This month Tennessee enacted a new Education Savings Account (ESA) law for its state’s K-12 students. The law creates the second ESA program that will operate in the Volunteer State. Education options are widespread in America, unless a family can’t afford an alternative to their zoned public school. The Tennessee legislation provides families there with […]
This week, the Florida legislature passed a bill that would create a scholarship program for lower-income families called the Family Empowerment Scholarship. The Family Empowerment Scholarship will provide lower-income children with scholarships equal to 95% of the state portion of funding to school districts. The Family Empowerment Scholarship is expected to be signed into law […]
Derrell Bradford has spent his adult life passionately advocating for education reform through parental choice. Derrell grew up in southwest Baltimore and received a scholarship to a private high school. Better than anyone, he knows the power of choice to unleash a child’s potential. “A scholarship is not a five-year plan or a power point…,” […]
Portland, OR – Katie Eyre was recently elected the newest board member of Cascade Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research and educational organization based in Portland. Eyre, a Certified Public Accountant, is a Tax Partner at Fordham & Co LLP in Hillsboro and is a former Oregon state legislator. The Cascade Board of […]
Every January, National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective education options for all children. A nonpartisan and nonpolitical celebration of educational choice, the Week raises awareness of the different K-12 options available to families, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online academies, and homeschooling. This year’s celebration […]
Bull market? Bear market? Growth? Uncertainty? What does 2019 have in store? Economies are described in numbers, percentages, and quarterly comparisons. But the picture is richer than dollar values of production and consumption. No economy exists without millions of unique people bringing to the marketplace their creativity, intelligence, initiative, and effort. The knowledge, skills, and […]
The quintessential American holiday, Thanksgiving evolved from the Pilgrims’ celebrations to thank God for the harvests that saved Plymouth Colony. What most people didn’t learn in school is that nearly half the Mayflower Pilgrims died of starvation because many refused to work in the fields. Plymouth Colony originally had a socialist economy. Land and crops […]
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 […]
Governor Kate Brown opened this month’s legislative session with her State of the State speech February 5. She focused on the need for better education and workforce training for young Oregonians, so they can achieve the American Dream and raise families. To close the “skills gap” between workers and employment opportunities she proposed a new […]
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 […]