Education Policy
In his newsletter this week, Terry Stoops, Director of Education Studies, wrote a post-mortem of the teacher walk-in events that occurred on Monday. He also wrote about the protests on the LockerRoom blog. In addition, he wrote about National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test scores, and about reading and math proficiency rates and standards.
Environmental Policy
Roy Cordato, Vice President for Research and resident scholar, wrote in his newsletter this week of 2013 becoming the best year on record in terms of the number of high ozone days for North Carolina. Indeed, across the entire state, there was only one high ozone reading recorded on one monitor on one day. South Carolina had none at all. On the LockerRoom, Roy wrote more about the problems with healthcare.gov, made a heartfelt confession, and shared a video that I think you’ll find amusing.
Fiscal Policy
Sarah Curry, Director of Fiscal Policy Studies, took a further look at North Carolina’s state spending and its lack of transparency in her newsletter this week. On the blog, she examined some of the major tax and bond items on November ballots across the state. Her longer Spotlight report on state spending was also released this week.
Health Care Policy
Katherine Restrepo, Health and Human Services Policy Analyst, has been really busy on the LockerRoom blog. She’s written about Sebelius’s authority to delay Obamacare’s individual mandate, taxes on luxury health plans, North Carolina’s high premiums, some of the misleading information that’s out there about Obamacare subsidies, and the many North Carolinians who won’t be able to keep their health plans no matter how much they like them.
Regulatory Policy
In the Regulatory Reform newsletter this week, Jon Sanders, Director of Regulatory Policy Studies, wrote about incentives, and managed to pull in Harry Potter, leprechauns, Alpo, and Chick-fil-A cows. It’s worth reading. He also blogged about the media’scoverage of Obamacare.
As always, there is a lot more on the John Locke Foundation’s Locker Room blog.
If you aren’t currently receiving the research division’s newsletters, you can sign up for them here. They, along with the blog, are a great way to stay informed about what’s happening in North Carolina public policy.
