Be Careful What You Wish For
A House Natural Resources Committee bill would turn national forests into fiduciary trusts mandated to produce both a minimum amount of timber and a minimum amount of revenues for the counties in which the forests are located. Thus, the Antiplanner’s original proposal to turn federal lands into fiduciary trusts become increasingly warped. A fiduciary trust […]
New Research Adds to “Master’s Bump” Blowout; Time for More Performance Pay
How about a little “dog bites man” story for education policy geeks? A new study by Marcus Winters makes it 34-0 for high-quality research showing no relationship between teacher master’s degrees and student achievement. If this were a football game, it would be a blowout. So why does Colorado still spend nearly 2 percent of its total K-12 operating dollars each year on ineffective “master’s bumps”?
The Fascinating Story of How the States Used the Constitution’s Amendment Procedure to Adopt Reform, 1789-1913
Common sense tells us that an out-of-control Congress is not going to rein in its own power. The American Founders predicted this might become the case, so they provided a way by which the state legislatures could propose and ratify corrective constitutional amendments without Congress being able to stop them. This is the “state-application-and-convention” procedure […]
Ten Best Transit Cities? Not!
Someone asked the Antiplanner to comment on this list of the supposed ten best transit cities in the nation. The list includes, in order, New York, Denver, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Washington, San Jose, Honolulu, and Salt Lake City. This is supposed to be for students, but it must really be for students who […]
Productive K-12 Spending Ideas in Award-Winning Book and Citizens’ Budget
Last December I suggested to you four education reform books as stocking stuffer ideas. One of the books on the list was an important volume edited by Frederick Hess and Eric Osberg, titled Stretching the School Dollar: How Schools and Districts Can Save Money While Serving Students Best.
In September my Education Policy Center friends […]
Michigan Considers Teacher-Empowering Payroll Reform, Like Colorado Did in 2008
Business Week features a brief story about a piece of legislation under consideration in the Michigan legislature:
A proposal that would prohibit public schools from automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks is advancing in the Michigan Legislature.
The Republican-led House Oversight, Reform and Ethics Committee approved the measure Tuesday with a party line 4-2 vote. The […]
Want to push back against federal overreach? Arm yourself with constitutional information Sept. 30
Want to help push back against federal government overreach? Dave Kopel and I will be offering a one-time public class on the Constitution in Colorado Springs. The program, co-sponsored by the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Independence Institute, is called “A Constitutional Guide to Fighting Federal Overreach; A program for the Grassroots.” The class will […]
Feds slam Colorado Medicaid for lax procedures, practices
Colorado Medicaid’s sloppy administration puts its federal funding in peril: delays in eligibility notification, not documenting legal citizenship, wrongfully terminating Medicaid beneficiaries’ claims, improper notification of coverage decisions. Continue reading
Can Buses Compete with Planes?
The House of Representatives agreed to extend reauthorization for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for four months and for surface transportation for six months. That’s not as long as the two years the Senate wanted for surface transportation, but apparently House Republicans weren’t ready to give up the gas tax (which would otherwise have expired […]
Hooray! Douglas County, Institute for Justice Appeal Anti-Voucher Ruling
I’ve been told (no, really, I have!) that for a little kid blogging about education policy, I have a lot of appeal. Embarrassing: at first I thought it had something to do with bananas. But you know I was so much younger then. Anyway, I don’t want you to slip up before I get to […]
DeGrow Criticizes Tax Hike Proposal for Education Funding
Senior policy analyst Ben DeGrow’s commentary on a Colorado education tax hike proposal is featured this week on American Family Radio News (One News Now). DeGrow explained to reporter Bob Kellogg that Proposition 103 — a ballot proposal sponsored by State Senator Rollie Heath (D – Boulder) to raise sales and income taxes for the […]
Let’s Model ObamaJobs After ObamaCare!
Simply by varying a few features of ObamaCare, the president could guarantee nearly “universal” employment just as ObamaCare has guaranteed nearly “universal” health coverage. Continue reading
