The good news: the state's teachers' union Education Minnesota has widened its September opt-out "window" from seven days to 30 days. The bad news: the window still exists and is problematic to teachers' ability to fully exercise their First Amendment rights. ...
Continue reading
Union membership is a personal decision. And educators are exercising their newly restored right to not financially support a union for a variety of reasons. Check out the Top 5 reasons educators are opting out of union membership....
Continue reading
Private school choice programs not only benefit students who participate in the programs but also public school students who remain in public schools. ...
Continue reading
There are numerous myths concerning educational choice programs. But in order for parents and students to make well-informed education decisions, these myths must be debunked. ...
Continue reading
Today’s college campus free-speech controversies have created campus environments that prevent students from saying what they really believe, according to a College Pulse study commissioned by the Knight Foundation....
Continue reading
As the one-year anniversary of Janus v. AFSCME approaches, the national teachers’ union AFT (American Federation of Teachers) recently made a misleading claim about the case’s impact on union membership. Photo of AFT President Randi Weingarten by AP/Andrew Harnik...
Continue reading
The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), serving low-income students in the nation’s capital, has generated high satisfaction among its participants....
Continue reading
As I write this, I am lounging on a beach chair in Palm Coast, Florida enjoying 87-degree weather that feels cooler thanks to a breeze coming off the Atlantic Ocean. The school year here has ended, and the local newspaper headlines have been focused on the state’s expansion of school choice through its fifth voucher program. Minnesota had the opportunity this most recent legislative session to help more students access quality school options through its own tax credit scholarship program, but the Legislature failed to approve the Equity and Opportunity Scholarship Act....
Continue reading
Minnesota is spending enormous sums of money on education programs for very young children, but the state’s mission is muddled and the results discouraging. Plus, the policy forces private child care providers to compete with “free” child care, threatening to create a government monopoly on child care. The good news is that the Senate held the line, with no increase in spending, and Gov. Walz, is showing some independence from the teachers’ union. ...
Continue reading
Four years prostrate to the higher mind isn't right for everyone. Nod if you can hear me. Vigorously if you truly agree. This Sunday Cover op-ed originally ran in the Star Tribune on June 2, 2019. I have spent most of my professional life expressing ideas that cause people to shake their heads horizontally in disagreement rather than nodding vertically in approval. But I’ve seen abundant nodding in the last few years when talking about how large numbers of young Americans who are not terribly interested in attending a four-year college enroll in one anyway — pressured by parents, peers, teachers, school...
Continue reading