ACT

We’ve written extensively about the bipartisan, awful, awfully mis-named Innovation and PATENT Acts. Bills which would undermine the ability of patent holders to protect their property from thieves. By making it exponentially more difficult for them to do the one thing they can to stop the thieves – sue them.

There has been a downward trend in average SAT scores since 1972. Homeschool students, however, currently score higher than traditional school students and, in fact, have higher scores than the…

A new digital system unveiled by Oklahoma government police is just the latest example of civil asset forfeiture laws encouraging cops to become the robbers they’re supposed to be catching.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission has proposed to construct a new, additional regulatory apparatus, asserting, without any factual support, that creating untested and discriminatory rules for internet service providers (ISPs) will be the silver bullet for protecting consumers’ privacy.

Legislators have long attempted to reduce the negative health impacts of smoking through taxes, bans, and regulations. Some have tried to extend these same policies to electronic cigarettes or “e-cigarettes,” even though they contain no tobacco and are substantially less harmful than traditional cigarettes. This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled new regulations placing electronic cigarettes under an avalanche of new rules requiring that they be approved as a new type of tobacco product — effectively treating them like traditional cigarettes.

That was not what the power elites intended when they concocted standards and assessments intended to apply to all students, teachers, and schools. Their objective was centralization. But their arrogance has activated a hornets’ nest of angry parents intent on reclaiming control over their children’s schooling.

In this episode of The Heartland Daily Podcast, managing editor and research fellow Jesse Hathaway talks with Salisbury University associate professor of economics Dustin Chambers about a new paper published by the Mercatus Center, examining how federal regulations affect the prices of consumer goods, and consumers themselves.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Adrian Moore, vice-president of policy at the Reason Foundation, joins Host H. Sterling Burnett to talk about two issues Moore has recently researched – the Flint water crisis and the Endangered Species Act.

As high-stakes testing grows in K-12 education, it is no surprise the testing for teacher certifications is also becoming more high-stakes. The problem is, teacher testing is not a good indicator of teacher quality. An MIT study found “state mandated teacher testing is associated with increases in teacher wages, though we find no evidence of a corresponding increase in quality.”

A few weeks ago, Tom Field, a 25-year advocate of legal reforms as they apply to the elderly, reached out to Nancy Thorner via a phone call from Mentor, Ohio, to ascertain whether Thorner had further interest in pursuing the issue after reading an article emailed to him and others that Thorner had written on July 9, 2011 titled, “Allegations of Alleged Corruption and Abuse at the Probate Court Level in Cook County, IL.”

“The only way to end cronyism and capture for good is to limit the size and scope of government power.”

Defenders of home schooling are beginning to worry about the Common Core K-12 standards morphing into a national curriculum that will stifle the family-centered creativity that has fostered high rates…