One of the most widely cited explanations for rising college prices is that state and local governments have been cutting funding for higher education for decades. According to this view, universities raise tuition to make up for the lost funding. This type of observation has been repeated so frequently that it is accepted as gospel....
In 2020, COVID-19 has made things complicated. Voting and elections, especially in Harris County, are no exception. And as many have realized a mere 30 days from the election, the pandemic has caused a shortage in poll workers and volunteers across the state of Texas. This is because historically, most poll workers have been seniors...
There is no shortage of polls or pundits predicting the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. But “outcomes” include more than simply election results. Who is gaming out how America — and the world — will respond? We are. While national polls suggest an edge for former Vice President Joe Biden, the winner isn’t determined...
Too many Texans, one out of five adults, struggle with basic literacy. Far more, three of five, would fail the U.S. citizenship exam. Beyond civic literacy and literacy itself, Americans also have poor economic and financial literacy. Too many of us make terrible decisions, fail to budget, and run up our debt. With so many...
Our desperate lack of civic literacy and understanding of the principles of our U.S. Constitution is never greater than when the Second Amendment is involved. That brings us to the current U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Liberals, if taken at their word in desiring a more just and equitable body of law, should embrace Judge Amy Coney...
For some reason, the Lone Star State and its 38 Electoral College votes is considered to be a battleground—never mind that neither Vice President Joe Biden, nor his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, have made one visit to Texas this year. President Donald Trump leads in Texas by 4.4%, according to the Real Clear Politics average...
Most people and institutions are held accountable, however imperfectly. We all know of a charlatan who has yet to be exposed, or a shady institution that is coasting on its reputation, but eventually, the truth wins out. With any luck, that moment has arrived for higher education. Last fall’s publication of the most comprehensive college...
In this era of highly polarized politics, we appear finally to have arrived at an issue upon which both the Left and Right agree, namely, that “fake news” is undermining democratic discourse. How can we prevent voters from being deceived by fake news? To this bipartisan concern, I offer a nonpartisan answer—education. Specifically, the country’s...
When Senate Democrats aren’t making thinly veiled criticisms of Judge Amy Coney Barrett‘s deeply held religious beliefs, their strategy to make Americans scared of the Supreme Court nominee is to focus on health care. Specifically, they argue Judge Barrett would be a deciding vote to declare the fatally flawed Affordable Care Act (ACA) unconstitutional—which, they say,...
What we see so far in the 11 large counties with comparable data to 2016 is that registered voters are up 13% (by comparison, population is up 7.3% in Texas since 2016). In-person turnout is up 15% as a raw number, but only 1.57% as a share of registered voters (12.06% to 11.87%). Voting by...
There’s a prevailing theme out of Texas that the state is turning blue, that the inevitability of the demographic and cultural shift will lead the Lone Star State back into the Democratic column, as it was for most of its history as a state. This narrative is advanced by the media, Democrats, and even some...
Amid all the uproar of 2020’s contentious presidential election race, the country now finds on its plate another Supreme Court nomination, to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. As the New York Times’s Adam Liptak put it recently, “Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, has compiled an almost uniformly conservative...