Despite more spending on public education, test scores remain flat in Michigan, according to a recently released report.
The free market-focused Reason Foundation released its Public Education at a Crossroads study, analyzing the lack of correlation between increased spending and improved test scores in American schools between 2002 and 2020.
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Michigan Democratic lawmakers want mass transit between Grand Rapids, Detroit and Ann Arbor but don’t know how to pay for it.
State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, majority caucus chair & Education Committee chair, posted on social media that mass transit would prevent young people from leaving the state.
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Ohio falls short in creating competition between public schools and allowing students to find the best schools that work for them, according to a recent report.
The Reason Foundation examined each state’s open enrollment policies, evaluating them based on best practices. The report said 73% of parents support open enrollment for public schools.
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Michigan is trailing Illinois and Minnesota in the Midwest race to register the most electric vehicles.
Illinois leads with nearly 80,000 EVs, while Minnesota has 41,417 and Michigan has 34,380.
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Democratic Pennsylvania lawmakers are drafting several bills to enable regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), including one measure creating a new state agency to oversee the technology.
The new proposals build upon legislation Representative Chris Pielli (D-West Chester) announced last month that would mandate labeling of all AI-generated content. Other parts of the legislative package, which Pielli is cosponsoring alongside Representative Bob Merski (D-Erie), also includes a policy governing the commonwealth’s use of software and devices that perform tasks that were once possible only through human action.
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A Pennsylvania lawmaker wants all content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) to be labeled and is drafting legislation to that end.
State Representative Chris Pielli (D-West Chester) insisted consumers should expect to know whether they are accessing human-created or electronically produced information. He said people will have a harder time fulfilling this expectation as AI becomes more advanced and commonly used.
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A Pennsylvania state legislator is spearheading a bill to more stringently regulate the sale of the painkiller kratom.
The Kratom Consumer Protection Act, sponsored by state Senator Tracy Pennycuick (R-Red Hill), would ban the substance’s purveyance to anyone aged 21 or younger. The legislation would also limit the product’s potency, bar its combination with controlled chemicals and require its display of “adequate labeling directions for… safe and effective use….”
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Georgia’s highway system is the fourth best nationwide, based on its condition and its cost-effectiveness, according to a new analysis.
The Reason Foundation’s 27th Annual Highway Report revealed the state’s ranking jumped 10 spots from its 14th place in the last report. It’s also up from 26th place in 2018.
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A new report from the Reason Foundation recommends Michigan update its telehealth laws from temporary pandemic policies to permanent status.
When COVID started, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed Executive Order 2020-86, which expanded telehealth options for Michiganders by authorizing and encouraging health care providers to use these services when appropriate and after getting consent from patients. The order took effect immediately and continued through June 10, 2020.
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As President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan remains tied up in the courts, many Virginia student loan holders are still unsure whether they will have some of their debt forgiven.
About 12.5 percent of Virginians, which is more than 1.08 million people, owe some money on student loans. The average amount of debt per borrower is the fourth highest in the country at more than $39,000 per person, according to the Education Data Initiative. More than 85 percent of borrowers currently owe more than $5,000 in loans and the total amount of money owed on student loans in the commonwealth is about $42.4 billion.
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In Pennsylvania, like much of America, parents will struggle if they want to transfer their children from one public school to another.
In a new policy brief, the Reason Foundation found that only 11 states have mandatory open enrollment laws to let parents transfer children to another public school. Furthermore, if families do switch schools, 26 states let public schools charge tuition for transfer students, making it harder for poorer families to choose a different school.
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Georgia’s spending per pupil has grown over the past two decades, but its enrollment has increased at a higher rate, a new analysis found.
According to the Reason Foundation’s 2022 K-12 Education Spending Spotlight, Georgia’s inflation-adjusted per-pupil K-12 revenues grew by 6.2% — or $803 per student — between 2002 and 2020. During that same period, enrollment increased by 18%.
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Iowa should make a few public policy changes to improve telehealth services, which have become more common during the COVID-19 pandemic, policy analysts said in a report Reason Foundation released Wednesday.
Cicero Institute and Pioneer Institute Senior Fellow Josh Archambault and Reason Foundation Policy Analyst Vittorio Nastasi co-authored the state-by-state report, “Rating the States on Telehealth Best Practices: A Toolkit for a Pro-Patient and Provider Landscape.”
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In a year, Ohio’s highway system fell from consideration as one of the best in the nation to average, based on a recently released report from the Reason Foundation.
The state ranked 13th in the nation a year ago in the report that analyzes overall cost-effectiveness, along with condition, fatality rates and time spent commuting. It remains above average, however, coming in at a 24th ranking in the nation in the most recent report.
“To improve in the rankings, Ohio needs to reduce its administrative disbursements or have those costs translate into better system performance. The state’s disbursements are three times higher than Ohio’s peer states. The state also needs to improve its urban arterial pavement condition,” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of report and senior managing director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation. “Ohio’s administrative costs have increased significantly from the last report. The state’s three fatality rates have increased slightly as well.”
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In the past year, Congress has rushed more than $204 billion in federal emergency funds to states to support K-12 schools.
But 23 states had fewer incoming students this fall. This declining enrollment is likely in part due to pandemic-related trends but is also a symptom of changing birth rates and families geographically relocating.
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Net liabilities in Michigan for so-called other post-employment benefits (OPEBs), which consist mainly of health care obligations to retired public employees, stood at about $31 billion in fiscal year 2019, according to a new analysis from the Reason Foundation.
With a population of 9,986,857, the state posted a per-capita OPEB liability of $3,099, which represents the 15th highest value among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the Reason study found.
In total, these liabilities amount to 6% of the U.S. gross domestic product, the researchers said. These debts are also geographically concentrated, with 15 government jurisdictions representing 50% of the total, the study found.
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A new study from the University of Arkansas found the average disparity in per-pupil funding between traditional public schools and their public charter schools across 18 cities reached $7,796 per-pupil — a record high.
In Detroit, public charter schools educate over 40% of K-12 students.
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A new tool reveals thousands of dollars per student each year is paying longstanding debt service rather than helping Michigan students prepare for a successful future.
Leonard Gilroy, vice president of the libertarian Reason Foundation and senior managing director of the Pension Integrity Project, told The Center Square that changing markets, underfunding below actuary recommendations, and the Great Recession has made it harder to hit investment targets for pension funds in the last few decades.
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