While the Rhode Island education establishment engages in spats over the flow of federal dollars, evidence suggests that money and results are not linked.
Yesterday, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity recognized the two winners of its essay contest on the topic of school choice, as Rhode Island’s offering in the nationwide celebration of Friedman Legacy Day.
Essays submitted to the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s “Friedman Legacy Day 2013” contest suggest that public schools are preparing students for public dependency, not the dynamic process of overcoming obstacles on which the American dream is founded.
The sky is falling! 22 year olds are leaving college with $27,000 of debt and now they’ll have to pay 6.8% in interest on it! For a career path they chose. Can we stop with the hysteria and look at the bigger picture. They have plenty of time to pay it off and look at the long-term benefits.
A letter writer opposing school choice legislation fails to mention circumstances of his career (and young retirement) that might be relevant to his opinion.
And guess who is the namesake of the NEA RI’s “Union Spirit Award”?
The school choice debate comes down to philosophy and priorities, and the education of the public, in its vast diversity, should come first.
State Board of Education votes to give Commissioner Deborah Gist a two-year contract.
“I believe she will do everything possible to continue to push her corporate, right wing agenda”
Civilian Control of the Government
38 Studios but 1 Witness
6 Economic Development Bills, 4 No Votes
2 National Security Appointments
Reactions to school choice legislation in the General Assembly raise the question of whether “public education” really means the system by which the public educates itself.
Legislation introduced in the RI House would offer a broad school choice opportunity for Rhode Island families and may indicate that the state’s dire circumstances might finally be opening fissures for big ideas and bold policies.
Taxpayers in the regional Chariho school district scored a substantial victory in getting the district to reduce its 2014 budget request to a zero percent increase, but in the long run, all such victories will be minor unless the victories start including elections for public office.
The education system that John Stossel dubs “the Blob” illustrates the problems with relying on government to provide services and conduct business.
The father of Governor Chafee’s preferred “three Ts” strategy for economic development is beginning to see the limitations and damages of it. A strategy of freedom first would better serve the people of Rhode Island.
An article not about what it’s about; sequester demagoguery; softening kids for “effort shock”; and the rise of grassroots fascism.
Economic freedom as the best approach to economic development; what Rhode Island chooses to penalize; the root cause of education decline.
Taxing sweet drinks; collectively bargained legislation; equal pay for unequal merit; Projo promotes the economy; civil rights from heroism to handouts.
Legislation to prevent the use of standardized testing for high school diplomas and legislation to prevent electrical maintenance workers from plying their trade freely give a sense of RI’s governance problems.
Two narratives on the economy; a health exchange story the media is missing; government as pretend leader; powerful teachers’ unions (plus Ted Nesi’s Rolodex)
Critical thinking sexism in Providence schools; a masculine career in disability; indoctrination; gambling on the law; an earnest pun.
National results and local controversies point to the problems that have eroded Americans’ sense and taste for self governance.
Healthcare and what you get for free; making a living trying to fix the dying (state); the dictator prescription; and unhealthily sexist (female) teachers.
What’s up with the Providence charter push; why RI schools lack warmth; how pervasive is progressive destruction; and how an island is like policy knowledge.
Campaign finance serving incumbents; too common common political wisdom, locally; not hating the opposition; fearing the “common core.”
Mainstream reporters chat; the unknown cost of economic development; improving higher education by dumbing it down; a lawless society.
Mainly on government’s bad incentives: bad housing spending in Providence, unlearnable spending lessons for the governor, stimulus corruption, and Medicaid reform.
Another round is looming in the dispute between members of the RI General Assembly and the attorney general over in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
West Warwick for all; the essence of education reform; declines in people births; declines in business births; the easy street to dependency.
The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s General Assembly Freedom Index shifts the good-government-advocate spotlight, with some results that run across the grain of public perception.