A few weeks ago, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor approved the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA). It would end subsidies (and insurance for 97 percent of default losses) for private lenders to make student loans under terms and conditions set by Congress. Instead, all federal student loans would be [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'CATO'
Charles Murray: Bachelor’s Degrees are Evil
Following up on his recent argument for education futility, Charles Murray has taken to the virtual pages of CATO Unbound to argue that, quote, “The BA degree is the work of the devil.” I disagree, and you can read why here, along with responses from Pedro Carneiro here and Bryan Caplan here. Further back-and-forth will [...]
More From / About Cato
Over at the Cato @Liberty blog (which, I must admit, is one of the better blog names going), Andrew Coulson responds to this post about Cato’s recent conversion from advocacy for bad voucher ideas to advocacy for even worse education tax credit ideas by pointing out that he’s actually been peddling this really terrible idea [...]
Cato Renounces School Vouchers
My wife and I moved into our house on Capitol Hill almost seven years ago. At first, we got a lot of mail addressed to the previous residents. But over time, people figured out that the old owners had moved to Bethesda so their kids could go to school in Montgomery County (this drives roughly [...]
NCLB Face-Off
The CATO Institute’s Andrew Coulson and I face-off at the Reason Foundation’s Reason Roundtable over whether NCLB should be scrapped or mended.
Coulson argues that NCLB is a federal intrusion on states’ rights and blocks the way for more meaningful, market-based education reforms. I argue that NCLB is critical to getting the kind of information on [...]
Voucher Use in Washington Wins No Praise from Students
The title of this entry is a wordplay off Cato’s Adam Schaeffer’s latest post, where he criticizes the NY Times and Washington Post coverage of the recent DC voucher program study, arguing the media outlets made too much of the report’s conclusion that voucher students fared no better than public school counterparts in the first [...]
Preschool and School Choice Movement Leaders Combine Forces to Form New Pornographers-style Education Advocacy Supergroup
(No, not really, but keep reading)
Cato’s Adam Schaeffer highlights a debate within the school choice community: On one side are activists pushing targeted voucher programs to help kids with specific needs–kids with disabilities (as in Florida), foster kids (Arizona), and poor kids in urban districts with crappy schools (in Wisconsin, Ohio, D.C.). On the other [...]
Bee Finished
Andrew Coulson has some more details about Scripps Spelling Bee winner Evan O’Dorney and the public school-connected program through which he receives home-based instruction. I think the whole thing is pretty interesting, as is the growth of home-based charter and, in this case, public schools that appeal to parents who want to educate their children [...]
Bee Careful…
Cato’s Andrew Coulson says that the success of homeschooled students in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee shows market-based education is superior to public schooling. There are several obvious problems with this conclusion. Most obviously, making systemic arguments based on the examples of a few outliers is a fool’s game. Spelling bee success, while laudable, [...]
More On Why Having a Hammer Doesn’t Make Everything a Nail
Cato’s Adam Schaeffer takes issue with my post earlier this week about the incredible tediousness of pro-voucher groups’ assertion that choice is the solution to every imaginable educational problem.
He actually has a somewhat reasonable point. To the extent that increased choice and customization in education can make the entire educational system more [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/19/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on college graduation rates and the NCAA Tournament in the Detroit Free Press.
03/19/10 | Linda Perlstein links to Education Sector's "College- and Career-Ready" event.
03/17/10 | Ben Miller's column on graduation rates and NCAA Tournament eligibility is mentioned on The Wall Street Journal's The Daily Fix.
03/17/10 | Kevin Carey's critique of Diane Ravitch's latest book is quoted in Doublethink's Conventional Folly blog.
03/15/10 | Ben Miller pens an op-ed for US News & World Report on using graduation rates to determine NCAA Tournament eligibility.