Minneapolis school finance officials gave a very sobering presentation to board members recently, warning that enrollment losses coupled with district spending will bankrupt the district in two short years. There…
Ask critics of school choice programs why they oppose the initiatives and they are quick to argue that expanding educational freedom will harm traditional school districts. But as I have…
Wind turbines are often sold to rural local governments as a means of bolstering their budgets and allowing them to offer additional services for their residents or offset other taxes.…
In this episode of the Last Optimist Podcast, Mark Mills evaluates whether the claims that 2022 would be of the EV have turned out to be true. Spoiler alert: most…
State and local taxes and spending MPR News: Minnesotans to avoid inflation-driven tax sting with huge bracket tweak Duluth News Tribune: Paid family and medical leave may have its chance…
It is quite concerning that this has to be said so many times, but there is nowhere in the world where rent control has produced positive results. Rent control has…
Suspended large free-food charity moves ahead on the litigation front. The St. Paul-based Partners in Nutrition, d/b/a Partners in Quality Care, was suspended by the state Department of Education (MDE)…
Sentencing Practices – 2021 On 12/15/22, the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission received a briefing on 2021 sentencing practices. The trends in criminal sentencing continue to be troubling. In 2021, Minnesota…
You’ve probably noticed that you pay a 6.875 percent sales tax on the electricity you use in your household unless that electricity is for heating your home. This means that…
These are some of the headlines in Minnesota’s media: KNSI: Walz Says Minnesota Added Jobs For 14th Straight Month Pioneer Press: Minnesota sees 14th straight month of job growth; 6,800 jobs added…
Teachers’ unions may oppose standardized testing, but Republicans, Democrats, the general public, parents, and varying demographic groups all overwhelmingly support standardized math and reading testing, according to the 2022 Education Next survey. Conducted…
A public records data request shines some light on the origins of the free-food nonprofit Feeding Our Future. The Minnesota-based group Public Record Media (PRM) recently received a batch of…
Americans are concerned about housing affordability, which shouldn’t be too surprising considering rising home prices. According to the Cato Institute 2022 Housing Affordability National Survey, a whopping 87% of Americans…
Despite the obvious partisan differences in the public’s attitudes toward education, both Democrats and Republicans support scholarships for low-income families funded by tax credits and universal vouchers, according to the…
It’s not exactly a pleasant subject to write about, much less personally encounter while shopping, sightseeing or on a lunch break downtown. But workers and visitors to city center Fargo…
Data from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs shows that no Minnesota wind facility produced more than 45 percent of its potential output in 2021. Several facilities in neighboring states met the…
Steve Sviggum’s recent apology tour is a good lesson for those attacked by the woke mob. Don’t bother apologizing because the apology will never be enough. Sviggum was forced to…
The news that Minnesota’s state government is forecast to run a budget surplus of $17.6 billion in the 2024-2025 biennium prompted some to ask where all that money came from.…
Hard data suggests not. The news that the state’s largest hotel, the downtown Minneapolis Hilton, would be sold at auction next month renewed a debate on the health of the…
According to the Minnesota Reformer, Uber and Lyft drivers have begun organizing themselves to press state lawmakers to force the tech giants to address long-standing driver complaints of meager wages, unsafe working…
Mike Hughlett at the Star Tribune wrote an excellent story last week detailing how Xcel Energy dropped its highly contested request for a $122 million rate increase in 2023, which…
Edina Public Schools appears set on shelling out around $150,000 to keep district elections during “off-cycle” (odd-numbered) years. The City of Edina offered to continue administrating elections for the district…
One of the front lines in the showdown over the Chinese threat to national security continues to be in one of the seemingly most unlikely of places — North Dakota.…
The Star Tribune ran a story last Wednesday titled “Minnesota’s big economic challenge is where to find people to fill jobs, state demographer says.” It followed this with another on…