The Heartland Institute

Problem According to The Heartland Institute s 2010 State School Report Card, North Carolina public education ranks 47th in the nation in terms of Learning Achievement and receives an F. Currently, North Carolinians have little say in how their schools are improved and no ability to authorize the creation of a charter school ...

Listen to Heartland's Director of the Center for School Reform discuss school choice in the form of Illinois' pending voucher legislation, along with the numerous movies depicting unions as the primary obstacle to educational improvement across America. Download here. This interview aired on Wednesday, June 10th, 2010. ...

Last week, Florida s legislature passed landmark legislation to tie teacher compensation to educational outcomes and phase out tenure for K-12 teachers. On April 15, Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the bill, which would have made all teachers contracts only one year in duration and tied renewal and pay increases to students test scores ...

The U.S. Department of Education on Monday, March 29 announced Delaware and Tennessee would be the only states out of 16 finalists to receive grants in the first round of Race to the Top education-stimulus funding. Teachers unions in some of the states that failed to make the final opposed their states applications. The Department ...

If successful charter schools can be duplicated, and failing charter schools can be closed, why not expand that model to school systems across the country? That is the basic question asked and answered by Lisa Snell in Reason Foundation's Policy Brief #87. In " Fix the City Schools," Snell provides a detailed review of the ...

The Wisconsin Legislature failed to approve two of several education reforms Gov. Jim Doyle (D) urged to boost the state's application for $254 million in federal funds by the January 19 deadline. Warring factions divide states nationwide as they compete for a slice of $4 billion in Race to the Top, a pot of federal money ...

When the Oklahoma Legislature convened on February 1, a bill creating a voucher program for autistic and other special-needs students was on the agenda. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Jason Nelson (R-Oklahoma City) and state Sen. Patrick Anderson (R-Enid), will redirect existing funds instead of raising taxes. Special-needs ...

Review of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns , by Clayton M. Christensen with Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008), 288 pages, hardcover, ISBN: 0071592067 / 9780071592062, $32.95 This book offers brilliant insights into the United States education ...

Making it easier for Virginia s parents to place their special-needs children in private school would not only help families faced with the daunting task of paying for the private education and unique services their children s disabilities demand but also would benefit school districts, a new study reports. A report released December ...

Legislation to be signed into law soon by Gov. Jennifer Granholm promises sweeping education reform in Michigan, but some local lawmakers say it falls short of the goal of helping schools get rid of ineffective teachers. State Sen. Patty Birkholz (R-Saugatuck Township) said she was disappointed by the failure of a bill she ...

The impending arrival of a new administration in the Commonwealth of Virginia has raised school choice advocates hopes, but they don t expect change to come quickly. Republican Governor-elect Bob McDonnell handily defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds in the November 3 general election shifting not only the party in power, but also Virginia ...

School choice could save the state of Vermont $80 million to $300 million per year, according to a study conducted by the Ethan Allen Institute, a public policy research and education group based in Concord. The report, released December 1, was compiled by the institute s Commission on Rebalancing Education Cost and Value to ...

David Anderson, Ph.D., aspires to reform K-12 education by developing and offering schooling in the for-profit sector. In 2003, Anderson, a 68-year-old retired physicist who lives in Rhode Island, launched Asora (Asynchronous, Self-paced, Online, Rigorous content, in an Assessment-based curriculum) Education Enterprises, for which he ...

With Gov. Jim Doyle's signature on a school reform bill now dry, Wisconsin can make its case for some of the $4.5 billion President Obama is offering to improve education in the U.S. The bill Doyle signed Monday allows the state to use the results of standardized student test scores in teacher evaluations. Wisconsin was one ...

Wisconsin schools could use student test scores to evaluate teachers, but they still couldn't use the information to discipline or fire them under a bill moving quickly through the Legislature. Lawmakers must remove a ban on using test scores in evaluations for Wisconsin to compete for about $4.5 billion in Race to the Top ...

The Family: Forgotten Foundation of Education Reform?; The American Center for School Choice Holds Its Inaugural Conference National Press Club will be site of unique debate on family choice in education as a moral and civic imperative WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2009 -- Sparks will fly at the National Press Club on November 9, 2009 ...

California lawmakers met in special session in September to debate an ambitious package of legislation that would overhaul part of the education code and put the state in competition for more than $4 billion in federal stimulus dollars. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) called the special session on August 20 in response to a ...

As it has done in education generally over the past six years, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) dominated the first debate between representatives of the two presumptive presidential party nominees, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). On June 6, the Association of American Educational Publishers hosted ...

During his address at the 99th annual NAACP Convention in July, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had an opportunity to make education reform a key issue in this year's presidential campaign. But to paraphrase the immortal Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, McCain "missed it by this much." McCain correctly fingered the fundamental hurdle ...

On April 1 America's Promise Alliance, a coalition of the nation's education elite, released a report on the school dropout problem, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Conclusion: The dropout situation is considerably worse in big-city schools than in suburban ones. Surely this was no April Fools' Day joke, because ...