Jonathan Kantrowitz

Pro-student Court Rulings Decline, Researchers Show

Federal and state appellate courts have become less favorable to student claims in school discipline cases even as perceptions about students’ legal entitlements have expanded, according to new research.

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Math Up, Reading Scores Down On SAT

On a long-term basis, students’ mathematics scores have experienced an upward trend and are now four points higher than a decade ago; conversely, critical reading scores have declined somewhat and are now four points below what they were 10 years ago.

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Strong Public Support for National Tests

Poll Reveals Strong Public Support for National Tests, Charter Schools, Teacher Performance Pay, Early Childhood Education, and President’s Stimulus Package

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No Time To Play In Kindergarten

Time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, according to three new studies released by the Alliance for Childhood.

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Parents OK with homework load

A new study from University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers shows parents see homework in a positive light.

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ACT Results: College Readiness Increases Slightly

The percentage of U.S. high school graduates meeting all four of ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks increased slightly in 2009 as the pool of students taking the ACT® continued to expand, according to the not-for-profit ACT’s annual grad class report on college readiness.

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U.S. Performance on International Assessments

On the most recent international tests, students in a number of countries consistently outperformed their U.S. peers across the board in reading, math, and science, according to a report released by the National Center for Education Statistics.

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Fighting LATINA Drop-Out

Latinas are dropping out of school in alarming numbers. Forty-one percent of Latina students do not graduate with their class in four years—if they graduate at all. A new report, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation, explores the causes of the dropout crisis for Latinas and identifies the actions needed to improve their graduation rates and get them ready for college.

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Makes my day. As reported here.

In June, Senator Bob Dole, along with other former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker and Tom Daschle, all members of the Bipartisan Policy Center‘s (BPC) Advisory Board and Leaders’ Project on the State of American Health Care, released their comprehensive bipartisan health care proposal, entitled: “Crossing Our Lines: Working Together to Reform the U.S. Health System.”

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Dole urges a ‘fresh start’ on the issue of health care reform:

“If I were a White House adviser, I would suggest that the day Congress reconvenes, President Obama’s version of reform should be introduced by Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. Health-care reform is the vital issue of our time, and Obama should be out front with his specific plan on this make-or-break issue…”

“A bipartisan ending will have more credibility with the American people. Indeed, most important legislation in U.S. history has had broad bipartisan support.”

I can’t really argue with that – but what Dole really wants is to for Obama to back away from real health care reform and put out a essentially meaningless bill. And bi-partisan support for any meaningful reform bill is a pipe dream.

But a Republican lawmaker key to any bi-partisan solution took a walk on the same day this was published.

And a key argument of the moderates advocating a go-slow or bipartisan solution was very effectively rebutted the next day in the same paper:

“Moderate” opponents of health-care reform like to say that we cannot afford it, particularly in the midst of a recession that has widened the deficit with both reduced tax revenue and the fiscal stimulus package. This was the argument advanced by Sen. Joe Lieberman on TV a week ago and repeated by Michael Gerson in this newspaper: “Obama’s massive spending, intended to stabilize the economy, also drained the Treasury, making it more difficult to propose major new expenditures.”

But what does this mean?

The major cost of reform, generally estimated at about $1 trillion over 10 years, is subsidies to help poor and middle-class people buy health insurance….

Of course we can afford it. The $100 billion doesn’t disappear; it flows to insurance companies, then health-care providers — and they are people, too.

So in addition to the obvious moral case for reform — $100 billion per year is a small price to pay to ensure that everyone has access to health care — there is an economic case to be made. Our aggregate welfare would be increased if, instead of people over 400 percent of the poverty line buying more of whatever it is they buy, some of that money went to pay for basic health insurance for those below that level. The $100 billion in question is about 0.7 percent of our annual GDP and far less than the annual cost of the Bush tax cuts.

First, as Ezra Klein has pointed out, health-care reform isn’t a “major new expenditure” to begin with. The net cost of the reform bill isn’t $1 trillion over 10 years, because all versions of the bill attempt to offset that cost, either through new taxes or through spending reductions. The net cost of the House bill is about $200 billion (and could be zero with a change that Klein points out), and the net cost of the Senate “Gang of Six” bill is expected to be about zero. Even $200 billion over 10 years is a rounding error when it comes to the federal deficit.

Second, the size of the current deficit doesn’t itself make any given initiative a good or a bad idea. People who like to say that the government has to be run like a private company often forget this. If a company has a lot of debt as well as a great new product innovation, then it makes perfect sense to borrow more money to capitalize on that innovation….

However, the real long-term risk to national solvency is . . . health-care costs…

Put another way, if you are for fiscal discipline, you should be for health-care reform..

The Connecticut legislature has passed a new state budget. No Republicans voted for it in either house. Will Governor Rell sign it?

The budget cuts the sales tax from the current 6 percent to 5.5 percent. It also cuts, bit does not eliminate, the estate tax. It increases the state income tax to 6.5 percent on couples earning more than $1 million annually and individuals earning more than $500,000.

Christopher Keating of the Courant files an excellent report here.

Meanwhile, upper-income Connecticut taxpayers urged Governor Rell to increase their taxes to close the state budget gap. Connecticut is one of only two states that have not yet passed a budget for this fiscal year. Twenty-one upper-income Connecticut taxpayers delivered an open letter to the governor.

It says in part:
“As upper-income residents of Connecticut who treasure the quality of life in our state, we believe that Governor Rell’s proposed budget cuts unnecessarily limit the State’s ability to maintain public structures and human services that are vital to keeping Connecticut strong and vibrant….

Part of the solution to the budget crisis lies in asking those with more resources to pay higher marginal rates. Progressive tax brackets are being used in many of Connecticut’s neighboring states and are an important means for establishing fairer, more reliable state revenue….

As upper-income Connecticut State taxpayers, we are willing and able to share in the solution to our state’s budget crisis.”

The letter was a joint effort between Better Choices for Connecticut and the Responsible Wealth project.