Education Vouchers: America Can't Afford To Wait
The shortcomings of government schools in America resemble those of collectivism in the former Soviet Union. Vouchers could improve the U.S education system, offering better opportunities for the poor and removing racial barriers. Vouchers would make all educators, public and private, play by the same consumer-imposed rules of high standards in academics and discipline.
Why The Federalist Belongs In The Classroom
The Federalist can help prepare high school students for effective citizenship by teaching them the why of our American constitutional system. Studying this work illumines the Founders key assumption that human nature is a mixture of worthy qualities to be valued in the political system and baser impulses to be restrained.
Constitution Specifically Prohibits Deals with Transportation Companies
Close your eyes for a moment, and think about the United Airlines giveaway. Can you hear a faint whirring in the distance? Does it sound a little like an airplane propeller? More likely, it’s the sound of 39 people spinning in their graves — the framers of the Colorado constitution.
Seizure of Private Property By State Government
Will Senate Bill 102, due for House action the week of March 18, produce unintended adverse consequences for property rights in Colorado? This policy brief from the Independence Institute suggests that it could do so if not amended.
Curriculum Abuse: What Parents Can Do A Pocket Guide For The PTA Battleground
A mother has been granted time on a school board agenda to speak about her elementary schools reading program. She is concerned that children are not learning basic word attack skills. She knows it is important to present her case effectively since the last critic of the reading program was publicly humiliated. She wants to have up-to-date information and to exert maximal impact. What does she do?
Teacher Certification: Safeguard Or Superstition? A Short Symposium
The Carnegie Corporation warns that the caliber of Americas newest teachers is at an all-time low. In response, Colorado Gov. Roy Romer has urged the legislature to revise teacher certification regulations in ways that will encourage professionals from other fields to enter teaching.
How Union Contracts Block School Reform: A Denver Case Study
Teacher contracts function virtually as the constitution for a district, yet their provisions are little known to the public. Unpleasant surprises emerge when the Denver Public Schools contract is read from the viewpoint of frustrated education consumers. Article 44 bars community accountability committees from monitoring classroom work (although required by state law).
Quality Checklist for Education Consumers
Public education in Colorado is ripe for change. The legislature has enacted a new funding formula and a grassroots accountability process. The Governor has made school creativity a priority issue.
The final months of 1989 brought to the state three major conferences on improving the schools: a business-education summit in August, a Gates Foundation national symposium of reform experts in September, and a regional strategy meeting on parental choice hosted by U. S. Secretary of Education Lauro Cavazos in November.
Helping The New Russia: A Primer For Donors
Whether or not events of the 1990s bear out the fashionable assumption that the Cold War is over, with the passing of the 1980s we are clearly entering a period when America’s relationship with the Soviet Union will be closer, more routine, and more diversified that ever before. This will mean not only greater engagement at the government level, but also a dizzying expansion of non-government contacts.
Metro Transportation Finance: Can Denver Avoid A Hollow Core?
Rapid, efficient movement of people and goods is fundamental to the vitality and prosperity of any metropolitan area, Metro Denver faces growing pains as it seeks to modernize an overcrowded transportation system so that mobility is more nearly equal for everyone and costs are more directly allocated to users.
What Justifies Reverse Discrimination In Denver's Public Works Contracting?
Denver this year renewed and expanded a 1983 law setting goals (in practice, quotas) for the share of public works contracts that will go to firms owned by minorities (25%) and women (12%).
But the program is vulnerable to public disapproval and judicial overturning since it fails the tests imposed by recent U.S. supreme Court and appeals court rulings.
Less Taxation and More Democracy: The Amendment 6 Prescription for Prosperity
he conclusion from those studies, ststistically rigorous and thoroughly documented was as follows: “An inverse relationship exists between changes in state relative tax burdens and state relative economic growth. Those states with decreasing relative tax burdens tend to experience subsequent above average economic growth. Those states with increasing relative tax burdens tend to experience subsequent below average growth.”2
