The Olympic Games in London opened on July 27 with a sense of playful wonderment and closed on Sunday evening August 12 with a raucous and irreverent celebration -- participated in by many of those who competed and contributed to making this an awe-inspiring event. As always, these Olympics -- in their 17 days -- taught many lessons. Here are our major takeaways. Great Britain Is Great! Mitt Romney may have had his doubts about whether London and Great Britain were ready to host the … [Read more...]
Articles
Frank blogs regularly for the Huffington Post and writes occasional columns and articles for publications such as the International Business Times and The Economic Times of India.
Frank writes on a wide variety of topics that are critical to shaping the future of America and the American dream and to making the United States and the world a better place. These include: Business; education; poverty and inequality; politics and public policy; immigration; manufacturing; innovation; leadership; citizenship; and social commentary.
Frank’s most recent blogs are highlighted on this page. To read other blogs or articles by Frank, click on the categories or publications links on the left.
Time for India to Get Real on Economic Reforms: Frank Islam
President Obama's remarks last month that New Delhi needed another wave of reforms triggered widespread consternation in India. The country's notoriously divided political parties, for once, displayed a rare unanimity in condemning the perceived "meddling" of the American president in India's domestic affairs. Blaming "international lobbies like Vodafone" for "spreading this kind of a story," Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily said, "Obama was not properly informed about the things … [Read more...]
It’s Time for Customer-Centered Reform of Education: Part 1
In our August 7 post, we called upon the national Commission on Educational Attainment to bring forward new "business models" and actionable approaches to enable higher education to do a much better job in creating value for its customers -- i.e., students. In this post, we provide our analysis and thoughts on why it's time -- past time, indeed -- for customer-centered reform of higher education by examining the following areas that impact the value equation for students: college costs; … [Read more...]
It’s Time For Customer-Centered Reform of Higher Education: Part 2
In our earlier post, we analyzed four critical areas that impact the value equation for higher education customers/student: college costs; graduation and placement, return on investment; and career education and skill development. In this post, we examine three additional areas to determine their impact. Teacher Preparation: A Crisis in Competence. The quality of teacher preparation and certification has been a concern in educational circles for some time. Arne Duncan brought the issue front … [Read more...]
Double Dip Recession Looms Large
A less-than-stellar recovery of the U.S. economy, the inability of the euro zone to dig out of a deep financial hole and a slowdown in emerging economies point to the need for different policy approaches to avoid another global recession. For the world to get out of the current financial trouble, the United States first needs to switch gears. The weakness of the U.S. economy is dragging down other economies because of its sheer size. With a gross domestic product of $15 trillion and per … [Read more...]
Higher Education, Student Loans: Victors and Victims
As June drew to a close, after much wrangling, Congress passed a transportation bill that included extending the current 3.4 percent interest rate on government subsidized student loans for one year. This was clearly a short term but much-needed victory for students. That's because, based upon two reports that came out in July, it appears that the primary victors over the past decade have been some of the institutions making these loans and the victims have been many of the students who … [Read more...]
Stand Your Ground
About half of our states have stand your ground laws, which permit individuals to use their own weapons to defend themselves when there is a reasonable belief of a threat without retreating first. Unfortunately, there is no stand your ground requirement for those who would propose any meaningful legislation for gun control. For a variety of reasons, they are in full retreat and either unwilling or unable to stand their ground. As a result, in spite of the recent tragedy in Aurora, Colo., the … [Read more...]
Trust-busting
In the early 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt engaged in "trust-busting" -- eliminating the powerful control of a few robber barons over the country, its citizens and our democracy. That was a good thing. In the early 21st century, we have a different form of trust-busting going on -- inept, illegal and amoral acts engaged in by some businesses, politicians and individuals that are destroying the bonds of confidence and faith in each other that bind the nation together. That is a bad thing. A … [Read more...]
The Skilled Worker Shortage Fallacy
America has a serious shortage of skilled workers and that is a primary cause of our lack of job creation. Right? Wrong! We have been bemused for the past few years as an ecumenical group of business leaders, academics and experts have put forward the argument that training and developing a more skilled workforce would help drive job creation. It seems to us that this is a basic misunderstanding of cause and effect. We can have a philosophical debate about which came first -- the chicken … [Read more...]
Auctioning Off Democracy
On June 22, George Washington's personal annotated copy of the Constitution including the Bill of Rights was auctioned off for almost $10 million. Just three days later, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed its Citizen's United ruling which gave corporations the right to unlimited "independent spending" to support candidates to federal election office by summarily reversing a decision by the Montana Supreme Court that had upheld a state law limiting independent political spending by … [Read more...]