Educational Freedom
ESA Overview
November 23, 2015 - 2:38pm CST
Arizona Florida Mississippi Tennessee Nevada PROGRAM OVERVIEW Official ESA Program Name Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) Personal Learning Scholarship Accounts (PLSAs) ... READ MORE
Oklahoma’s Higher Education Spending Far Outstrips National Average
November 19, 2015 - 2:46pm CST
As we pointed out in these pages in October, Oklahoma’s higher education system employs far too many non-instructional workers relative to the national average. This bloated workforce drives up the cost of higher education, and a significant share of these costs falls on the shoulders of Oklahoma’s ... READ MORE
The School Choice Information Problem
November 19, 2015 - 2:13pm CST
“I support school choice,” some education policymakers say, “but we need to make sure parents choose good schools!” In order for parents to choose good schools, of course, they need good information. Not information from government bureaucracies—which have a long track record of measuring the wro... READ MORE
The For-Profit Nightmare Before Christmas
October 28, 2015 - 11:30am CDT
If there’s one thing the government education blob knows it hates, it’s “profit.” Inside the closed epistemic bubble in which the unions and their allies talk to each other, that word is all you have to invoke to establish that something is evil. And by repeating this association over and over in t... READ MORE
Evidence Shortage for Teacher Shortage
October 28, 2015 - 11:15am CDT
According to recent news reports, many states are facing a teacher shortage. This is said to be proven by a Google search returning blog posts and news stories in which some people claim there is a teacher shortage. But is that true? The claimants could be uninformed, misinformed, or even have incen... READ MORE
A Closer Look at Oklahoma’s Teacher Shortage
October 28, 2015 - 11:02am CDT
Talk of a pending teacher shortage comes every decade. (In between, there’s talk of massive teacher layoffs.) While the talk rarely has translated into disaster, there’s no question that it causes districts and school boards to panic. In the search for solutions, technology, new collective-bargainin... READ MORE
Choosing Choice Is Choosing Families
September 17, 2015 - 2:38pm CDT
Education debates are going back to their roots. The big education debates of the 21st century are shaping up along lines similar to those of the education debates of the 19th century. If we continue in this direction, we will rediscover that at the root of our education debates is a debate about th... READ MORE
ESAs Could Be a Game-Changer for Oklahoma Parents
September 17, 2015 - 2:34pm CDT
This back-to-school season marks the fifth year Arizona parents have exercised the freedom to decide not just where but how their children are educated thanks to the state’s groundbreaking education savings account (ESA) program. Florida became the second state to enact ESAs, in 2014, followed by M... READ MORE
Four Reasons a Sales Tax Hike Is a Bad Idea
September 17, 2015 - 2:30pm CDT
In America, public education was traditionally funded by local governments through the property tax. Given our federalist system of government, a locally based educational system confers a number of advantages, including local accountability and tax transparency. Unfortunately, over time, the educa... READ MORE
Tuition Hikes and Non-instructional Overhead
September 17, 2015 - 2:16pm CDT
Students across Oklahoma have returned to college campuses, and many are feeling the pinch from higher tuition costs. Higher education officials often blame tuition hikes on reduced state appropriations, but could there be other factors in play? Because Oklahoma’s university system receives state f... READ MORE
