In 2009, as part of President Obama’s signature economic policy that was passed into law as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is more popularly known as the “stimulus package,” President Obama dedicated some $7 billion for the express purpose of improving academically failing schools through School Improvement Grants (SIG). In order to…
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Politicians may bill it as “free”, but government monopoly in education is big business that racks up considerable public debt. As Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee observes, in recent decades California has issued $45 billion in school bonds now being repaid at a cost of nearly $3 billion a year. With interest the…
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The Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week has showcased plenty of hoopla and boilerplate rhetoric – some of it apparently plagiarized – but provided little enlightenment on key themes such as education. On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan and New Jersey governor Chris Christie bypassed the subject completely. Not so Donald Trump Jr.,…
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Shirley Hufstedler, the nation’s first federal Education Secretary, has passed away at 90. That news might surprise some, and not just the younger set, who imagined that the first federal education secretary appeared way back in 1776. There wasn’t one, because the Constitution gives states, not the federal government, domain over education. Under these…
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Arne Duncan is stepping down as federal Education Secretary, but the Washington Post news story of almost 3,000 words left out some key details. Duncan, one of the president’s Chicago pals, has been the federal point man against school choice. As we noted, the current president, like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter before him,…
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The new school year has kicked off but many students, particularly African Americans in the inner cities, remain interned in dysfunctional and dangerous schools. This is not an accident. Those are the very schools that legislators, bureaucrats, and government employee union bosses want for low-income students. In government education, money goes directly to the…
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For the third consecutive year, the National Basketball Association included U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in its celebrity game on all-star weekend. Duncan played basketball at Harvard where he was a first team academic all-American. In Black History Month some viewers might have thought that his real job is to dish out assists…
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Most American voters want to see the federal government make spending cuts across the board, but those same voters doubt such cuts will take place, according to a recent Rasmussen Poll. The survey found that only 39 percent of likely voters think it is somewhat likely that government will significantly reduce spending while 57…
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