Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'Education policy'

March 31, 2014

Homeschooled Students are More Politically Tolerant Than Their Peers

Critics of homeschooling have long maintained that it fails to inculcate students with the civic virtues necessary to maintain our republican form of democracy. But a study finds that when it comes to willingness to extend basic civil liberties to people who hold views with which one disagrees, homeschooled students are more tolerant than their peers: Scholar Albert Cheng’s just-published fascinating and provocative study provides one of the first solid portions of empirical evidence about whether the homeschooled become more or less politically intolerant than others.[3] Continue Reading...
July 16, 2013

What Public Schools Should Learn from Homeschool Economics

“Public education is the fount of most problems in the United States, not simply based on content, but also on structure,” says Thomas Purifoy. “Simply put: it is economically impossible for American public education to be successful in the long-run (or the short-run, for that matter).” Continue Reading...
July 12, 2013

Religious Tolerance, Cooperation And School Choice

President Barack Obama, during a recent trip to Northern Ireland, decried the segregation of denominational churches and schools: Issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity — symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others — these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it. Continue Reading...
May 15, 2013

Free primary education is a fundamental good. Isn’t it?

Private schools are for the privileged and those willing to pay high costs for education; everyone else attends public school or seeks alternate options: this is the accepted wisdom. In the United States, the vast majority of students at the primary and secondary level attend public school, funded by the government. Continue Reading...
March 26, 2013

Texas-Size Educational Choice

Over 100,000 students in Texas are on the charter school wait list—and with the number of charter schools capped at 215, they have a long wait ahead of them. But state senator Dan Patrick—a self-described “education evangelist”—is attempting to implement a radical educational reform. Continue Reading...