As a result of last week’s election, 2011 could be a watershed year for education reform and school choice. Many conservative candidates in the states campaigned on returning to local control in education and expanding school choice options for parents. Several states in particular could see significant movement on the …
The results of Tuesday’s election sent a clear message about the direction voters want the federal government to take. The recently released 2010 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll What Americans Said about the Public Schools is illustrative. Whether it’s paying the bills, setting standards, deciding what should be taught, or holding …
Lost amid the national election coverage Tuesday night was the defeat of an important ballot initiative in Florida. Amendment 8 would have relaxed the state’s strict caps on class size, adding three to five students per class depending on grade level. (The amendment received about 55 percent of the vote, …
Over the last four weeks, The Heritage Foundation sent multiple teams of respected energy, environment, homeland security and response experts to the Gulf to study the federal response to the oil spill. These three delegations, with more to come, have traversed the areas hit hardest by the crisis, talking to response workers, …
On the stump, Candidate Obama identified government entitlement spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as the largest contributor to the federal deficit. If Congress doesn’t rein in the costs of these programs, he said,, these three programs will “consume all of the federal budget.” Candidate Obama was right. (Still …
In 2006, under former Governor Jeb Bush, Florida rolled out the most comprehensive Medicaid reform plan in the country. Studies from both The James Madison Institute and the University of Florida have shown these innovative reforms not only save money, but also improve the quality of care. On Wednesday, the …
Results from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment have just been released and are, well, uninspiring. Reading achievement, despite significant increases in spending over the past few decades and increasing federal policy intervention in the past decade, has remained flat. The lackluster results indicate that the …
