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.
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… Read more
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. … Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
Imposing Centralized Education Authority Unprecedented Federal Overreach: President Obama’s push for national standards and… Read more
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,… Read more
"The path to real reform begins with the truth," stated Education Secretary Arne Duncan in 2009 during an education forum with the Data Quality Campaign. Sec. Duncan, who argues that policymakers should use "data to drive reform," strongly believes that education policy should be "framed by evidence." … Read more
A common story line in American education policy is that public school teachers are underpaid—"desperately underpaid," according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a recent speech. As former first lady Laura Bush put it: "Salaries are too low. We all know that. We need to figure out a way to… Read more
Across the country with much less fanfare, Idaho implemented its own set of landmark reforms. And while the state has lacked the drama playing out in the Midwest, the education changes implemented earlier this year in Idaho are arguably the most sweeping of any adopted in 2011. Read more… Read more
Jason Richwine discusses teacher compensation. … Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
Abstract: 2011 has been a milestone year for school choice, setting the bar high for state legislatures across the country to increase families’ educational options. What began with a crucial re-authorization of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program continued… Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
Washington, D.C., Nov. 1, 2011 -- Far from being underpaid, the typical public-school teacher makes out very well indeed, according to a new report from The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. “Assessing the… Read more
Across the country, states are enacting and expanding school choice options for families. This year alone, 12 states and the District of Columbia have implemented new school choice options for children or expanded existing options, leading The Wall Street Journal to label 2011 “The Year of School Choice.”[1] … Read more
Abstract: Increasing federal intervention and the resulting burden of complying with federal programs, rules, and regulations has caused a significant growth in state bureaucracy, much of which has a parasitic relationship with federal education programs, straining the time and resources of local schools.… Read more
Speaking on Friday at the University of Michigan, President Obama declared, "I want this to be a big, bold, generous...… Read more
Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for dramatically raising teacher pay last Friday on MSNBC, declaring that the...… Read more
According to Dr. Michael Walker Jones of the Louisiana Association of Educators, low-income parents “don’t have a clue”...… Read more
Few legislators have done more to advance school choice than Kevin Chavous. As a city councilmember in Washington D.C....… Read more
Yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) spoke at The Heritage Foundation as part of National School Choice Week and to mark...… Read more
With a growing number of school choice programs comes a growing body of research on how educational opportunity...… Read more
Joseph Kelley knew something was wrong when his son Rashawn flunked first grade. “I knew he knew his alphabet forward...… Read more
What singular cause could bring together the likes of Democratic campaign strategist James Carville, Republican Governor...… Read more
If there’s one thing Saturday Night Live is good at in an election year, it’s lampooning politicians—whether it’s been...… Read more
Like the rest of us, state and local policymakers across the country probably made New Year’s resolutions to eat...… Read more
A report from Heritage's experts featuring education policy developments.
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Senior Policy Analyst
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Director, Domestic Policy Studies
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