This week marks National Charter Schools Week, when parents, students, educators, advocates, and policymakers recognize the successes of the charter school movement. Twenty-three years ago, parents, teachers, and state and local leaders joined together to launch a new kind of public school – a charter school – that would promote parental choice, foster innovation, and ensure a high level of accoun... Read more »
The president’s appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seem determined to undercut the American Dream. With the General Counsel’s unprecedented decision last July that McDonald’s Inc. and its franchisees are joint employers, and a similar case pending before the full board, the Obama NLRB is poised to upend a business model that has benefited countless American entrepreneurs. Take... Read more »
After decades of federal intrusion into the nation’s classrooms, it’s time for Congress to pass a law that restores parental, local, and state control over education. Will Estrada with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) describes the urgent need to replace the current education law, No Child Left Behind, with conservative education reforms embodied in the Student Success Act. In a b... Read more »
Washington’s outsized role in education has imposed a series of one-size-fits-all policies that assume federal bureaucrats know better than parents, teachers, and local leaders. As Education and the Workforce Committee member Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) writes in a recent op-ed, “the quality of our children’s education is too high a priority to rely on a one-size-fits-all approach. The Student Success... Read more »
For too long, Washington has insisted more programs, mandates, and spending would fix a broken K-12 education system. While well intended, No Child Left Behind doubled-down on this flawed approach, leaving countless students trapped in failing schools. A one-size-fits-all accountability system has ushered in an era of ineffective high-stakes testing that has done little – if anything – to improve ... Read more »
The Obama administration is once again pushing a multi-billion dollar proposal to offer ‘free’ community college to every American. In the weekly address, Vice President Biden said this was a “straightforward plan to … expand the pathway to the middle class.” Like most political gestures that offer something for nothing, this one is not all it’s cracked up to be. There is nothing ‘free’ about the ... Read more »
The Obama administration’s temporary, conditional waiver scheme has masked the harsh reality of America’s current K-12 education landscape: No Child Left Behind remains the law of the land. In other words: Virtually all schools are considered failing under the law’s one-size-fits-all, high-stakes accountability system, known as ‘Adequate Yearly Progress,’ and are required to adopt federally prescr... Read more »
State education leaders recently gathered in Washington to send an urgent message: America’s K-12 education system is broken, and only a new law can fix it. They’re talking about the need for Congress to replaceNo Child Left Behind (NCLB) through the legislative process. That is precisely what House Republicans have been working on for years. Unfortunately, these efforts have been undercut by the ... Read more »
On Tuesday, the president vetoed a bicameral resolution that would have blocked the National Labor Relation Board’s ambush election rule. By vetoing the measure, the president has signed off on a radical regulatory scheme that will: Restrict the right of employers to speak to employees during a union organizing campaign; Undermine the right of employees to make an informed decision in union electi... Read more »
Separation of powers. States’ rights. Local control. These are just a few fundamental principles the Obama administration has ignored when it comes to K-12 education, and it’s time for Congress to do something about it. It began in 2009 with a multibillion dollar slush fund known as “Race to the Top.” Created in the Democrats’ failed stimulus law, the program empowered the secretary of education ... Read more »
