The Constitution and One State's "Campaign Finance Reform" Mess
From Montana come valuable lessons about campaign finance “reform.” Montana has a long history of adopting restrictive campaign laws. But such laws often violate citizens’ rights of free speech, as protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They also can be ways of manipulating the electoral process to benefit some interests at the […]
2011 National Transit Database
The Federal Transit Administration has published the 2011 National Transit Database, which has cost, fare, ridership, and other data for every transit agency, broken down by mode, that receives federal support. You can download the raw data in two formats: the database, which is easier to manipulate, or data tables, which are easier to read […]
Don’t Ask to “Show Me” Why K-12 Education Needs Differential Teacher Pay
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you probably are well aware of the numerous flaws in the way our K-12 education system pays teachers. Most of the flaws emanate from the single salary schedule, which the vast majority of school districts use. Pay is differentiated almost exclusively by seniority and academic […]
Amy Oliver Show: Teachers Unions Need to Improve Political Spending Info
Senior education policy analyst Ben DeGrow highlights recent revelations regarding teachers union offices providing bad information on member dues funding political campaigns. He also discusses a new national study that shows Colorado teachers unions at or near the top nationally in their political influence through contributions to state-level candidates.
If We Only Had a Few Billion Dollars . . .
If only New York officials had heeded the warnings by building levees and other storm barriers, they could have avoided much of the damage caused by Sandy–at least, according to the New York Times. Hindsight is 20-20 vision, but those warnings were about the sea-level rise that is supposed to accompany global warming, not the […]
