THE PROBLEM: Charter schools empower parents to play a more active role in their child’s education, open doors for teachers to pioneer fresh teaching methods, encourage state and local innovation, and help students escape underperforming schools. Despite high demand and an estimated one million students' names on charter school wait lists, barriers to quality charter school growth exist. The fede... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: Over the last decade, college costs have skyrocketed. Annual in-state tuition and fees at public four-year universities cost an average of $4,793 in 2001. Today, that price tag is $8,665 – an 81 percent increase. Similar trends can be seen at private institutions and two-year degree programs. Despite the Obama administration’s failed attempts to rein in college costs through new gove... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: Over the last four decades, the federal government’s role in K-12 education has increased dramatically. Despite tripling federal funding since 1965, student achievement has remained flat. Meanwhile, the Department of Education currently operates more than 80 programs tied to K-12 classrooms. Many of these programs are duplicative or ineffective, and each comes bundled with its own se... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: Studies have consistently shown teacher quality to be among the most influential factors in student academic achievement. Unfortunately, federal teacher policies, most notably the “Highly Qualified Teacher” mandates, value a teacher’s credentials over his or her ability to boost student learning. Under current law, an educator is considered “highly qualified” if he or she has earned ... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: Any effort to provide students with a quality education must include parents. Parental involvement can help drive innovation, competition, and school improvement. However, current federal policies often ignore the important role parents play, and can stand in the way of state and local efforts to engage parents in their child’s education. For example, under current law, states and sc... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: Enacted under President George W. Bush's administration with the promise to focus on individual student achievement and overall school performance, No Child Left Behind was heralded as groundbreaking. But after a decade of the law, we can now clearly identify its weaknesses. The "Adequate Yearly Progress" measurement restricts states' and school districts' ability to effectively gaug... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: Unions have long tried to organize small groups or “units” of employees as an incremental step toward organizing an entire workplace. A standard used for decades by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) required a different approach, one that promoted unity in workplaces by including in the proposed unit all employees that had a “community of interest.” The board considered basic... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: Under current federal labor law, workers choose whether or not to be represented by a union through a federally-supervised secret ballot election. However, workers can also organize through a ‘card check’ campaign, in which workers are asked to publicly declare their support for union representation by signing an authorization card. When a simple majority of workers sign a card – by ... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind, has been due for reauthorization since 2007. Despite its best intentions, there is widespread agreement that the current law is no longer effectively serving students. No Child Left Behind’s ‘Adequate Yearly Progress’ (AYP) metric proves one-size-fits-all federal accountability mandates hamper innova... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: In recent years, the federal government has taken steps to improve data collection and transparency in the higher education system. Under Republican leadership, the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act included several provisions to provide students and families with the data needed to make informed decisions about their postsecondary opportunities. Despite these improvem... Read more »
