Unemployment rises…The stock market falls…The Fed takes on debt…and education stands on the brink of collapse.

First – the numbers: Unemployment claims rose this week to a total of 870,000 giving a hint the economy might be on shaky footing as only half of the jobs lost in March have permanently returned. For more than three months, entire sectors of the economy have stalled in growth indicating fundamental and possibly permanent changes have taken place. As Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stated this week before the House Financial Services Committee, the Fed is committed to using all the tools at their disposal to keep interest rates low as well as bolster the American economy. Some of the weakest sectors of the economy are in the mortgages of people who have lost their jobs. With more than 4 million mortgages currently behind more than 90 days on monthly payments, analysts at the Mortgage Bankers Association who study the trends fear a wave of foreclosures in the near future. If that happens, it could tank the economy. Of course, when you look at the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve, you realize why such dire circumstances haven’t already cratered the economy. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has grown about $3 trillion since mid-March and now totals more than $7 trillion. It could easily exceed $10 trillion by year-end. The Fed is purchasing more than $40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities each month. In other words, The Fed owns a lot of mortgage debt. What this means for the average consumer – especially someone with no job and in jeopardy of losing their home – is uncertain. The Fed doesn’t want a housing crisis on top of a medical crisis so time will tell exactly how Congress and private sector banks will work together to make sure the economy doesn’t fall apart. What can be done for people whose livelihoods have been destroyed? What about the children of poor parents who stand in desperate need of education in order to break free from the cycle of poverty? Surely, business as usual cannot be the way forward. John Hopkins University School of Education held a seminar this week that focused on the plight of children caught in the cycle of poverty during the pandemic. With their parents out of work because of the COVID crisis and schools not in session, the lost learning opportunities putting them further behind are mounting up in ways that seem impossible to overcome. Robert Slavin, the director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Hopkins joined Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute to discuss the idea of a Marshall Plan for American Education. The Marshall Plan was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. Enacted in 1948, it provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent. It was the brainchild of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, for whom it was named, and was crafted as a four-year plan to reconstruct cities, industries and infrastructure heavily damaged during the war. The Marshall Plan was one of history’s greatest diplomatic and economic successes. Slavin’s idea for an educational Marshall Plan was to re-organize, re-prioritize, and re-deploy resources that are often poorly managed in ways that target and assist poor students to help them escape bad education systems. Hess’ response was quite pointed. While he agreed with Slavin the matter was urgent, he was quick to point out that in a place like New York City the per pupil spending is now more than $24 thousand dollars. For a class of 30 students, that is more than $700,000 per class. For that amount of money, Hess stated that students should be receiving a far better education than what is currently taking place. More money into a bad system isn’t the answer. Yet, without serious education reforms, the United States is facing a generational economic disaster that could destroy the nation from within because the children of today aren’t able to enter the workforce of tomorrow. Where we go from here wil