Opinion
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Choice Legislation Passes the House
Opinion -Under the terms of a bill approved 230-198 by the U.S. House of Representatives on October 23, families would have the opportunity to put after-tax dollars into special education savings accounts for their children. -
Benefits of Child-Centered Funding
Opinion -Child-centered funding of education would produce the following benefits, according to Ohio State Treasurer J. Kenneth Blackwell: Better Educated Children--through the creation of a learning culture and by greater parental participation. -
Choice Inspires Consumer Guides to Good Schools
Opinion -Educational choice opponents frequently contend that parents would be unable to make good choices for their children because they lack information on school performance, and thus might choose for superficial reasons. -
Designing a School Choice Program
Opinion -Using precedents established by the U.S. Supreme Court in First Amendment rulings, the Institute for Justice’s Clint Bolick offers three rules of thumb for designing a legally sound school choice program. -
Introducing: Parents in Control!
Opinion -At a news conference on October 18, Kansas State Representative Kay O’Connor announced the formation of Parents in Control (PIC), a lobbying organization aimed at promoting and influencing legislation that will increase parent control of the -
New Book Exposes Partisan Nature of Unions
Opinion -In 1994, the Republican Educators Caucus of the National Education Association endorsed only Democratic candidates for NEA office. The GOP caucus of the California Teachers Association was selling buttons promoting the Democratic nominee for governor. -
12/1997 School Choice Roundup
Opinion -California * Colorado * Florida * Illinois New York * North Carolina * Wisconsin CALIFORNIA Show Us the Money! -
Survey: Education Teachers Out of Touch with Real World
Opinion -Teacher education programs often fail to prepare teachers for the challenges of teaching in the real world, say two out of three education professors recently surveyed by Public Agenda, the non-partisan New York-based research group. -
Ready to Learn What? Is the Key to Education Reform
Opinion -In his 1987 book, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, educator E.D. Hirsch demonstrated that literacy has two key components: the ability to read, and an assumed base of shared factual knowledge conveyed by the words being read. -
Legislation Would Sink EPA/FDA Ban on Asthma Inhalers
Opinion -A bipartisan effort is underway in Congress to snuff out an administration proposal that would ban most types of asthma inhalers. -
Sound Science and the EPA: An Insider’s Perspective
Opinion -David L. Lewis has a Ph.D. in microbial ecology and works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He also serves on the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia. -
Discharge Petition Would Bring PM, Ozone Bill to a Vote
Opinion -House opponents of EPA's new standards on particulate matter (PM) and ground-level ozone are circulating a discharge petition aimed at bringing the new rules up for a vote. The petition was initiated by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota). -
Coalition Calls For More Voucher Pilots
Opinion -In a rare liberal-conservative partnership, a broad coalition of progressive leaders from Evangelicals for Social Action joined prominent Republican conservative members of the Renewal Alliance at a September luncheon meeting to launch the “Public -
Florida Education Needs Structural Change, Not More Money: Study
Opinion -Although teacher unions and administrators are promoting a voter initiative to increase public education’s share of Florida’s state budget, a new study shows that the Sunshine State already spends more on education than it spends on any other program -
Litigation Is the Price We Pay for Our Success
Opinion -Although several school choice options have been approved in states across the country, almost all have been subjected to vigorous court challenges. -
Try Vouchers, Philly Panel Told
Opinion -Two Democratic state elected officials told a special panel charged with restructuring Pennsylvania’s urban schools that vouchers should be considered to remedy the problems of the state’s public education system. -
Virginia Sets New Standards for Schools
Opinion -As the final step in the transformation of its public education system, which began in 1995 with the adoption of revised Standards of Learning, the Virginia State Board of Education on September 4 approved new Standards of Accreditation for its public -
Study: ISTEA is ‘Going Down the Wrong Road’
Opinion -A bill renewing the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) "is the biggest pork barrel in the 105th Congress," according to the author of a new study published by the Washington-based Cato Institute. -
Non-Governmental Organizations Wield Great Influence Over Climate Treaty
Opinion -For much of its history, the United Nations has relied heavily on the participation of non-governmental organizations--self-appointed guardians of the environment and the public good. -
Nation’s Leading Property Rights Experts to Gather for New York State Conference
Opinion -People want to believe that private property restrictions affect only wealthy families with thousands of acres of land, or large corporations that don’t care about their property. -
World Bank Serves as PR Firm in Support of Global Warming Treaty
Opinion -"As fires continue to smoulder in Indonesia and El Nino heightens anxiety about global warming, hundreds of the world's scientists, economists, lawyers, and policy makers have come to Washington this week to work on protecting the planet's ecosystem. -
Congressional Report Slams White House on Utah Land-Grab
Opinion -The Clinton administration's controversial designation last year of 1. -
Worried White House Sacks Wirth
Opinion -On the eve of the UN-sponsored global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, the Clinton White House parted company with its controversial lead negotiator on the global warming issue. -
Chicago: Still the Nation’s Worst Public Schools
Opinion -In 1988, then-Secretary of Education William Bennett came to Chicago and declared its schools to be "the worst in the nation." Events since then suggest that the trend has been to even lower depths.