On April 22, 1998, the Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation announced the availability of CEO Horizon Scholarships to residents of the Edgewood Independent School District (EISD) in San Antonio, Texas. The CEO Foundation did not limit eligibility to students with proof of superior...

K-12 education policy has recently received much scrutiny from policymakers, taxpayers, parents, and students. Reformers have often cited increases in spending with little noticeable gain in test scores, coupled with the fact that American students lag behind their foreign peers on standardized...

In recent years debt in Colorado has increased at an unsustainable rate. A debt brake is simulated for the Colorado economy. When the debt brake is triggered the spending cap imposed by the Tabor Amendment is reduced, with surplus revenue earmarked for debt reduction. The simulation analysis...

Given that public school districts employ roughly 90 percent of teachers in Texas, teachers have little negotiating power in today's labor market. Budget reallocations at public school districts and private schools from ESAs could increase teacher salaries in the first year, with some increasing...

In this study we argue that the U.S. should follow the Swiss precedent, restoring a strong fiscal federalist system, with fiscal autonomy for state and local governments. A ‘no-bailout' principle should be restored, such that state as well as local governments are subject to bankruptcy laws....

Pressing questions about the merits of market accountability in K-12 education have spawned a large scholarly literature. Unfortunately, much of that literature is of limited relevance, and some of it is misleading. The studies most widely cited in the United States used intense scrutiny of a...

Numerous empirical models connect individual student test scores or average test scores to theoretically plausible policy and socioeconomic variables. Although the models were created to test for the effect of a specific factor like funding levels or teacher training on student performance, the...

New fiscal rules, referred to as tax and expenditure limits (TELs), were enacted in many states during the tax revolt launched in the 1970s. Over the past two decades a second generation of TELs, patterned after Colorado’s TABOR Amendment, was introduced in the states. The new fiscal rules...