In the May issue, I noted that it was crunch time for school accountability in Texas, as the Texas Legislature wound down to final decisions on several bills, most significantly one that would drastically reduce the standard for high school graduation as measured by standardized high school end of course assessments. Unfortunately, this bill passed […]
Archives for July 2013
The Middle Class Revolution
Francis Fukuyama, author most prominently of the provocative 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has written an intriguing essay in The Wall Street Journal in which he argues that today’s political turmoil all over the world–Brazil, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Spring, China, and elsewhere–has a common theme: the failure of governments […]
The SCOTUS Rules
The Supreme Court got a few big things right in its current term, but also added further confusion in a couple of places. Here are some thoughts on a few of the most prominent cases. With the decision in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management, the Court again validated the constitutional takings clause in […]
The Ultimate Tyranny II
Speaking at the commencement ceremony at Ohio State University before the IRS scandal broke in May, President Obama cautioned the graduates to reject the voices “that warn that tyranny is always just around the corner”, that “suggest that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we […]