Third World America - Arianna Huffington [65]
He describes Government 2.0 as “a new compact between government and the public, in which government puts in place mechanisms for services that are delivered not by government, but by private citizens.”13 It’s about “government as a platform … If there’s one thing we learn from the technology industry, it’s that every big winner has been a platform company: someone whose success has enabled others, who’s built on their work and multiplied its impact.”
Using government as a platform is all about how the massive amount of information at the government’s disposal is used, how widely it is shared, how low is the barrier for innovators to access it. After all, the Internet itself was a government project. The government built the platform and innovators ran with it. Same with GPS—a “killer app” that originated with the government.
Other examples of innovators building on government-provided information and services are popping up all over the country—and the Web. For instance, sites like Everyblock and StumbleSafely use crime statistics that are publicly available and remake them into public safety applications (kind of the opposite of a killer app!).
Many of the most interesting experiments in bringing technology and government together are going on at the local level.14 One leader who has enthusiastically embraced the new model is Newark mayor Cory Booker. “We are one part of a larger democracy that is learning how to master media to drive social change,” says Booker. “Social media is a forum where people can come together to connect, talk, mobilize, and create a larger sense of community.”
Booker has over one million followers on his very active Twitter page. Using Twitter, along with Facebook and YouTube, he maintains an open pipeline of communication with his constituents. He also uses these platforms to motivate them to take part in night patrols of troubled neighborhoods—patrols the mayor frequently joins. And he’s formed an advisory working group called the Newark Tech Corps, made up of leading tech executives who advise him on the newest technologies and how he can best adapt them to serve Newark’s residents.
We are reminded on a daily basis of the limits to what government can do.15 Going forward, it’s clear that we are going to have to forge a new relationship with our government. “Citizens are connected like never before and have the skill sets and passion to solve problems affecting them locally as well as nationally,” writes O’Reilly. “Citizens are empowered to spark the innovation that will result in an improved approach to governance.”
We can’t expect a government hobbled by centuries-old tools to deal with the challenges of the twenty-first century. That’s why Government 2.0 needs to be taken out of beta and put into practice across the nation.
MAKING OUR SCHOOLHOUSES ROCK
Next up in our extreme makeover of America: education. Fixing our broken educational system is vital to rescuing America’s middle class and preserving our standing as a First World nation. Education is the most basic tool for changing one’s life and circumstances. I think of it as a gateway opportunity: It makes everything else possible—which is why the failure of our leaders to truly address education reform is so troubling. Instead of fundamental reform, we get grandstanding and broken promises and reform in name only.
Real reform has to start with how we treat our nation’s teachers.
Teacher effectiveness is the single most important factor driving student performance, with top teachers able to boost the test scores of students up to 50 percentage points above the scores of those under the tutelage of the least-effective instructors.16
Yet, because of overly rigid union contracts, we cannot pay the best teachers more based on their performance—and we’ve seen how next to impossible it has become to fire even the worst teachers. Until we stop this insanity, our national education report card will continue to be littered