By Jim Nowlan
Outside Columnist

I am spending May in Shanghai as a visiting scholar at Fudan University where I am teaching a short course in American government for smart senior undergraduate students. I also lecture to graduate students on various topics in American politics. The English of my students is impressive indeed, and no translation is needed.

Because Shanghai scored highest in the world in 2012 in the math education achievement of 15 year olds, I asked my host professor if she might contact her child’s middle school to see if I could learn how the schools in Shanghai do so well. Read More

By James D. Nowlan
and J. Thomas Johnson
Outside Columnists

Since our founding as a state, corruption in Illinois has been so commonplace that it is called “The Illinois Way” of doing government business.

Our state’s reputation has been sullied and our economy harmed. It is not a matter to be passed off with a rueful chuckle.

Early Illinois governor Ninian Edwards (1826-30) decried the common practice in his time of treating citizens with whisky to win their votes. Those who do so, Edwards declared, “establish a school of vice and depravity in our country tending to contaminate not only the present but succeeding generations.” Read More

By James D. Nowlan
and J. Thomas Johnson

Outside Columnists

The Illinois economy has been struggling. In January 2014 the state’s unemployment rate was 8.7 percent, second highest in the nation. From our employment peak in November 2000, Illinois lost 656,000 jobs and has regained only 257,000.

What can be done about our parlous situation? 

We asked the experts—the state’s economic development professionals, the men and women who recruit businesses to their communities. Read More

by Kim Riedel
NP Columnist

May is an exciting month in the garden…watching all the buds forming on the blackberries, raspberries and miniature roses, blossoms on the apple tree, and small fruit appearing on the strawberry plants and the pear and plum trees. I have also loved the scent of my white lilac that is putting off a beautiful fragrance that floats through the air around our yard. One of the things that I love about perennials, plants that come back year after year, is that I can have blooming flowers before it is time to plant annuals, and there are already many that are blooming or getting ready to bloom. Gardens are taking shape as vegetable plants and flowers are being planted with the hopes of produce and beautiful colors. Read More

By James D. Nowlan
and J. Thomas Johnson
Outside Columnists

Illinois’s achievement in education is mired in the middle of the states. If Illinois were to make a major commitment to transforming how we educate our children, we would send the world a strong signal that we were serious about fixing our state.

Illinois enrolls more than three million students from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate education, almost one in four of our residents, and spends more than $30 billion, or four percent of gross state product, on the enterprise. Read More