The Metro Council voted June 7 to place a housing bond measure of $652.8 million for only 3,900 units on the ballot this fall. The regional government estimates the cost of new projects will be around $253,000 per home. But as there is no cap on cost per dwelling, project costs could be much greater. […]
When’s the last time you went to a store, and the store forced you to buy something you didn’t want? That’s ridiculous, you might think. Sure, someone else might want it, but they can’t spend my money for me on something I’m not looking to buy. For the past 40 years, this is how public […]
Are we waiting for Superman? In 2010, a documentary by that name chronicled the struggles of five kids trying to get a quality education in the American public school system. Despite the $634 billion dollars Americans funnel into public education, these kids’ choices were between enrollment in an ill-fitting public school or winning the charter […]
What do Pac-Man and public pensions have in common? An intriguing 2016 national study of pension debt and teacher salaries recently answered this question. Depending on what economic assumptions are made, it’s likely that unfunded public pension liabilities for all states and local governments exceeded $6 trillion in 2017. Based on the same assumptions, Oregon’s […]
What’s better for welfare recipients and low-skilled workers: a higher minimum wage, or a larger Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)? David Neumark, director of the Economic Self-Sufficiency Policy Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine, explains in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal why the EITC benefits low-income single parents more over […]
Oregon owns 1.5 million acres of School Trust Lands that must be managed for the benefit of public education. When profits are earned, the money goes into the Common School Fund, an endowment. Last year, the Fund distributed more than $70 million to local schools. The Trust Lands are managed by the State Land Board, […]
Oregonians will have the opportunity in January to vote No on Ballot Measure 101, thus rejecting new taxes that the state legislature and the governor tried to impose on health insurance premiums and hospital services. While these and other taxes are meant to shore up state funding of Medicaid services to low-income Oregonians, it has […]
Willamette Week recently reported that, sadly, Oregon now has the third-lowest graduation rate in the country, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Oregon’s four-year adjusted public high school graduation rate was 74.8% in 2015-16. Only Nevada and New Mexico have lower graduation rates. The Oregon Education Association, a teachers union, blames this abysmal […]
EdChoice recently conducted a groundbreaking survey of military-connected families seeking to understand their perspectives on K-12 education and school choice. EdChoice is a nonpartisan research organization that promotes expanded educational options for all children. The survey found that families connected with the military highly value access to better educational environments for their children, want more […]
Portland Public Schools is redrawing the boundaries of more than a dozen schools and reassigning 5,000 students, ten percent of its enrollment. According to The Oregonian: “To make sure no school ends up understaffed or overcrowded, students must be shuffled.” In government-run school districts, kids are cards in a deck. The bureaucracy gets to deal, […]