The latest health care decision
The score is now 2-2: Two U.S. district courts have found that the individual mandates in last year’s federal health care act are authorized by the power of Congress to “regulate Commerce . . . among the several States,” while two have found the contrary. This latest decision – arising from a case brought by […]
Don’t Make Parents Choose Between Finding a Better School & Obeying the Law
During last week’s National School Choice Week emerged a sad, dramatic story that made the case for school choice better than many policy papers could. I’m finally getting around to commenting on the case of Ohio’s Kelley Williams-Bolar, who was charged with a felony for falsifying papers to enroll her daughter in a different school district. She has been called a modern-day Rosa Parks for the school choice movement.
Colorado HB11-1025 Repeal Hospital Provider Fee Tax
Colorado state Rep. Janak Joshi and Senator Kevin Lundberg are sponsoring HB11-1025, which would repeal the hospital provider “fee” instituted in 2009. Linda Gorman explains how the so-called “fee” is really a tax, and hence violates the Colorado Constitution
Is It Real or Is It Portlandia?
If you buy more than $50 worth of stuff, Office Depot will deliver for free. But they might deliver it in a carbon-spewing truck, so the city of Portland has given a $6 million, five-year contract to a delivery company that promises to deliver office supplies by electric-powered tricycles. B-Line’s slogan is “sustainable urban delivery”–but […]
Wrapping Up School Choice Week: Andrew Coulson Touts Tax Credits… and More!
Aren’t there any child labor laws in effect here? This National School Choice Week phenomenon is great, but the good folks of the Education Policy Center have me blogging overtime. I talked about going on strike, but they just laughed and patted me on the head. How condescending!*
Anyway, rather than write any more, I wanted […]
Xcel getting even fatter off Colorado ratepayers
Xcel Energy just announced its 2010 earnings and the Minnesota based energy company did very well this year: We had another very successful year in 2010, said Richard C. Kelly, chairman and chief executive officer. We delivered earnings in the upper half of our guidance range. This represents the sixth consecutive year in which we […]
PUC Denies HB 1365 Appeals
Cathy Proctor at the Denver Business Journal reports that the PUC on Wednesday denied appeals of its decision on HB 1365, the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act, legislation that effectively mandates fuel switching from coal to natural gas for almost 1,000 megawatts of electricity generation along the Front Range. As I explained here, virtually every […]
Yield to Transit’s Moral Superiority
Everyone knows that transit is morally superior to automobiles, so it is no surprise to see state legislatures passing laws requiring auto drivers to yield to buses when they are pulling into traffic from bus stops. The stated reason for the law–that “the inability of buses to get quickly back into the traffic flow after […]
Utah Online School Shares Free Curriculum
The online charter Open High School of Utah is the first known secondary school to share the curriculum it develops as an open educational resource. Open High School director DeLaina Tonks highlights the decision to release Open CourseWare as creative commons licensed content and the opportunities for other online schools to share in this innovative approach.
Finding It Very Hard to Get Excited about “Collaborpalooza” Coming Soon to Denver
I’ve got to hand it to Mike Antonucci for coming up with such a great name for an education event as Collaborpalooza (try saying it five times fast). Sounds like some sort of rock & roll festival.
But according to the U.S. Department of Education that’s putting it on, the actual name of the event is […]
Regulating to Prevent the Last Crisis
In addition to mentioning high-speed rail a couple of times, President Obama’s state of the union speech mentioned the need to regulate the finance industry to prevent the kind of global crisis that took place in 2008. This received one of the loudest applauses of the evening as it has become conventional wisdom that the […]
District 49's Innovative Strategy is the Real News in Falcon
On Jan. 13 the Falcon District 49 school board set in motion a plan designed to empower families, to streamline bureaucracy and to give principals the tools and incentives to succeed. The phrase “innovation zone” at the center of the plan is more than a buzzword or an ethereal abstraction. It represents the promise of positive, transformative change for individual teachers and students.
