State Government
Leadership Foundation

Every 15 minutes, the buzzer sounds at Ball State University’s Worthen Arena. But there’s no basketball game. The circular concourse outside the court is filled with 300 prospective teachers and 54 representatives of school districts and private educational companies looking to hire them. It’s three days before graduation and students at Indiana’s largest-teacher producing college have 15 minutes to state their case to prospective employers before the buzzer sounds again and their time is up.

The students who get hired will enter a profession experiencing major changes in Indiana. This fall, the state will begin requiring that all teachers be evaluated on student performance and that those evaluations help decide whether they get a raise and, ultimately, whether they keep their jobs. Indiana is not the only state making such moves, but from 2009 to 2011, no other state made more changes to teacher policy.

In his May 2 letter, California state Senate President pro tempore Darrell Steinberg contends that "the general belief that smart growth policies are driving California's people and businesses to other states is just plain wrong." And he's right. In addition to high taxes and massively unfunded government liabilities, the flight of businesses and job seekers is at least as attributable to the state's unwillingness to check its runaway personal-injury bar.

Eighth-graders in the U.S. are doing better in science than they were two years ago, but seven out of 10 still are not considered proficient, the federal government said Thursday. What's more, just 2 percent have the advanced skills that could lead to careers in the field. That's from the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation's Report Card, released by the U.S. Department of Education. The average score was 152, up from 150 in 2009.

Gerry Wheeler, interim head of the National Science Teachers Association, said the results showed "minuscule gains" in student achievement in science. "When you consider the importance of being scientifically literate in today's global economy, these scores are simply unacceptable," Wheeler said.

Budget cuts are forcing tough decisions within Pittsburgh's public education system. As many as 20 percent of teachers in six of the city's elementary schools may be furloughed if the union's plan to cut teachers based on seniority proceeds as planned.

Despite huge war chests from obligatory membership dues and a pool of vast resources, there is evidence to support that teachers unions are actually holding back the progress of education in the United States. Although the typical teacher is hard working and effective, teachers unions are more interested in maintaining the status quo and protecting the worst teachers, rather than incentivizing excellence and rewarding success.

Gov. Chris Christie held back no punches yesterday in Jersey City, saying at a national pro-school choice summit that he’s standing up to the “bully” of “entrenched interests” of the “educational establishment.”

New York's top court on Thursday rejected a constitutional challenge by state Senate Democrats who claim Republicans improperly used two different formulas to redraw the election map that created a 63rd Senate district upstate.

The Court of Appeals, which took the case on an expedited basis, unanimously upheld a trial-level judge who found that using the different formulas to establish voting boundaries was not unconstitutional. The seven judges concluded "consistent application" of one formula is not required, and lawmakers have latitude in carrying out their state constitutional authority to increase Senate districts based on population shifts indicated by the census.

Earlier today, the Institute for Energy Research released an excellent short piece on the basics of energy policy, titled Hard Facts: An Energy Primer. It is an excellent starting point for understanding America’s energy resources and the basics of a sound energy policy. The publication includes a number of illuminating graphics, like this one, which shows how America’s energy consumption has remained in check even as GDP has risen rapidly, with pollution, meanwhile, declining drastically:

In what has become a one-two punch today for the Florida Democrats' attempt to put a stop to the redistricting maps drawn by the Republican-led Legislature, a trial court judge on Monday refused their request for an injunction on the Congressional map pending a court review.

Democrats have filed a suit claiming that the Congressional map not only violates the contitutional ban against protecting incumbents and political parties but also unfairly packs black and Hispanic voters into districts to give Republicans an electoral advantage. They asked the court to stop the maps from taking effect this election cycle.

Florida's redistricting maps are ready to be implemented, officials announced Monday.

The U.S. Department of Justice granted Florida's request for administrative preclearance of the maps under the Voting Rights Act, according to a Monday letter from Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.

It is finished. Today, the House of Representatives has approved the final reapportionment map that sets the boundaries for the new districts for the decade to come.

The vote was 124-8, in favor. Of the 104 districts, 50 were not changed, according to Rep. Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, and chair of the Government Operations Committee, which led the effort. The deviation rate is about 18 percent for the House map.

About half the students in Louisiana are about to get a chance to choose the best school for themselves. That's the impact of the amazingly ambitious school reform program engineered by Gov. Bobby Jindal. Some 380,000 poor and middle-class students in low-performing schools will be offered a voucher worth up to $8,500. They can choose a school, they can line up a local business apprenticeship, they can take online classes toward a diploma.

The Bayou State is part of a "Top this!" competition among many states to open public schools to competition. Indiana has set up an expansive voucher program that covers students in families that have incomes below $61,000 a year. Wisconsin has expanded school choice programs in Milwaukee and Racine. Ohio will give tuition vouchers to as many as 60,000 students by 2013.

And Illinois? Left in the dust.

Basking in cautious confidence, we wait until the end of June, by which time the Supreme Court should have made its decision that Obamacare – or at least its individual mandate – is unconstitutional.

