1 MAY

Mueller objected to attorney-general's summary of Russia investigation 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote a letter complaining to US Attorney-General William Barr that the summary of the Mueller report that he prepared for Congress “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work.

The letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post, was sent on March 27, after Barr had announced that Mueller had not found a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials seeking to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Barr also said Mueller had not reached a conclusion about whether Trump had tried to obstruct justice, but Barr reviewed the evidence and found it insufficient to support such a charge.

“There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” Mueller wrote in his letter.

NEWS WRAP

Go Midwest

• New economic research by the USSC in conjunction with Indiana University was launched in Washington, DC last month. CEO Simon Jackman presented the findings of the report at an event organised by the American Australian Business Council, with attendees including US trade representative Robert Lighthizer, White House economic advisors Larry Kudlow and Kevin Hassett, and business leaders Anthony Pratt and Lachlan Murdoch. The Australian Financial Review took a look at the findings of the report which highlighted the potential of the US Midwest as a destination for Australian companies and investors looking to broaden their horizons. READ MORE HERE.
   

• How can the US experience in industry development around airports be applied to Western Sydney? That's the subject of a new report from the Centre's Innovation and Entrepreneurship program looking at areas of future high-tech export potential and how to encourage the emergence of industry clusters focused on aerospace and defence, food and agribusiness, medical devices and advanced manufacturing. READ MORE HERE. 
   
• "There's no waiting this out for Australia". That's the assessment of Non-Resident Senior Fellow John Lee who wrote for The Australian about the deepening economic tension in US-China relations and its impact here in Australia. It comes off the back of today's USSC-ASPI report release authored by Lee, which looks at the passing of global economic consensus. READ MORE HERE.
   
• After former Vice President Joe Biden used the violence in Charlottesville to frame his presidential campaign launch on Thursday, President Trump shot back, defending his controversial claim that there were "very fine people" on both sides of the white-supremacist rally. Honorary Associate Nicole Hemmer, writing for CNN, suggests Trump's defence showed the president and his allies continue to provide cover for the racist violence in Charlottesville, and the violent ideology propagated there. READ MORE HERE.
   
• With the Australian federal election campaign now in full swing, it's interesting to note politicians' and parties' use of social media to attract votes compared to previous campaigns. Director of the Centre's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program Claire McFarland joined the ABC's AM program to discuss their approaches to digital campaigning and how they differ to those of US politicians and elections. LISTEN HERE.
   
• What now for Democrats following the public – though heavily redacted – release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report? Non-Resident Senior Fellow Bruce Wolpe, a congressional advisor to the Democratic Party during President Obama’s first term, joined the 2020Vision podcast last week to discuss whether this is the end or just the beginning of investigations into President Trump's conduct, and what House Democrats and 2020 presidential candidates are likely to do next. LISTEN HERE.

 The longer this continues, the greater the chances that measles will again get a foothold in the United States.

US Centers for Disease Control Director for Immunisation Dr Nancy Messonnier
(News conference on the outbreak of measles cases in the United States)
29 April 2019

ANALYSIS

Australia and US education policy and the role of parental involvement

Kailee Atkinson
USSC Internship Program

The United States and Australia both fall in the lower middle tier of the world’s developed countries for education quality. There are a variety of factors that significantly influence the educational experience of children: funding, access to technology, class size and the level of teacher’s education are just a few. Studies show that parental involvement also plays a crucial role in a student’s success.

Unfortunately, the United States has yet to create an effective educational policy that emphasises and encourages parental involvement from within the school and community. Despite Australia’s rankings, it is beginning to see positive educational trends that will affect it moving forward. Current Australian education policy can serve as a model for future US policy.

A 2018 US Census Bureau report found a strong correlation between parental involvement and student development. Children perform better in school when they come from a household that is able to provide economic, cultural, and human resources that inspire and motivate them outside of the classroom. Parents who earn lower wages typically work longer hours, leaving less time for reading with their children. Varying parental involvement creates obvious difficulty for policy makers to pinpoint what changes to prioritise.

Current policy in the United States has jostled between working with schools and directly with communities to overcome the consequences of incongruous levels of parental involvement. These efforts have made minimal discernible impact. In 2010, the United States Department of Education awarded 21 communities funding allocated towards education centres, school programs, and community centers. The primary goal was to provide low-income parents with more opportunities to become involved in their children’s academics to boost performance. The continuation of this expensive program was contingent to funding availability, thus since 2011 it has not been awarded any grants. Regardless, the true success of the program itself can be deemed once the first cohort of students pass through in 2020.

In 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which protects low socioeconomic status (SES) students by giving states the freedom to treat schools and districts individually rather than as one. New Mexico has been praised for its comprehensive plans to use community and parental involvement that focuses on the individual needs of struggling schools to increase state-wide graduation rate by 14 per cent by 2022. Solutions ranged from building stronger parent-student-teacher relations programs to implementing more technical education programs to boost graduation rates.

Australian education policy has done better to encourage parental involvement for greater student success. From 2009 to 2014 Australia’s National Partnership Agreement on Low Socio-Economic Status School Communities worked to boost student engagement and performance through reform of school structure and community-centred funding that catered towards parental inclusion. Between 2009 and 2013, National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) scores increased, on average, by 1.79 points for spelling and 3.64 points for grammar and punctuation in participating low SES students. Australia’s rise in NAPLAN scores exemplifies the positive impact of effective parental involvement encouraged by schools.

Further, the Parent Engagement Project (PEP) commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training from 2014-2018 sought to encourage understanding of parent engagement. This project focused on the education of parents through their children’s schools on the fundamental importance of reading to young children. Between 2008 and 2015 the percentage of Aboriginal parents that read at least one book or told at least one story per week to a 0-2 aged child rose from 67.2 per cent to 70.3 per cent nationally due to PEP. Studies indicate that these children are significantly more likely to become excited about learning. Results like this identify an important strategy in prompting parental involvement, as some parents may not understand the magnitude of these early steps in the learning process.

Statistics show that the implementation of programs like PEP and funding centred around parental involvement in Australia have improved student success rates. If the United States was to approach student success in a similar manner, perhaps by creating government funded parental education programs - specifically in lower income communities - similar results would no doubt follow.

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 1 May: US Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to examine the Department of Justice's investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election.
   

• Thursday, 2 May: President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are scheduled to participate in the National Day of Prayer service.
   

• Friday, 3 May: President Trump is scheduled to meet with the prime minister of the Slovak Republic.
   

• Friday, 3 May: Sky News and The Courier-Mail will host an Australian election People’s Forum with the prime minister and opposition leader in Brisbane.

EVENT

 Film screening | The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

VIDEO

Hillary Clinton reads the Mueller report

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#JoeBiden

Manage your email preferences  |  Forward this email to a friend

United States Studies Centre
Institute Building H03
University of Sydney NSW 2006

​www.ussc.edu.au  |  us-studies@sydney.edu.au