First in Freedom, tax fraud, Title I funding, and other items of interest

John Locke Foundation President and CEO Kory Swanson promoted the new First in Freedom Index during a presentation for the Chatham County Republican Party’s annual convention, as reported by the Chatham Journal Weekly. Both the Chatham News and Chatham Record promoted Swanson’s speech. NCPoliticalNews.com promoted Carolina Journal Executive Editor Don Carrington‘s exclusive article on a tax preparer in North Carolina who has uncovered cases of income tax fraud within the Hispanic community.

The Raleigh News & Observer quoted Director of Research and Education Studies Terry Stoops in an article about changes in the Wake County public school system’s use of Title I federal funds aimed at low-income students. The Chowan Herald quoted Stoops in an article about the state’s new A-F grades for all public schools. (Terry Stoops, an education analyst at the John Locke Foundation, doesn’t deny the correlation between low letter grades and high poverty schools. But Stoops also notes there is more to the story. His analysis of the recently released letter grades found 150 schools in the state with more than half of their students from low-income homes that scored “A” or “B” on the state’s report card.)

The Laurinburg Exchange picked up Stoops’ column on millennials‘ poor academic preparation. The Kernersville News published Stoops’ column on high salaries and high turnover rates among N.C. public school superintendents. The Oklahoma School Choice blog cited Stoops’ “Locker Room” blog entry focusing on the variety of companies that profit from public education. The EdNC.com website picked up CJ contributor Kristen Blair‘s recent column about the value of civics education.

The Kernersville News published JLF Health and Human Services Policy Analyst Katherine Restrepo‘s column analyzing the latest U.S. Supreme Court case involving Obamacare. The Heritage Foundation’s “Insider Online” blog promoted this week’s JLF Shaftesbury Society speech from George Mason University economist Peter Boettke. He critiqued the use of so-called “emergency room” economics.