We’re not supposed to count our chickens before they hatch, but I’d like to argue that the Supreme Court shouldn’t stop at Obamacare. Once they get rid of PPACA, there’s more to overthrow – some of their predecessors’ making.

The Florida Supreme Court today approved a revised state Senate redistricting map.

The second version of political boundaries of the Senate, drawn by the Legislature in special session after the high court rejected the initial attempt, was approved despite objections from the Florida Democratic Party, voter-rights advocacy groups and the NAACP.

By its Resolution A/RES/64/236 of December 24, 2009,1 the United Nations General Assembly blessed preparations for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development 2012.2 The Resolution was titled “Implementation of Agenda 21, the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 and the outcomes of the [2002 Johannesburg] World Summit on Sustainable Development.”

Since the Supreme Court's historic three-day ObamaCare hearings in late March, the president and his supporters have tried to pressure the Justices into upholding that law, asserting that any other decision would overstep the court's constitutional bounds. Ruling against ObamaCare would not be what the president called illegitimate "judicial activism," but an appropriate exercise of the Supreme Court's core constitutional role.

Results of an ongoing Virginia State Police investigation of voter registration irregularities from the 2008 general election may signal a more significant voter fraud issue than some state lawmakers realized.

As Virginia legislators hotly debated a voter ID bill that narrowly passed the General Assembly, many were unaware of a state police investigation that, so far, has resulted in charges against 38 people statewide for voter fraud. Warrants have been obtained for a 39th person who can't be located.

A locally authored plan to allow undocumented agricultural and service-sector workers to legally stay in California cleared its first legislative hurdle Wednesday.

The Assembly's Committee on Labor and Employment endorsed the Agricultural Jobs and Industry Stabilization Act with a 4-1 vote. The committee's vote fell along party lines, with Republican Assemblyman Mike Morrell opposing it. Two lawmakers abstained. Wednesday's hearing was the first in a lengthy process to get Assembly Bill 1544 to the governor's desk.

But it indicates that the Democratic-controlled state Legislature may be willing to buck critics who say the federal government should regulate immigration.

With the election clock ticking, a Florida circuit court judge said Wednesday he will decide quickly on whether to throw out the Legislature’s congressional redistricting map, develop a new map in a matter of weeks or leave it alone.

“I am very much aware of the logistical problem we have,’’ said Judge Terry Lewis of the Second Judicial Circuit, referring to the prospect of invalidating all or part of the congressional map and creating a new one in time for candidates to qualify to run in June.

The bill is signed, the maps are drawn. Redistricting is over — right?

Not quite. There are still several legal hurdles before the once-a-decade process of setting new boundaries for state and federal legislators in New York is completely behind us, including a lawsuit lodged by Senate Democrats.

As the Supreme Court ponders whether the Obama administration can constitutionally take over the private sector when it comes to health care – and then order all Americans to buy health insurance—an unintended consequence is lurking in the government’s unemployment figures. Plagued by fears of explosive costs from mandated healthcare, companies are quietly transitioning much of the American workforce into a nation of part-time employees.

If left in force, the Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA) could doom a generation of American workers to part-time jobs. This is in sharp contrast to the legions of full time government workers who will implement the law’s myriad regulations while they enjoy a smorgasbord of health care options subsidized by taxpayers who will have few in the years to come. This is especially poignant as people file their taxes today.

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), who is retiring from the House this year, now says that President Obama made a “mistake” in pushing for his signature health law. “I think we paid a terrible price for health care,” he told Jason Zengerle of New York magazine. “I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after [Republican] Scott Brown won [Sen. Kennedy’s old seat in Massachusetts], I suggested going back. I would have started with financial reform but certainly not health care.” But Frank’s reasoning carries pitfalls for conservative reformers as well as liberal ones.

The EPA is promulgating National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Polyvinyl Chloride and Copolymers Production. The final rules establish emission standards that apply at all times, including periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction, for hazardous air pollutants from polyvinyl chloride and copolymers production located at major and area sources. The final rules include requirements to demonstrate initial and continuous compliance with the emission standards, including monitoring provisions and recordkeeping and reporting requirements.

A medical malpractice insurer has lowered its premiums and is crediting what is often called tort reform in this and other states.

Mag Mutual Insurance Co., the second-largest such firm in the state, credits the new laws with almost half of its recent 7.4 percent average cut in insurance premiums for doctors. The legislature last year overrode Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of a bill capping “noneconomic” damages at $500,000.

The Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments on Arizona's controversial immigration law, which will have a significant impact on the national debate on immigration reform. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been taking steps to loosen procedures for undocumented immigrants with U.S. citizen relatives (PDF) while conducting broad nationwide sweeps of undocumented immigrants with criminal backgrounds. CFR's Senior Fellow Edward Alden says President Obama "has been very determined to maintain the tough enforcement stance that was established in the second term of the Bush administration," despite criticism from within his administration. Alden says that the issues of encouraging legal, skilled immigration and enacting enforcement policies for illegal immigration are "intimately connected," but says that in light of Washington politics, comprehensive reform will likely be put on hold in favor of narrower, more targeted legislation.