Effective education policy includes returning authority to the states and empowering parents with the opportunity to choose a safe and effective education for their children from among public, private, charter, and home school opportunities.
Issues 2012 provides candidates for elected office the ability to quickly identify the key issues of the day and present clear policy recommendations, supported by facts, for addressing them. Read More.
Successful schools weren’t the product of tens of billions in federal spending. They were characterized by parental involvement, local control, an emphasis on basic academics and dollars actually spent in the classroom. Read More.
The federal Race to the Top (RTTT) competitive grant program awarded $4.35 billion among select states, giving preference on grant applications to those states that agreed to adopt national education standards and tests. Read More.
Abstract: Coverdell education savings accounts (ESAs), created through the federal tax code, allow families to save money tax-free for K–12 and higher education expenses. Lifting the cap on contributions to Coverdell accounts would provide…
Abstract: Despite ongoing debates over the adequacy of teacher compensation, the design of merit pay systems, and the structure of pension benefits, there is broad agreement that teacher pay should be designed to recruit—and retain—the highest-quality teachers in a cost-effective manner. Policymakers should avoid…
Abstract: For four and a half decades, the federal role in education has been growing. Costly in terms of taxpayer dollars spent and local control of education lost, this expanding federal control has failed to improve outcomes for America’s children. National standards will further…
Abstract: President Obama’s FY 2013 budget request includes another major spending increase for the Department of Education—2.5 percent more than last year—to nearly $70 billion. American taxpayers are calling for spending restraint in Washington, yet President Obama’s proposals would exacerbate the existing bureaucratic maze…
Online classes are becoming a common feature of higher education, and this has led some educators to explore whether all of the features associated with a college experience could be accomplished online. The Center for Policy Innovation invited Karen D. McKeown to share her…
Heritage research on the new Obama budget is discussed on FNC's The Five. …
President Obama has mistaken bipartisan dissatisfaction with No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for a mandate to unilaterally re-write federal education law. This…
Several years ago, Paul was one of many children struggling through the Washington, D.C., public school system. In an interview as an 11-year-old, he looked back on his public school experience this way: "People screamed at the teacher, walked out of school during class, hurt me, and made fun of…
President Obama is right to draw attention to the soaring cost of a college education in America. However, his proposed solution will not only fail to fix the problem but is also likely to compound it by blunting the competition that is needed to shake up the world of higher…
Twenty years ago, there weren’t many charter schools around. Today, however, they’re a common sight. Indeed, the 10 states that have failed to permit the operation of charters are the laggards of a growing school-choice movement. Charters remain instrumental in the growth of school choice generally. Many…
A few Members of Congress, motivated by American combat in the Middle East, have called for the reinstatement of a compulsory military draft. The case for coercing young citizens to join the military is supposedly based on social justice?that all should serve?and…
Debates about how to improve public Education in America often focus on whether government should spend more on education. Federal and state policymakers proposing new Education programs often base their arguments on the need to provide more resources to schools to improve opportunities for students. Many Americans seem to share this view. Polling data show…
In April, the Senate will vote on reauthorization of welfare reform. The Senate welfare reform legislation will include the reauthorization of the federal government's main education program. Despite the overwhelming popularity of education, some groups seek to divert funds away from and into "safe sex" programs. These efforts to redirect funds are usually…
American taxpayers invest heavily in education. Last year, spending on public K–12 education totaled $553 billion, about 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006.[1] For each child enrolled in a public elementary or secondary school, expenditures averaged $9,266 that year—an increase of 128 percent, adjusted…
Over the past 20 years, computers and the sharing of information that they facilitate have penetrated nearly every aspect of American life. Indeed, reliance on computers grows every day, from shopping at grocery stores and filing taxes to driving an automobile and communicating with relatives and business associates. This explosion in the technology…
A growing number of American families are choosing to homeschool their children. The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics reports that approximately 1.1 million children (2.2 percent of school-age children) were being educated at home as of 2003-29 percent more than the 850,000 students who were being homeschooled in 1998.…
Executive Summary The teaching profession is crucial to America’s society and economy, but public-school teachers should receive compensation that is neither higher nor lower than market rates. Do teachers currently receive the proper level of compensation? Standard analytical approaches to this question compare teacher salaries to the…
This lecture was held at The Heritage foundation on April 21, 1998. "Affirmative action" has long had many meanings. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorized courts to take "affirmative action" to uproot racially discriminatory practices. That objective was, and remains, morally right. But that same statute forbade race preference; it is morally wrong. Affirmative…
No metaphor in American letters has had a more profound influence on law and policy than Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state." Today, this figure of speech is accepted by many Americans as a pithy description of the constitutionally prescribed church-state arrangement, and it has become the…
On its 10-year anniversary, there is consensus that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is broken. The debate over how to reform NCLB has generated a number of proposals from both houses of Congress and the Obama Administration, but ideas about how to rewrite the law differ greatly. …
Abstract: A November 2011 Heritage Foundation report—“Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers”—presented data on teacher salaries and benefits in order to inform debates about teacher compensation reform. The report concluded that public-school teacher compensation is far ahead of…
The push for centralized control over what every child should learn has never had more momentum. The Obama Administration has pressured states to adopt the Common Core State Standards Initiative, conditioning more than $4 billion in Race to the Top grants on its adoption. The Administration’s blueprint for the rewrite…
Federal law prohibits state colleges and universities from providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens “on the basis of residence within the State”—unless the same in-state rates are offered to all citizens of the United States. Today, 12 states are circumventing this federal law,…
This spring, parents and grandparents throughout the nation will be misting up as the chords of “Pomp and...…
Earlier this month, schools across the country celebrated National Charter Schools Week. This commemoration comes 20...…
You wouldn’t know it from watching cable television, but education is more important for Hispanic voters than the issue...…
Alabama has joined a growing number of states opposing the Common Core national education standards. Last week, the...…
Opponents of national standards and tests see the push as furthering “federal intrusion into state education matters,”...…
You know a politician is looking for applause when he speaks in front of a crowd of college students and says he's there...…
Over the weekend, President Obama urged Congress to prevent a pending interest rate hike on student loans. While he...…
The push to nationalize the content taught in public schools across the country should be of great concern to state...…
“Budgets are about choices,” stated President Obama in recent remarks to governors about his massive fiscal year (FY)...…
On Tuesday, President Obama criticized Representative Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) budget proposal as making “draconian cuts” to...…
A report from Heritage's experts featuring education policy developments.
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Will Skillman Fellow in Education
Director, Domestic Policy Studies
Research Associate
Visiting Fellow