The Heartland Institute

After weeks of closed-door negotiations, Wisconsin lawmakers have come out with a compromise on a school voucher expansion that would send the program statewide but cap enrollment. At 6 a.m. on June 5, the Joint Finance Committee amended a provision in the state budget to expand vouchers beyond the cities of Milwaukee and ...

Maine’s governor has proposed a bill that would help send children from low-income families in Maine to board at public charter schools and allow students to take public money to private, religious schools that line up with state standards. Legislative Document 1529, sponsored by Sen. Garrett Mason (R-Lisbon Falls), expands the ...

In 1989, Wisconsin became the first state to implement school vouchers for poor families. The program began in the Milwaukee School District in 1990 and expanded to Racine School District in 2011. This spring, Gov. Scott Walker (R) and state lawmakers introduced proposals to expand these opportunities to more families throughout ...

MADISON – In January 2011, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett begged the state senate for legislation that would transfer control of vacant Milwaukee Public Schools real estate to the city of Milwaukee. State lawmakers passed a law allowing Milwaukee to sell unused school buildings without MPS approval. Two years later, the city struggles ...

Nearly 8,000 kids are suddenly uncertain about where they will attend school this fall now that the Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled 6-1 the state's voucher program is unconstitutional. Because the justices ruled against how the program is funded, state lawmakers can vote to fund the program directly rather than through the ...

So far, Indiana’s voucher program has provided private school scholarships only to families meeting certain income requirements. In May, Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a measure expanding the program to children zoned into failing public schools and special-needs students, regardless of family income. State Sen. Carlin Yoder (R-Middlebury ...

Private schools often attract parents by offering a unique school culture, often based on a particular religion or philosophy. Because school transfers are often difficult for students, they could be even more so when the new school is quite different. About 9 percent of school-aged children attend U.S. private schools, according ...

School choice opponents frequently claim vouchers don't improve recipients' academics, hurt public schools, cost taxpayers, increase segregation, and even reduce civic unity. A new report reviewing the highest-quality research on all these topics concludes the opposite is true. Greg Forster is a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation ...

Years of voucher proposals, polls showing parent support for vouchers, and a governor-sponsored voucher bill did not culminate in a new Tennessee voucher law this spring. Despite a positive response from legislators early on, the lawmaker carrying Gov. Bill Haslam’s (R) 2013 voucher bill withdrew it, citing Haslam’s objections ...

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam decided to pull his school voucher proposal because some Republican lawmakers insisted on trying to expand it, says state Senate Majority Leader Marker Norris (R-Collierville) in this video. "The bill will not advance this year," Norris said. "We received word that there would be more amendments, all ...

The Arkansas House Education Committee voted to have an interim committee study a school voucher bill rather than pass it directly. At a large rally at the state capitol on the day of the vote, organized by Arkansas Parents for School Choice, attendees sported bright yellow and blue t-shirts. Bill sponsor Rep. Randy Alexander ...

About a decade ago, James Tooley wandered out into a foreign slum and encountered a network of inexpensive private schools on every few street corners. The professor of education policy at Newcastle University and his team went back to study this system of education, and found that private schools serve the world's poor far ...

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled 5-0 the state's vouchers program is constitutional, against complaints it represents state funding of religion and undermines a constitutionally required system of public schools. "The voucher program expenditures do not directly benefit religious schools but rather directly benefit lower-income families ...

Approximately 11,000 Alabama children attending failing public schools can receive private funds for private school now that Gov. Robert Bentley has signed a school choice bill. Yesterday, the state Supreme Court lifted a restraining order on the bill. Teachers union officials who filed the restraining order promised they will ...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich placed two expansions of the state’s EdChoice voucher program in his $15.1 billion budget proposal for 2014-2015, which would increase state funding to schools over the next two years. “If a school consistently fails to provide their students with the basic reading skills they need to succeed, we want ...

Legislation pending in Georgia would raise the state’s tax-credit scholarship cap from $50 million to $80 million. The program allows residents to receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to nonprofits that give students scholarships to private schools. Donations to scholarship funds “reach [the] cap way before the ...

Coloradoans who sued to stop the nation’s first voucher program run by a school district will appeal to the state supreme court after an appeals court ruled 2-1 in favor of the program. The Feb. 28 decision reversed a previous ruling against the program on grounds it sends state money to religious schools. The Colorado Court ...

The following is the text of a speech given by Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast on February 23, 2013, at the Eighth Annual Wisconsin Conservative Conference in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin I would like to dedicate this talk to the memory of Maureen Martin, who passed away in a house fire on February 5. Some of you may have ...

The speech in the attached PDF was delivered by Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast on February 23, 2013, at the Eighth Annual Wisconsin Conservative Conference, Bluemound Gardens, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. An excerpt is below: In 2016, in time for the next presidential election, every child now in high school will be eligible ...

The New Hampshire legislature voted its first private school choice program into law in 2011, but a new majority in the state House of Representatives may now repeal it. In addition, the program is facing a lawsuit. “A number of [education] tax-credit programs have never been challenged in court, [such as those in] Florida ...