Three Cheers for Hope

The first cheer goes to “Invictus,” as uplifting and hopeful a story as you will find. See it! (If you already have, you might enjoy this four-minute clip with “the real Matt Damon.”)

The second cheer goes to regenerative medicine, as shown this past Sunday on “60 Minutes.” Remember Ray Kurzweil’s notion that within a decade or so average life expectancy will be increasing by more than one year per year? Certainly the ability to grow new livers and hearts and such should help make that come true.

And the third cheer?

In yesterday’s list I referred to “the initiation of a much-lauded ‘educational race to the top.’” Now, from one of my favorite organizations – Democrats for Education Reform – comes this hopeful update:

Who Would Have Guessed The Race Would Look Like This?

Stunning. We don’t know how else to put it.

Not just the New York State Board of Regents’ announcement today that it fully intends to be competitive in President Obama’s “Race To The Top” contest with a comprehensive reform package. (As a New Yorker whose kids attend NYC public schools, I was perplexed for months as to why we seemed so willing to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when school budgets are being slashed all over – especially since the reforms needed to win shouldn’t be considered remotely controversial if you really think about them.)

What is stunning is the tremendous wave of edu-political reform which has been unleashed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the Obama administration in such a short time.

The president was swept into office by a strong demand for change. But who would have guessed that in less than one year we would be looking at such significant coast-to-coast policy changes at the state level. . . .

[A state-by-state appraisal follows.]

☞ As 2009 (and ‘The Awful Aughts’?) draw to a close, we are in some very deep holes. And yet there really is a lot to be hopeful about.

Tomorrow (which you can read today): PCL and CRTX