By Andrew J. Coulson
Economist Rick Hanushek argues today that there is no evidence to suggest “weighted student funding” will improve public school outcomes as its bipartisan backers hope. He contends that simply tying school-level funding to students, and thereby bypassing some of the budgetary role of districts, will create no systemic incentive for improvement and will not advance [...]
We’ve Added Feathers and it Still Won’t Fly?!? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Andrew J. Coulson
The mission statement of the Hoover Institution reads, in part, as follows: This Institution supports the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and its method of representative government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity…. the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, [...]
Hoover’s Mission Imponderable? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Neal McCluskey
Right now the nation is fixated on the Supreme Court and health care, as well it should be. If the Court rules the wrong way and the individual mandate is upheld, seemingly the last limit to federal power—Washington can’t make you buy stuff—will be gone. So yes, please, let’s focus on ObamaCare. When the arguments end and the [...]
The Other Federal Takeover is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Neal McCluskey
Like most political discussions, the student aid debate is driven far more by sentiment than reasoned analysis. If we used the latter, we’d be demanding big aid cuts for the sake of students and taxpayers alike. As I testified to a Senate panel earlier this week, the evidence is powerful that there is massive overconsumption [...]
Stop Ignoring Higher Ed Reality is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Adam Schaeffer
Speaking of calls for yet more education spending: In New Hampshire, as in every state where school choice comes up, defenders of the status-quo are claiming that it will hurt “underfunded” public schools and that they need more money. Here is Laura Hainey, president of the American Federation of Teachers–New Hampshire, with the typical union [...]
Speaking of Spending . . . How Much Is Enough in New Hampshire? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Adam Schaeffer
The Washington Times reports that the Obama administration’s answer to everything really is simply to spend more: Education Secretary Arne Duncan used Thursday’s appearance before a key House subcommittee to not only defend the Obama administration’s request for a $1.7 billion increase in school funding for fiscal 2013, but also to rip the GOP budget [...]
How Much Education Spending Is Enough? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Adam Schaeffer
Yesterday, the New Hampshire Senate passed a path-breaking education tax credit bill that includes home school expenses and allows the program to grow 25 percent each year if it is successful. It is income-limited, but scholarship organizations can use 20 percent of their funds for children who would otherwise not qualify, giving flexibility instead of [...]
School Choice Leadership in New Hampshire is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Neal McCluskey
There is little question that parents have too little power in elementary and secondary education. In fact, they have almost no power: they can vote, but are otherwise usually relegated to being class moms, or holding bake sales, or some other fluffy “involvement” that gives them no real say over how their children are educated. [...]
Power Yes, Trigger No is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Andrew J. Coulson
Invent a better way to search the Web and you can conquer the world in a few years. Make better tools for communicating and accessing the Web and it’s the same story. But come up with a better way to teach reading or math and … nada. Excellence routinely “scales up” in every field except [...]
Why Are There No Googles or Apples in Education? is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »
By Andrew J. Coulson
Education professor Sherman Dorn imagines foul play and education policy maven Matthew Ladner is withholding judgment for the time being. Ladner recently made use of some of my charts of the public school productivity collapse, and Dorn has taken issue with one of them, depicted below [from my February 2011 testimony to the House Education and [...]
This One Is of the Charts is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
No Comments »