A Couple More Weeks of Waiting for School Finance “Grand Bargain” Details
Back in early December my Education Policy Center friends helped put on a State Capitol event, laying out ideas for dramatic “backpack funding” reforms that need to be at the heart of this year’s keystone school finance debates. We’ve been waiting awhile now to see what Senator Johnston’s “Grand Bargain” legislation might look like. I […]
LaHood’s Legacy
As the Antiplanner noted yesterday, Ray LaHood’s lasting legacy as Secretary of Immobility is the loosening of requirements for major transit capital grants in new rules issued a few weeks ago. This is most important for streetcar fans, since the Bush-era rules pretty much predetermined that streetcars were not a cost-effective use of federal transportation […]
On This Measure of Charter School Laws, Colorado Ranks 4th… Not Bad
Keep those education policy grades a-rollin’ in! Not even two weeks since I shared with you that the Center for Education Reform placed Colorado 10th nationally for the strength of its charter school law, here comes another rating. The ever-growing National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) has released its fourth annual ranking of state […]
Amy Oliver Show: School Choice Week Celebrates Colorado Options
Education Policy Center director Pam Benigno highlights local School Choice Week events and shares how Colorado parents can take responsibility and learn about their educational options. Colorado has a legacy of public school choice through open enrollment, a process through which the Independence Institute’s School Choice for Kids website can help guide parents.
Goodbye Ray LaHood
Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood has announced his intention to leave office as soon as a replacement can be found. Aside from an admirable emphasis on safety, LaHood’s main legacy will be a weakening of the cost-effectiveness requirements for transit grants so that, now, the most ridiculously expensive transit projects can get federal funding. As […]
It’s Hard to Get Beyond Emotion in Legislative Debates on School Safety
School safety is a big deal. I don’t write a lot about it, partly because big people say I’m not “mature” enough yet to understand it all. But after hearing one of my Education Policy Center friends interview a school board member about a legislative bill he supports, I had to put a little something […]
Audit confirms our findings: mismanagement in state energy office
A 2011 Independence Institute paper was the first to suggest that the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) needed a serious dose of transparency due to its inability to clarify how it spent millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Colorado’s State Auditor validated our findings in a recently released audit. Colorado’s Office of the State Auditor blasted […]
Are Flu Vaccines Worthwhile?
Fever, headache, sore throat, congestion (of the nasal not the traffic kind)–it all sounds so easy. Having experienced the early symptoms of the flu when the Antiplanner was still in St. Louis on Saturday, then getting hit particularly hard on Sunday, I can testify that the flu is no picnic. So I have to wonder: […]
CNN Not Impressed with Vermont’s “High-Speed Rail”
Vermont officials are proud that a federal high-speed rail grant allowed them to take 29 minutes of the Vermonter schedule between New York City and Burlington. This is quite a bit less impressive than it sounds, as the speeded-up train still takes 9.5 hours for an average speed of 38 mph. By comparison, Megabus does […]
Climb (Dance & Tweet) Aboard the National School Choice Week Train with Me
National School Choice Week is almost here! This year the big celebration, spotlighted by a national cross-country Whistle Stop Tour, features more than 1,000 events from coast to coast. Denver events include two education reform movie showings (including one in Spanish) and a discussion about how school choice affects teachers. You also can learn the School Choice Week flash mob dance, and join in the big Tweet Up.
Light-Rail Inefficiency Project
Stung by the entirely accurate criticism that it is one of the worst-run transit agencies in America, San Jose’s VTA has come up with a breath-taking plan for improving its efficiency. Naturally enough, the plan is called the light-rail transit efficiency project. Click image to download an 8-MB presentation describing San Jose’s “light-rail efficiency plan.” […]
Yes, Colorado Has Lots of Room to Improve How We Prepare Teachers for Job
It sure seems like Colorado education policies are getting graded quite a bit these days. Last week we earned a B from the Center for Education Reform for the quality of our charter school law, which placed us in the top 10 among states. Two weeks ago Students First looked at a whole range of […]
