How Would Colorado’s Largest School Districts Fare on Brookings Choice Index?
The Brookings Institution has released a new “Education Choice and Competition Index” (ECCI) to rate the availability of schooling options for families in the nation’s 25 largest school districts (H/T Eduwonk). RiShawn Biddle has a great breakdown of the index’s strengths and shortcomings, including the need for a clearer picture of the quality of choices […]
Detroit Light Rail
Detroit’s plan to spend $550 million building a nine-mile light-rail line on Woodward Avenue would be laughable if it weren’t wasting so much money that could actually do something useful if spent on something else. Detroit leaders have convinced themselves that light rail is world-class transportation, that it will be the lynchpin of Detroit’s recovery, […]
Re<C: Wrong answer for Google
Just as I finally learned what “Re<C” means, Google is abandoning its financially unsustainable project. The acronym stands for Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal. No wonder I didn’t know what it meant. The equation is all wrong. Paul Chesser, an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center, reports that Google came face to […]
The Moral Case for Allowing Kidney Sales
Prof. James Stacey Taylor argues that willing rational adults should be allowed to buy and sell kidneys. Continue reading
Problems Abound?
Update: Eric Wesoff of GreenTechSolar corrected something we quoted him on regarding Abound Solar’s $400 million DOE loan guarantee. “Abound has drawn down much of its $400 million DOE loan guarantee only $70 million of its $400 million loan guarantee in order to fund its factory buildout.” Eric Wesoff of GreenTechSolar is curious about what is going […]
A Recipe for Decline
Thanks to high housing prices and a poor economy (which is also partly due to high housing prices), more Americans are leaving California than are moving to the state. In the last decade, 1.5 million more people moved out than moved in from other states, and the poor economy is also reducing foreign immigration, leaving […]
Critics Ought to Stop Bashing Straw-Constructed Online Education Facsimiles
With all the breathless attention on K-12 online education these days, you’d almost think it was a brand-new phenomenon — not something that got its start in Colorado more than a decade ago. This time it’s the Washington Post, chiming in to note that some are questioning the educational value of cyberschools.
Am I surprised? No. […]
San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center spreads flawed justifications for mandatory insurance
Gena Akers of the San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center writes that requiring people to buy politician-approved health plan “works” because “free-riders are not allowed, therefore no cost-shifting.” This common justification for mandatory insurance (a.k.a., the individual mandate) is dubious at best and misleading at worst. Continue reading
Creative Financing Bites Muni
San Francisco Muni may have to pay $68 million to banks and insurers as a result of some “creative financing” done 8 and 9 years ago. As previously described in the Antiplanner, in the early 2000s the Federal Transit Administration encouraged transit agencies to sell their equipment to banks and then lease it back. The […]
Did Judge Silberman ask the Supreme Court to rein in Congress?
Two notes on the court challenges to Obamacare: First: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the challenge to the law’s expensive and humiliating Medicaid mandates on the states. The Court did so although no lower court has yet overturned those mandates. This is clearly the correct decision. Those mandates appear to violate even the […]
Reviving California High-Speed Rail
The California High Speed Rail Authority has reason to be thankful this week as the U.S. Department of Transportation gave it another $900 million, keeping hopes alive for the state’s rail program. That means the feds have given the state a total of about $4.5 billion which, when matched with state bonds (which can only […]
Happy Thanksgiving
Here in central Oregon, Smokey got a taste of his first powder snow a few days ago. Though it has mostly melted at our elevation, there is plenty at Santiam Pass a few miles away. The Antiplanner and his companions wish all readers of this site, faithful allies and loyal opponents both, a wonderful and […]
