The Heartland Institute

Parents of schoolchildren in a Massachusetts school district are invited to attend the third grade’s Thanksgiving celebration, but only if they have cleared a criminal background check. “Come have a snack with your child in a well-supervised setting,” the invitation read. The school district was not identified. Source: Lenore ...

In this "Best of" Heartland podcast, Jim Lakely and Joy Pullmann discuss the new policy brief released by the Heartland Institute, titled "The Parent Trigger: Justification and Design Guidelines." ...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich made official his administration’s refusal to create a health insurance exchange in Ohio as mandated by President Obama’s health care law, instead deferring to the federal government. With a November 16 letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Kasich cited the higher costs and uncertainty ...

In this "Best of" Heartland podcast, Manager of External Relations Kendall Antekeier sat down with John C. Goodman, President of the National Center for Policy Analysis. Together they discuss what reforms states can consider after the Supreme Court ruling, many of those suggested by Goodman’s new book “Priceless – Curing the ...

President Obama’s health care law requires that the administration define essential health benefits for the nation, a task which federal and state officials have found more challenging than expected. As of October 2012, only eleven states have settled on essential health care benefits packages or are close to doing so, while ...

Thursday and Friday: Happy Thanksgiving! See you Monday. Wednesday's roundup: 1. A Common Core supporter doesn't like the beginnings of national social studies standards . 2. Oklahoma's Supreme Court rules that school districts can't sue families who use special-needs vouchers . 3. Indiana's Supreme Court hears arguments today over ...

With gasoline prices reaching all-time highs, some activists and politicians are attacking oil and gas companies for not fully developing the federal leases for energy production they hold, and they’re using that as a reason to advocate a moratorium on issuing additional leases. In an October 2012 report, Rep. Edward Markey ...

A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), titled Too Late for Two Degrees? Low Carbon Economy Index 2012, claims nations must dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the carbon intensity of their economies to cap global warming at an acceptable level of 2 degrees Celsius above “pre-industrial levels.” The report ...

The United States has increased its teaching force 250 percent since 1950, reducing teacher-student ratios from 1:22 to 1:15, but the expansion has not brought higher teacher quality. Teachers tend to have below-average SAT, ACT, LSAT, and GRE scores, and statistics show their college coursework is among the least challenging ...

It’s getting more expensive for Michigan school districts to borrow money and difficult for some to avoid bankruptcy after voters rejected a ballot proposal that would have retained the state’s emergency manager law. The law allowed the governor to appoint fiscal managers to oversee municipalities and school districts that have ...

A Georgia legislator plans to propose an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and state legislators in four have stated their intentions to propose it in early 2013. Though the Georgia ...

In spite of the significant trophic mismatches that Burthe et al. discovered over the course of their research – and rather surprisingly, it might be added – they report that “to date, there is no evidence that these changes are impacting on the breeding success of any of the seabird species,” suggesting that trophic mismatches ...

So why is it that the governors of Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming have all said no to a state-implemented health insurance exchange? Scott Walker’s letter explaining ...

Performance may affect teacher pay at Newark Public Schools, after local teachers union members voted to approve a new contract Nov. 14. Nearly 62 percent of member voters approved the deal. Two days later, Gov. Chris Christie (R) called it a model for the nation. Schools in New Jersey’s largest city have struggled academically ...

As Congress considers whether to allow the capital gains tax rate to increase at the beginning of 2013, states across the nation are debating whether to change their own capital gains tax rates. Oregon’s capital gains taxes are among the nation’s highest. According to the Federation of Tax Administrators, Oregon is tied with ...

Although the original version of the government-run public option was not included in President Obama’s health care law, an alternate approach will be rolled out in 2013 which may represent a stealth version of the unpopular proposal. Section 1334 of Obama’s law creates federally administered multistate insurance plans (MSP) to ...

Major banks recently reported their best year since 2006, but bankers worry about future economic and regulatory conditions. The combined profits of $63 billion of the six largest banks are the most since before the subprime lending crisis struck in 2007. The subprime crisis, as it turned out, was just the tip of the iceberg ...

Jim Lakely, co-director of Heartland's Center on the Digital Economy, speaks with Scott Mackey, partner at KSE Partners LLP in Montpelier, Vermont, about his new report examining taxes and fees on wireless consumers. The report is titled, "Wireless Taxes and Fees Continue Growth Trend." ...

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson must not have gotten the memo about the Barack Obama administration would be the most open and transparent presidential administration ever. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee is investigating whether U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson is conducting official ...

Evergreen State College says it would be sued for discrimination if it refuses to allow a man to wander around naked in the college’s women’s locker room in the presence of young girls, and use the sauna with his male genitalia visible, because the man gender-identifies himself as a woman. Elementary and high school ...