Recent Policy Briefs

How Teachers in Texas Would Benefit from Expanding School Choice

Joseph Bast, Herbert J. Walberg
Joseph L. Bast, Herbert J. Walberg, Ph.D.
April 1, 2011

Teacher unions often lead the opposition to legislation that would expand the ability of parents to choose the schools – whether public or private – their children attend.

HB 1893: Opening Doors To Better Teachers And Better Education In Arkansas

Stuart Buck
March 22, 2011

 

Arkansas’s children deserve good teachers. Good teachers drive student achievement. But teachers in Arkansas are currently licensed under a set of bureaucratic requirements that have never been shown to improve educational quality or benefit students. These bureaucratic requirements can keep potentially good teachers away.

House Bill 1893 improves the teacher licensure process in Arkansas by opening the schoolhouse doors to more potentially good teachers. The bill will help education in Arkansas in three ways:

Four Problems, Four Solutions: A Blueprint for Reforming Texas’s Insurance Environment

Eli Lehrer
March 9, 2011

This report reviews four major problems with Texas’s insurance environment and proposes four categories of action that elected leaders should take in order to remedy them.

Education spending up; performance stagnant

Paul Gessing
February 21, 2011

During her campaign, Gov. Susana Martinez said that she would not cut education. Based on revised budget numbers that were released immediately after she was elected, that went out the window. Now, Martinez is proposing very modest cuts of 1.5 percent for K-12.

 

Writing Instruction In Massachusetts

Alison L. Fraser
February 11, 2011

 

Solutions to Restore Florida’s Property Insurance Marketplace to Protect Taxpayers and the Insured

Eli Lehrer
February 4, 2011

The 2011 session of the Florida Legislature will convene in the midst of state budget worries, a lingering real estate crisis, and a still-sluggish national economy. Therefore, lawmakers will face a challenging series of problems that a single legislative session will be hard-pressed to solve.

Teacher Licensure in Wisconsin: Who is Protected- Parents or the Education Establishment?

Mark Schug, Ph.D. and Scott Niederjohn, Ph.D.
February 1, 2011

Executive Summary

It has been 10 years since Wisconsin overhauled an old set of rules for state teacher licensure (PI 3 and PI 4) and replaced it with a new set called PI 34. At the time of its approval in 2000, PI 34 was warmly welcomed by state leaders and legislators from both sides of the aisle. It was praised as a way to create a new generation of Wisconsin teachers. 

The purpose of this report is to assess PI 34 in an effort to learn whether it has made good on these high expectations.

Accountability and Learning: Assessing the Seattle Families and Education Levy

Paul Guppy
February 1, 2011

Seattle school administrators are seeking approval of a fourth education levy in two years. Yet, education research shows spending more money will not improve learning for Seattle school children. If the Families and Education Levy is approved, school administrators will likely perceive it as a signal that no fundamental change is needed, and students in Seattle public schools will continue to experience poor educational results and a high drop-out rate.