By Andrew J. Coulson
One of the first things you learn when you start to study the comparative performance of school systems is this: on average, Catholic schools are much more educationally effective and vastly more efficient than state-run schools. And then you learn that their impact goes beyond the three R’s. I wrote a little about these facts [...]
Catholic Schools and the Common Good is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Adam Schaeffer
Home schooling is the most dynamic and innovative segment of K-12 education. But even with technological advances, co-ops and hybrid schooling, taking on that level of individual responsibility for a child’s education is difficult. One particularly difficult problem for home school families in Virginia and elsewhere is competitive sports, particularly in high school. A private [...]
Sports Authority is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Neal McCluskey
College prices truly are ridiculous. But someone needs to tell President Obama that the root problem isn’t the colleges, which he is expected to announce today will be the targets of …
Obama Is Avoiding the Tough College Course is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Adam Schaeffer
From the-more-things-change-the-more-they-don’t files, I bring you alarming claims that our nation’s school buildings are crumbling and will soon crush the educational aspirations and physical bodies of children everywhere if more …
The School Buildings Are Crumbling!!!!!!!! is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Andrew J. Coulson
The American Legislative Exchange Council has just released its latest Report Card on American Education, and will be hosting an event to launch it in Washington, DC, tomorrow, at the Heritage Foundation. I haven’t had a chance to get very far into it yet, but it was established on Monday of this week that ALEC [...]
ALEC’s New Education Report is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Neal McCluskey
Today is the mid-point of National School Choice Week, and we’re once again rockin’ to the oldies of prognostication. This time we’re going all the way back to the Mann. That’s Horace Mann, the “Father of the Common School” himself. It is Mann who, among many things, is probably most responsible for introducing one of the deepest underlying sentiments supporting government schooling: [...]
No Common Schools, No Peace? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Andrew J. Coulson
Back in 1993, when Whitney Houston hit #1 with “I will always love you”, there was something that California-based state schooling advocates didn’t love at all: a school voucher ballot initiative. Much was written on the subject, and in 1994 a booklet was published summarizing the arguments for and against (Voices on Choice, K. L. [...]
Status Quo Stalwarts, Meet Reality
[School Choice Week Blast from the Past, Pt. 2!] is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Andrew J. Coulson
*by 2005… Defenders of the educational status quo have long argued that we don’t need wholesale reform because our state-run school system can be fixed. If we simply raise spending, shrink classes, hire more teachers, or wait for the latest government mandate to work, they’ve promised, our problems will be solved. Reformers have predicted the [...]
‘School Spending Predicted to Climb 50%’* is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Andrew J. Coulson
As I explain in an op-ed in today’s Orange County Register, that’s not a theoretical question. After adjusting for inflation and enrollment growth, CA spent $27 billion more on K-12 public schooling in 2010 than it did when Jerry Brown was first elected governor back in 1974. SAT scores fell over that period (see chart [...]
Would an Extra $27 Billion Improve CA Public School Performance? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Neal McCluskey
On Sunday we marked the tenth birthday of the No Child Left Behind Act by reviewing its decade of futility and explaining why federal education adventuring is basically doomed to failure. (Enjoy some of our extensive coverage here, here, and here.) This week we got yet more evidence that federal policy is always big on promises, itty-bitty [...]
Promises Unfulfilled? What Next, Federal Education Failure? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
