General Audience Articles

U.S. Budgetary Politics at the Close of the Cold War Era. Paul PetersonIn Herbert Dittgen and Michael Minkenberg, Eds.. The American Impasse. United States Domestic and Foreign Policy after the Cold War. Pittsburgh University Press, PA, 177-197. 1996.
Budget Deficits and the Race to the Bottom. Paul PetersonIn Sheila B. Kamerman and Alfred J. Kahn, Eds.. Report I: Whither American Social Policy?. New York: Cross-National Studies Research Program, Columbia University School of Social Work, 43-63. 1996.
The New Politics of Choice. Paul PetersonIn Diane Ravitch and Maris Vinovskis, Eds.. Learning from the Past. John Hopkins University Press. 1995.
State Response to Welfare Reform: A Race to the Bottom?. Paul Peterson. Urban Institute Welfare Reform Brief, No. 8. 1995.
Who Should Do What? Divided Responsibility in the Federal System. Paul Peterson. Brookings Review, 12(3), 6-11. 1995.
An Immodest Proposal. Paul Peterson. Daedulus, 121(4). 1992.

Reprinted in The Brookings Review, Winter, 1993, pp. 18-23 and, in abridged form, in Harper's, February, 1993, pp. 23-26.

The Case for a National Welfare Standard. Paul Peterson, Mark C. Rom. Brookings Review, 4, 24-32. 1988.
Tax Cuts, More Spending, and Fiscal Deficits. Paul Peterson, Mark C. RomIn Charles Jones, Ed.. The Reagan Legacy. Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham. 1988.
Keeping an Eye on State Standards: A Race to the Bottom?. Frederick Hess, Paul E. Peterson. Education Next, 6(3), 28. 2006.

While No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires all students to be “ proficient” in math and reading by 2014, the precedent-setting 2002 federal law also allows each state to determine its own level of proficiency. It’ s an odd discordance at best. It has led to the bizarre situation in which some states achieve handsome proficiency results by grading their students against low standards, while other states suffer poor proficiency ratings only because they have high standards.