An Immediate Legislative Response to the Court’s Education Decision

This letter to the editor appeared in The State on May 8, 2014. I appreciated Cindi Scoppe’s column in support of Sen. Paul Thurmond’s efforts to streamline our process for dealing with ineffective teachers (“The cost of one bad teacher,” April 23). Teacher quality is the No. 1 in-school factor affecting student learning, and this
This OpEd appeared in The State. Columbia, SC — Only two years ago, a lopsided majority of Americans had never heard of Common Core State Standards, and those who had either thought they were straight from Beelzebub or the greatest thing since Jadeveon Clowney. If a recent legislative hearing on the matter is any indication,
This OpEd appeared in The Greenville News on February 2, 2014. Liberal Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and conservative Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton. What agenda could possibly unite these political odd couples? Support for the rapidly expanding world of education options. Each of these leaders is part of a bipartisan
By Jim Epstein, ReasonTV “Most physicians can’t afford to accept Medicaid” patients, says Dr. Alieta Eck, a primary-care physician based in Piscataway, New Jersey. “If you’re getting paid about $17 per visit, it won’t be long before you can’t pay your staff or pay your rent.” Medicaid is the nation’s health care system for the
The Greenville News By Ellen Weaver | Guest Columnist A post-Vietnam America adrift in self-doubt; a hostage crisis in Iran; gas lines; stagflation biting at family budgets: This was the weary reality of 1979, the year I was born. But it also marked the rise of Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher,
By Tara Servatius Charleston City Paper They pack their families like lemmings into 1,400 square-foot houses situated on postage stamps in Mt. Pleasant and tell themselves they are doing it for their kids’ education. They pay $150 a month for flood insurance on those homes to attend the highest scoring schools in the region. Other
By Veronique de Rugy The Corner – National Review Online I have argued for several years that fiscal federalism is bad shape. Economist tend to like federalism because it promotes interstate competition. When states can differentiate themselves on the basis of taxes, spending and regulation, or even social policies, Americans get more leeway in deciding
The State OpEd by Jim DeMint ‘For every problem,” H.L. Mencken wrote, “there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.” Enter Obamacare and one of the main ways that it purports to reduce the number of uninsured: putting more people on Medicaid. S.C. legislators are being pressured to do just that. The House