Day.

Florida voters may soon have a chance to adopt nonpartisan open primaries. At least, that is the hope of a coalition of nonpartisan organizations that are asking the state's Constitution Revision Commission to put it on the ballot in 2018.

“We're looking to develop primary reforms that let all voters vote and create more responsive candidates that actually represent the communities that elect them and are not simply responsive to the partisan few that come to elect them in closed primaries," said Jeremy Gruber, senior vice president of Open Primaries.

Atlanta, Georgia – In three counties just north of Atlanta, voters are heading to the polls for a special election Tuesday.

Complying with the tax code costs the United States a cool trillion dollars per year. That’s the entire GDP of Mexico, wasted because of the sheer complexity of our tax code, which runs to 74,000 pages or so when taken with the IRS policies and parts of the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) that bear directly on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pS4x8hXQ5c&feature=youtu.be

Vox released a scathing video on CNN broadcasting Monday that essentially shows how CNN intentionally makes its reporting more about entertainment and the "spectator sport" of politics, rather than serious journalism.

Really, the video simultaneously takes a shot at CNN and Trump defenders, claiming that by paying Trump supporters to come on to defend false or misleading claims, they are "making us all dumber."

While at Unrig the System this weekend (more on that later but a great meeting). I got to meet Pat Caddell, who has worked in presidential offices and campaigns since the Carter administration.

Seventy years ago today, April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Jackie Robinson was a baseball player and four-sports star at UCLA – football, basketball, baseball, and NCAA record holder in the broad jump – but if you think of him only as an athlete, you do not understand Jackie or his story.

But as an athlete, the argument can be made that Jackie was America’s greatest; that while he made baseball’s Hall of Fame, there are those who say baseball wasn’t his best sport.

Marshall Tinkle wrote a piece in the Bangor Daily News Thursday arguing that not only does ranked choice voting not violate the Maine Constitution, Maine does not permit the state's Supreme Court from issuing an advisory opinion on the matter.

What makes Marshall Tinkle such an expert on the Maine Constitution? Well, for one thing, he literally wrote the book on it. Tinkle, who practices law in Portland, is the author of the reference book, The Maine State Constitution.