Education
Josh Shapiro Can Now Focus on Leading Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pa., August 13, 2024 — Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate should have Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro asking himself, why Walz, writes Commonwealth…
Read More: Josh Shapiro Can Now Focus on Leading PennsylvaniaEducation is the first stepping-stone on the path to success, but Pennsylvania students face severe inequality among public school districts. Thousands who can’t afford private school are trapped in failing schools or situations that aren’t the right fit. The solution to this crisis is school choice. By offering families options outside their zip code-assigned district schools, students are better able to find their path to success. Charter schools, tax credit scholarships, education savings accounts (ESAs), homeschooling, and other types of education choice must become a priority in Pennsylvania.
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Education
Scholarships as tax relief
Read Matt Brouillette’s commentary in today’s York Dispatch.
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Educating From the Bench
Judges order legislators to spend more on schools, and taxpayers see less in return. Dr. Jay P. Greene in today’s Wall Street Journal.
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New Report on High School Graduation
A new report from the Manhattan Institute, released today, attempts to calculate real (as opposed to reported) high school graduation rates, using a consistent methodology across states. They found…
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Philly quadruples number of teachers fired for lack of performance
Before you think there is a major focus on teacher quality in the Philadelphia School District, the quadrupling of the number of teacher fired for performance was from 2 in…
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PHEAA says receipts would reveal secrets
PHEAA refuses to disclose what they are spending their money on, the Patriot News reports, citing “trade secrets.” Far be it from me to suggest that taxpayers and…
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PSBA takes issue with my referendum commentary
Equal time was given to Tim Allwein of the PA School Boards Association to offer a rebutal to my commentary in last Sunday’s Patriot-News. Fair game. It should…
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Let Common Sense Prevail on School Construction Projects
In the current debate over school property tax reform in Pennsylvania, all of the plans under consideration in Harrisburg focus solely on the revenue side of the school finance equation…
Commentary
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School Vouchers are Improving Education in Milwaukee
Summary by National Center for Policy Analysis of a article in the New York Times.
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Cyberschools have districts edgy
Times-Tribune article on the growth of Pennsylvanias’ Cyberschools. The bottom line: students do better when parents are able to choose which school is best for them.
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Black Flight
Excellent Wall Street Journal article on what is happening in Minneaopolis where African-American families in the city’s poorest neighborhoods are choosing to leave their assigned public schools in large…
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How schools lock themselves into raising taxes
Article on USATODAY.com explores how health care and other benefits promised to public teachers’ unions will cost school districts a fortune over the coming years. Anyone who thinks…
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Exceptions are rule for Act 72
The Times Leader points out the “referendum in name only” aspects of Act 72…which are also present in the various bills winding their way through the General Assembly. For…
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The PHEAA raises: Another pay-jacking
More on the lobbyist/legislative operative who is now the highest paid state employee … in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want …
There is a theory (articulate in a piece by Mark Bauerlein) that left-wing academics are engrossed in large scale group think, that when large numbers of the radical left…
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Read More: A government big enough to give you everything you want …Education
PSBA: “Limit School Spending for Cyber Schools”
The Pennsylvania School Board Association has finally come to agree that school spending should be limited to what it actually costs to educate a child: Patriot News – Districts…
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Public nonprofit, privately profitable
The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, a taxpayer-supported, government-monopoly student loan organization, will pay its top executive, Dick Willey, nearly a half million dollars in 2006, reports the Harrisburg…
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“Living in an alternate universe”
The Brownsville Area School District recently voted to give administrators some retirement benefits that no private sector would even consider–Nine years of free healthcare insurance for retiring early. As The…
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Conservative professors face discrimination
Commonwealth Foundation Adjunct Scholar and Villanova University associate professor of political science Bob Maranto in the Philadelphia Inquirer on how diversity on college campuses excludes conservative academics.
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The birthplace of school choice
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal says the “front lines of today’s civil rights struggle are not in the South but in Milwaukee.” Read Fund’s Political Diary.
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PA is national leader on teacher strikes
Pennsbury School District parent, Simon Campbell, nails the teacher strike issue in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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John Stossel: ‘Stupid in America’
John Stossel plans to look at how the public schools are failing kids tonight on ABC. ‘Stupid in America’ will ask the question: Does the U.S. government’s monopoly over public…
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