Fordham Report on Special Education Trends Raises Important Policy Questions
If you think American K-12 education policy is a complex and tangled web of laws, bureaucracies, incentives, politics and emotions — and you would be quite normal to do so — then treading into the narrower world of special education services might make your head completely spin. It’s the day after a long and fun […]
The immorality of government medicine vs. your right to your own life
To save American healthcare, not to mention to save the country itself, advocates of freedom, free markets, & capitalism must take the moral high ground from the proponents of government-control, Dr. Yaron Brook tells patients and doctors at a Doctors Town Hall.
Finally: The Truth About High-Speed Rail
“OF ALL the high-speed train services around the world, only one really makes economic sense,” The Economist observed last week, that one being the Tokyo-to-Osaka route. “All the other Shinkansen routes in Japan lose cart-loads of cash, as high-speed trains do elsewhere in the world. Only indirect subsidies, creative accounting, political patronage and national chest-thumping […]
In Memory of Freedom
Today we are supposed to remember the people who sacrificed themselves for our freedom. We also need to remember freedom itself, including freedom of mobility, freedom to use your own property as you like so long as you don’t harm your neighbors, and freedom to dance in a memorial to Thomas Jefferson, himself a support […]
Michelle Rhee Hits a Denver Home Run While Her Critics Swing and Miss Again
Even when you’re forever 5 years old, time flies. I can hardly believe it was last October that I cried to learn my edu-crush Michelle Rhee was leaving her important superintendent job at D.C. Public Schools. Or that it was only a couple months later we all learned she was starting the new national group […]
Yes, you can vote on taxes and laws in a republic!
Despite what you may have heard, allowing people to vote on taxes and other laws is completely consistent with the “republican form of government.” There is an old, and bogus, claim that to the contrary: that the U.S. Constitution requires states to lock citizens out from direct lawmaking. The argument is that only a system […]
ObamaCare waivers & crony capitalism
“There are now 1,372 companies, labor unions and states that have applied for and been granted waivers from an early provision of [ObamaCare] … What’s really being waived here is the rule of law.”
Senate Reauthorization Proposal
Bipartisan leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee have reached an agreement on a broad outline for surface transportation reauthorization. This agreement includes: Fund programs at current levels to maintain and modernize our critical transportation infrastructure; Eliminate earmarks; Consolidate numerous programs to focus resources on key national goals and reduce duplicative and wasteful […]
Look Closer at Census Spending Data, Big Picture: Colorado’s K-12 Sky Isn’t Falling
Talk about one of your below-the-fold news stories. Yesterday a Denver Business Journal headline declared: “Colo. near bottom for education spending.” The story references newly-released data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which shows Colorado fell from 36th in per-pupil spending in 2007-08 ($9,079) to 40th in 2008-09 ($8,718).
There is good news, though. The best I […]
Politically-controlled exchanges & ACOs are about authoritarian control, not competition & accountability
“ObamaCare will force health plans to provide a nonnegotiable package of benefits, but will hold premiums at a level that will make it impossible to meet the full demand for that care. Instead, costs will be controlled by squeezing provider incomes and delaying access to care.”
Two Ways of Preventing the Crisis
One of the more common notions about the housing bubble is that it was caused by political pressures to increase homeownership. The Antiplanner’s view is that it would be more accurate to say that the bubble was caused by the conflict between policies aimed at increasing homeownership and policies aimed at reducing homeownership (or, at […]
Michigan School Board Shows Laudable Commitment to Bargaining Transparency
When it comes to union negotiations, the Traverse City school board in Michigan is showing what many of their Colorado counterparts could learn: Let the Sunshine in! Giving taxpayers the opportunity to observe the bargaining table where school district and union officials hash out tax-funded policies is a great step for public accountability and transparency. Jeffco Public Schools and all Colorado can learn from Traverse City and do better by their citizens.
