With National School Choice Week just completed, Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek writes in The Detroit News that school choice has benefited Michigan students, in particular the performance of charter public schools as evidenced by the results of a recent Stanford University study.
By Jack McHugh
Medicaid provides health care services for people who are below the poverty level and is paid for by a combination of state and federal tax dollars. A huge expansion of the program — increasing eligibility to those with incomes below 133 percent of the poverty level — was baked into Obamacare, but then made optional for states by last June’s Supreme Court ruling on the law. Since that ruling governors and legislatures have been wrestling with whether to go along with the expansion.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 61, Convert Blue Cross to non-profit "regular" insurance company: Passed 36 to 0 in the Senate
To convert Blue Cross Blue Shield into a “mutual insurance company” and make it subject to the same regulations as regular health insurers. Although it would remain a non-profit, current restrictions on the entity's ability to own for-profit subsidiaries would be reduced, and it would no longer be subject to close oversight by the state Attorney General. In return for being granted this conversion, BCBS would pay "up to" $1.56 billion over 18 years (meaning it could be less) into a fund that would supplement various health-related government programs, with specific spending items selected by a board of political appointees. The bill does not include abortion restrictions that caused Gov. Snyder to veto the same measure when passed late last year.
House Democrats in Lansing recently called on the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to be more transparent and accountable in a press release, saying the organization is "notoriously secretive."
The latest salvo against the MEDC was inspired, at least in part, by the organization’s use of state money to buy an advertisement under the “Pure Michigan” label that featured Michigan’s new right-to-work legislation.
The SEIU has just passed $34 million skimmed from home-based caregivers.
The “dues skim” began when the Service Employees International Union teamed up with the administration of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2005 in order to use a shell organization to take money from tens of thousands of caregivers to be used by the union. The vast majority of these caregivers did not vote in the “election” to certify the union and are relatives or parents looking after disabled loved ones.
(Editor’s note: This response is from the authors of the Center’s recent study on the effect of taxes on cigarette smuggling.)
February 1, 2013
Mr. Danny McGoldrick
Vice President for Research
Tobacco Free Kids
1400 I Street NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20005
Adjunct Scholar Gary Wolfram in a Bridge Magazine article Thursday about an audit showing the failure of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to properly evaluate the effectiveness of its corporate welfare handouts credits Mackinac Center as being ahead of the curve as an MEDC watchdog.
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman is featured in an interview in the Winter 2013 edition of the “Insider,” a publication of the Heritage Foundation, about the Center’s role over the past 20 years in bringing right-to-work to Michigan.
Lehman earlier detailed those efforts in an interview with National Review, and he and Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio wrote about it late last year in The Wall Street Journal.
One thing heard constantly in the debate over right-to-work laws is that workers in unionized workplaces do have a choice since they can avoid paying for union political funding by exercising their "Beck Rights."
This is (kinda) true, but it should be noted that unions have always fought —and continue to fight — against this right.
As Michigan’s right-to-work law is set to take effect in March, unions — primarily representing public employees — are scrambling to get contract extensions passed that would prevent their members from exercising this new freedom and continue to extract financial support from them as a condition of employment.
Businessman Dick DeVos credited the Mackinac Center, the business community and key legislators for getting a right-to-work law passed in Michigan in a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, according to The Detroit News.
Among other things, DeVos noted decreasing union membership as one reason why Gov. Rick Snyder and the Legislature pursued “Freedom to Work.”
Just a few weeks ago, Bridge Magazine released a statewide ranking of schools, which took student socioeconomic background into account. Bridge's methodology is almost identical to that used in the Mackinac Center's High School Report Card.
Not surprisingly, the results were similar: Both Bridge and the Mackinac Center identified Star International Academy as the highest-ranked school.
It’s National School Choice Week, an annual reminder of the importance of offering parents freedom in selecting the type of educational experience they deem best for their children. About 7,500 people in Phoenix kicked off the week on Friday night, and there are 3,500 events scheduled around the nation the rest of the week, including a whistle-stop train tour from Los Angeles to New York.
A constant claim by opponents of right-to-work, whether it be from the AFL-CIO, state Democratic legislators or the president, is that income is lower in right-to-work states. But these naysayers are blinded to a paycheck reality: the cost of living.
Having a larger paycheck doesn’t matter much if you can’t purchase as much with it. Adjusting for per-capita personal income — a standard measure of a state’s wealth — the difference between right-to-work and non-right-to-work states disappears.
The state House and Senate finalized their organizational details for the new session this week. There was just one final-passage floor vote on a substantive measure, a gun bill, see roll call information below. This report therefore includes several other newly-introduced firearms-related bills of interest.
(Editor's note: This is an edited version of a commentary that Capitol Affairs Specialist Jack Spencer of Michigan Capitol Confidential writes for daily newspapers in Michigan.)
One thing that can't be said about Gov. Rick Snyder is that he's ducking tough issues. When he ran for office he promised change and reform. Like it or not, no one who has been paying attention can claim he hasn't delivered on that promise.
A new study by Stanford University researchers found that the typical charter public school student made learning gains equivalent to about two additional months of learning compared to their demographically similar peers in conventional public schools. These results are no doubt impressive, but they are even more remarkable considering that charter public schools spend almost 25 percent less per pupil than schools run by school districts.
(Editor's note: This commentary was co-authored by Michael D. LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative at the Mackinac Center, and Kim Crockett, executive director of the Minnesota Free Market Institute at the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis, Minn.)
Michael Van Beek, director of education policy, was a guest on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing this morning, talking about a new study from Stanford University that shows charter public schools in Michigan are, as he has written, a “smashing success.”
According to polling data and "conversations" held by the Center for Michigan, the general public is less interested in expanding school choice than it is in other policy options.
More than 50 percent of poll respondents said that increasing school choice in Michigan was important, but other options, such as providing "stronger support for educators" or improving "teacher preparation" were more popular.
A Huffington Post article titled “Charter School Growth in Michigan Brings a Cautionary Tale on Quality” goes to great lengths to twist the overwhelmingly positive results of a new study of Michigan’s charter schools by Stanford University into something else.
Bruce Edward Walker, former editor of Michigan Science, writes in Sunday’s Lansing State Journal about the negative environmental and economic impact of ethanol subsidies.
Center analysts have addressed this issue numerous times, including here, here and here.
The Michigan House and Senate are still getting organized for the 2013-2014 legislative session, which among other things requires giving committee assignments to 110 state representatives and 38 state senators. Each legislator serves on three or four of the dozens of policy and appropriations committees, so regular committee meeting times must also be juggled to minimize conflicts.
Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh explains in a Deadline Detroit story today that people across the political spectrum should all be concerned about the “crony capitalism” involved in protectionist auto dealer laws.
“They are in every legislative district. They are an employer in every legislative district,” McHugh said about dealers. “They have the financial depth and geographic breadth.”
Security was tighter than ever as Gov. Rick Snyder made his third "State of the State" address. Though anti-right-to-work demonstrators arrived at the State Capitol two hours earlier hoping to get inside the building, state police blocked all doors except to anyone pre-credentialed.
