Daily Archives: May 9, 2011

Following our recent Spotlight piece on the need for state Medicaid reform, Brian Blase and Dr. C.L. Gray wrote a  Report on federal and state Medicaid problems associated with perverse funding incentives, crowding out of private insurance and solutions at both the federal and state-level. I believe the most important take-away for policymakers, legislators and citizensContinue Reading

If great schools are so important, why is the pace of education reform glacial? John Redmond, recently retired director of executive education at UNC-Greensboro’s Bryan School of Business and Economics, addressed that question during a presentation today to the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society. Redmond discusses a key obstacle in the video clip below. ClickContinue Reading

That is, essentially, Dr. Robert Weissberg’s argument today in a humorous, Machiavellian essay over at the Manhattan Institute’s Minding the Campus website. He advocates separating the hard-line left from the mainstream faculty into such departments as Women’s Studies, African American Studies, and, his suggestion, a collective School of Oppression Studies. Why? Weissberg explains: “The pathwayContinue Reading

Despite claims from Gov. Beverly Perdue and her allies that the House budget would lead to 30,000 layoffs from state government, a new analysis prepared for the John Locke Foundation by Boston’s Beacon Hill Institute shows that the House budget and anticipated tax reforms would generate thousands of new jobs. Even accepting House Republicans’ projectionsContinue Reading

I was one of the founding signatories of a “counter-manifesto” opposing the development of a national curriculum and national assessments.  Education Week writes, The manifesto, issued today and signed by more than 100 leaders in education, business, and politics, is a response to a document issued in March by the Albert Shanker Institute, which arguedContinue Reading

Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) has introduced federal legislation that would require recipients of unemployment benefits to undergo periodic drug tests. Rep. Harry Warren (R- Rowan) has introduced a similar bill HB 735 here in North Carolina. Proponents of this idea want to ensure that recipients of unemployment benefits are in fact able and available toContinue Reading

The front page of today’s News & Observer tells us that “Revolutionary War historians and re-enactors will celebrate the 240th anniversary of the Battle of Alamance and the 50th anniversary of Alamance Battleground State Historic Site.” Events start Saturday. If you’ve heard of the Battle of Alamance, you might not know about a precursor calledContinue Reading

Michael Barone‘s latest Washington Examiner article looks for lessons Republicans can learn from the recent electoral victory of Canada’s Conservative Party: The Conservatives’ triumph offers a couple of lessons that may be relevant to U.S. Republicans. One is that smaller-government policies, far from being political poison, are actually vote winners. The second is that aContinue Reading