The Heartland Institute

Schools demand for mobile educational applications is rising rapidly, such that some innovative educators are developing their own applications for smart phones and other mobile platforms instead of waiting for the rising industry to deliver what they need. Others are quite happy with the pace of development. Florida Virtual School ...

Public support is building across the nation for the first-ever National School Choice Week, January 23 through January 29, a grassroots effort featuring a broad coalition of more than 40 groups and schools, including the Foundation for Educational Choice, New Jersey s Rainbow Academy, the Georgia Parent Advocacy Network, and ...

Kentucky s Education Reform Act (KERA) substantially changed the Bluegrass State s school finance formula and largely eliminated nepotism from the state s rural and Appalachian school districts, but it has done little to bolster academic achievement, a new report from a state policy group finds. We don t say in this report that ...

California s parent empowerment law turns one year old in January, but it is already inspiring imitators and improvements across the country. Legislators in Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, and West Virginia have introduced or are planning to introduce bills modeled after California ...

Ohio won $400 million in the second round of the U.S. Department of Education s $4.35 billion Race to the Top grant competition, but at least 50 school districts and independent charter schools have decided to opt out of the program, saying the red tape and compliance costs would exceed any benefit from the one-time federal ...

Parents at a persistently failing elementary school in the Compton Unified School District in Los Angeles on Tuesday became the first to use California s historic parent trigger law. More than 60 percent of parents at McKinley Elementary School in the south-central Los Angeles community signed petitions demanding school district ...

It’s possible the real “race to the top” in the next few years won’t come from bureaucrats in Washington, DC but from an energized education transformation movement. The driver of this transformation won’t be elected officials, but empowered parents, and the innovative content will be delivered through the Internet “cloud.” The ...

When the Indiana Legislature returns to work in 2011, lawmakers will face a fiscal mess similar to those in most other states across the nation. But the outcome of November s elections has changed the political face of the state capitol and could have far-reaching implications for school reform. Indiana enters its next legislative ...

On December 1, 2010, Jeb Bush and Bob Wise unveiled the 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning - the roadmap for local, state and federal officials to integrate digital learning into education. The 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning reflects their vision for America - an education that maximizes every child ...

Government should cost the least and do the most. Thomas Paine, Common Sense Entitlement Reform The Rhode Island Experience The United States is on a long-term unsustainable budgetary path. Entitlements are one of the largest spending categories in the federal budget and without real reform the nation will be forced to deplete ...

Amid the contentious debate over how we improve public education in the United States, all parties acknowledge one reality: There is no substitute for a quality teacher in the classroom. Just about everyone with a stake in the debate takes that point for granted administrators, parents, and the teachers themselves. The scholarship ...

Since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, most schools in the Big Easy have been under the state s control. Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek says the era of state oversight may soon come to an end. Under Pastorek s proposal, schools that meet certain academic education standards will have the ...

A commonly cited factoid about charter schools is untrue, according to a new report by the Center for Education Reform. In fact, numerous statistics aimed at undermining charter schools are misleading, often misreported by the media, and require further explanation, the CER report concludes. The New York Times and other media ...

School choice advocates across the country are planning a rallying point for the new year: National School Choice Week. Spearheaded by the Gleason Family Foundation in San Francisco, the event is scheduled for January 23 through January 29. Conceived as a way to shine a spotlight on policies offering effective educational options ...

California’s parent empowerment law, known as the “parent trigger,” is less than a year old, but the idea is already spreading across the nation to states such as Connecticut and Georgia. The law was the brainchild of a Los Angeles-based activist group called Parent Revolution. Under California’s law, passed in January 2010 ...

Improve schools in the nation s capital by adopting a Parent Trigger that would empower parents to demand that their schools be transformed. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is ...

The future of the Obama administration s signature education reform initiative, Race to the Top, may be in doubt with control of the U.S. House of Representatives and a handful of statehouses switching from Democratic to Republican control. I think it was irresponsible of Congress to give [Education Secretary Arne Duncan] $5 ...

New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein on Tuesday announced his plans to step down at the end of the year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Catherine Black, chairman of Hearst Magazines, would succeed Klein in overseeing the nation s largest public school system serving 1.1 million children. Klein is leaving the ...

The Pennsylvania State Senate has moved a step closer to approving legislation establishing a school voucher program for students attending schools in the Keystone State s poorest neighborhoods. Senate Bill 1405 by Sen. Anthony Williams (D-Philadelphia) would provide opportunity scholarships for low-income students who attend school ...

A vote by a committee of Maryland legislators casts doubt on a state proposal to require half of a teacher s job evaluation to be based on student performance. The 12-3 vote against the Maryland State Department of Education s (MSDE) plan to overhaul teacher pay and performance rules could also jeopardize the state s $250 ...