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    Morning Bell: 25,000 Chicago Teachers Walk Off the Job

    This morning, about 350,000 students in Chicago Public Schools will be without teachers. While the 25,000-plus unionized teachers take to the picket lines in a strike over benefits and teacher evaluations, working parents are scrambling to figure out what to do. “We know a strike is really going to be … More

    Back to School: Support for School Choice Reaches All-Time High

    Support for school choice is at an all-time high, according to this year’s PDK/Gallup Poll, released just this morning. Forty-four percent of Americans now favor allowing students to choose a private school to attend at public expense. School choice favorability has jumped 10 percentage points since last year, a sign … More

    NJ’s Christie Signs Teacher Tenure Reform into Law

    Legislators in New Jersey recently dealt a heavy blow to the oldest teacher tenure law in the nation. State Senator Teresa Ruiz (D–Essex) spent two years drafting a bill to reform the 103-year-old teacher tenure law and tie teacher job security to student performance. And now her bill is becoming … More

    Chicago Teachers Union Demands 30 Percent Pay Raise

    It takes a lot of nerve to ask for a 30 percent pay raise. You’d better be sure you had a banner year. Yet in Chicago, where just 15 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading (and just 56 percent of students graduate), the teachers union is set to … More

    Gov. Scott Walker Defends Reforms; ‘Our Most Powerful Tool Is the Truth’

    Gov. Scott Walker delivered a passionate defense of Wisconsin’s reforms at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday night. The embattled Republican governor used his keynote speech at CPAC to outline what’s at stake in Wisconsin and other states if his budget reforms are rolled back. “Our most powerful tool … More

    Is Coal de Minimus? The Problem with the Alabama Ethics Commission

    In the wake of a number of corruption scandals, the Alabama legislature endeavored to reform their system by enacting tough ethics laws. But does that mean that a student can no longer give a teacher a Christmas gift?  For some students and parents in the Yellowhammer State, that may mean … More

    More Pay for Public-School Teachers Won’t Increase Quality

    In yesterday’s “Room for Debate” feature, The New York Times asks whether public-school teacher compensation should be increased. The answer we give, based on our recent report, is that teachers already receive more compensation than comparably skilled private-sector workers. If the current compensation bonus has yet to increase the quality … More

    Alternate Titles for “Day Without Goldman Sachs”

    On December 12, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) attempted to shut down West Coast ports from Anchorage to San Diego. Protesters said that by shutting down the ports, they could shut down Wall Street’s profits. OWS organizers called their event “Day Without Goldman Sachs.” They also could have named their port … More

    Without Fanfare of Ohio or Wisconsin, Idaho Enacts Sweeping Reforms

    Voters head the polls in Ohio today to decide the fate of collective bargaining reforms for government workers. It’s a high-profile referendum on a controversial law that prompted protests similar to the union backlash in Wisconsin earlier this year. Across the country with much less fanfare, Idaho implemented its own … More

    Morning Bell: The Truth About Public School Teacher Pay

    Last winter, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) traveled his state, holding a series of townhalls in which he touted a significant but politically unpopular plan: asking public school teachers to accept a pay freeze and begin contributing 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their health care plans, whereas before … More