The Heartland Institute

The U.S. Department of Education has now waived No Child Left Behind for 32 states that agreed to reconfigure their education systems according to the executive branch’s preferences, with four more waiver applications under review. Washington DC also received a waiver. NCLB governs most federal K-12 spending and mandates. The ...

Joy Pullmann, managing editor of The Heartland Institute's School Reform News and editor of the Education section of the Heartlander digital magazine, spoke at CPAC Chicago on the "Lake Woebegon Effect" on education. The introduction rightly credits Heartland's SRN as being a pioneer in publishing news and information on school ...

This school year Florida’s seventh graders will have to take a new standardized civics test. In 2014-2015, students must pass it to move up to high school. After four years of tinkering with the idea in response to extremely low civics knowledge among Florida’s students and general public, the Florida House and Senate unanimously ...

Calling it “a great milestone,” Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation CEO Dan Grabauskas has submitted a Full Funding Grant Agreement to the Federal Transit Administration requesting $1.55 billion for Honolulu’s 20-mile elevated steel on steel rail project. This is the first step toward getting funding for the $5 billion ...

Talk about key man. More than $600 billion is currently managed by hedge funds whose founders will turn at least 60 years old in the next decade, according to Institutional Investor magazine. The retirement – or death – of star traders can wreak havoc on an asset management firm. “Billions of dollars worth of assets . . . are ...

Despite $700 million dollars in development costs and taxpayer subsidies of $250,000 per vehicle, Chevrolet is selling very few Chevy Volts, Seton Motley of News Busters reports today in an eye-opening column. The federal government and various state governments repeatedly bill taxpayers for a litany of “can’t miss” automobile ...

Because it limits how the federal government can require states to do its bidding in exchange for taxpayer dollars, the Supreme Court’s recent healthcare ruling could have consequences for education policy. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s individual health insurance mandate under Congress ...

Two prominent environmental activist groups, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, are rallying against California Gov. Jerry Brown’s efforts to fast-track construction of high-speed rail in the state. Special Environmental Exemptions Brown is asking the state legislature to give high-speed rail special exemptions ...

A new analysis from the United Kingdom concludes that smart growth (compact city) policies are not inherently preferable to other urban land use policy regimes, despite the proponents' claims. "The current planning policy strategies for land use and transport have virtually no impact on the major long-term increases in resource ...

Gov. Jay Nixon has signed Missouri’s first major piece of charter school legislation since its first in 1998: Senate Bill 576 will allow charter schools to open statewide and make it easier to close poor-performing ones. “[The law] will make sure there is transparency and openness and will give students a better chance at ...

If you own a cell phone, you're paying for someone else's phone as well, every month (h/t Patrick O'Meara). ...

Of all the absurd memes repeated by the policy-bereft media these days, the idea that Republicans have no plan to replace Obamacare is one of the most irritatingly false. Here’s the latest example at Politico , headlined “Still no GOP plan to ‘replace.’” Keep in mind how bizarrely ignorant this piece is by considering this ...

Four years after approving a $9 billion high-speed rail proposal, Californians strongly oppose high-speed rail and would vote against it if given another chance, a University of Southern California/ Los Angeles Times poll reports. Only 33 Percent Support In the 2008 elections, Californians approved borrowing $9 billion for high-speed ...

July 21 marks the two-year anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory act. So let us ask: Has the intervening regulatory and industry activity fulfilled the promise that Dodd-Frank will end bailouts? Bailouts are an attempt to prevent something worse such as the collapse of the financial system. As there ...

Bottled water, iced tea, soda, and juice at Baltimore groceries and convenience stores began costing more on July 1. City Council members increased the bottle tax from 2 cents to 5 cents a bottle, over the objections of store owners and business groups that say the tax places them at a competitive disadvantage. The tax means ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is grossly overstating the economic benefits of its various environmental restrictions, environmental expert Richard Trzupek told the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Trzupek, a chemist and environmental consultant, told the House subcommittee ...

A new catch phrase is making the rounds among global warming alarmists and their media allies. Every time a fire breaks out somewhere or a summer heat wave occurs, the media quotes some longtime alarmist “scientist” saying, “This is what global warming looks like.” A quick look at the two most prominent such assertions this ...

A state judge has struck down a license for a uranium mill issued by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. In his much-anticipated ruling, Denver District Judge John McMullen said CDPHE did not allow adequate public comment before issuing a license to Energy Fuels, Inc. to operate the mill in rural Paradox ...

Is there any high-speed rail boondoggle big enough to make rail transport advocates reject it? Sadly, for all too many of them the answer is no, as two recent developments make clear. The first is in California, where the state continues to press forward on a high-speed rail plan that could cost anywhere from $68 billion ...

Two wrongs may not make a right, but a second dose of poison might just cure the first dose. That’s at least what Paul Krugman, America’s most prominent left-wing economic pundit, is saying about an untapped remedy for our economic woes. In his April 5 New York Times column, “Not Enough Inflation,” Krugman repeated his claim ...