The Heartland Institute

Although national pundits have linked Tea Partiers to Indiana School Superintendent Tony Bennett’s loss against union official Glenda Ritz Nov. 6, polls and ground-level observation indicate the reformer lost largely by alienating moms and teachers. “Ritz was able to pick up some Tea Party support over their concerns about Common ...

Most states begin legislative sessions in spring 2013, and several lawmakers have already indicated they will introduce Parent Trigger or school voucher legislation. Here’s a list. Parent Trigger: These laws, passed in seven states, allow a majority of parents whose children attend a failing school to require a specific reform ...

Multiple states and other plaintiffs are continuing their lawsuits against President Obama’s administration over his mandate that employers provide coverage for contraception and abortifacients, despite being rebuffed by a federal judge. Seven states, three organizations, and two individuals are continuing their fight against the contraceptive ...

President Obama's re-election impacts the domestic policy future of the United States in a number of meaningful ways, but particularly in the arena of health care policy, where the law that bears his name is secure for at least four years. States that have resisted or slowed their implementation of Obamacare now face a number ...

Michigan voters defeated the union-backed Proposal 2, with 58 percent voting no and 42 percent voting yes. “I had full confidence in Michigan voters that they’d see the union power grab for what it was,” said Vincent Vernuccio shortly after the November 6 election results were known. Vernuccio is director of labor policy at ...

Friday's news roundup: 1. Montana's superintendent race is still too close to call. 2. What's next for federal education policy ? 3. Philadelphia schools borrow to keep the lights on. 4. Indianapolis elects a raft of school board reformers . 5. Let's replace school systems with charter schools. 6. Paying for Common Core-related technology ...

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the effect of speculation on commodities pricing has been hotly debated. Although speculation in commodities may play a role in determining prices, price fluctuations are largely a response to the fundamental forces of supply and demand. Nonetheless, in the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and ...

Steve Stanek, Heartland's managing editor of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate discusses the financial impact of the Presidential election. ...

An alleged burglar who broke into the home of a 90-year-old California man and shot him in the head is now suing the homeowner because he shot back at the burglar. The burglar is now serving a six-year prison term for assault with a deadly weapon in an unrelated 2001 incident. He may be charged with attempted murder ...

The nation’s largest abortion provider will soon teach more public school students about sex, thanks to federal funding in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For five years, the law allocates $75 million for Personal Responsibility Education Programs, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America will receive much ...

Every now and then developments in the global warming debate induce a deep-from-the-belly round of laughter. No, not the spit-your-coffee-out-of-your-mouth burst of comical surprise, but rather a deep, jovial, mirthful, full-body, prolonged healthy laugh. Last month, the IPCC smacking down Michael Mann for publicly and repeatedly ...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters yesterday that he would like to see the U.S. Senate address climate change. At the same time, Democrat Reps. Henry Waxman (CA) and Bobby Rush (IL) wrote a letter to Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Fred Upton (R-MI) calling for hearings on an asserted ...

Absent action from Congress and the president, the United States will face what many are calling a “fiscal cliff” at the beginning of 2013. That describes the increase of several key tax rates as the early-2000s tax cuts expire, the reduction of certain jobs provisions, activation of $1.2 trillion in across-the-board budget ...

Benjamin Domenech explains how the administration's essential benefit requirement that insurers cover the cost of contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization services for minors tramples on parental rights. ...

A new report pinpoints education savings accounts as the next-generation school voucher system for states committed to real education reform. ESAs deposit state per-pupil education spending into an account that parents control, letting them choose how to spend their child’s education dollars among different options such as online ...

President Obama’s reelection with no change of leadership in the House and Senate means he and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will maintain current policies: multiple federal grants for favored initiatives and increased control over state and local education. “[Obama] has shifted the federal role in many ways,” said Jon Schnur ...

Voters around the nation went all over the map in responding to education initiatives on November’s ballot. Washington and Georgia voted to allow independent charter schools, Floridians rejected a measure that would have allowed direct vouchers, and some voters—notably in California—approved education tax hikes while others rejected ...

An Italian judge has found seven Italian seismologists and geologists guilty of multiple manslaughter for failing to predict a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in 2009 in L’Aquila, Italy. They recently were sentenced to six years in prison. The seven were internationally prominent members of the National Commission for the Forecast ...

The United States government gives back almost as much money through tax deductions, exemptions and credits as it collects in income taxes. Ending these "tax expenditures" and cutting tax rates to keep down the amount of taxes collected would benefit businesses, individuals, and the economy as a whole, says economist Jeremy ...

Michigan voters in the November 6 election rejected a statewide ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment to make it more difficult to raise state taxes . Proposal 5 called for a two-thirds supermajority vote of both the Michigan House and Senate, or a simple majority vote of the people in a November election, to impose ...