Keeping These Teams is Too Expensive
In the run-up to Saturday’s election in Louisiana, one candidate for the state senate lambasted her opponent for supporting the use of taxpayer dollars to support the New Orleans Saints. According to ESPN, “she said the team needed defensive backs, offensive linemen and a backup running back more than state money.” I don’t follow the NFL that much, let alone the Saints, but she is right […]
Do You Know How Much Your Health Insurance Premiums Are?
The Kaiser Family foundation has a new edition of their annual report on employer-sponsored health benefits. Here’s a link (PDF) to the summary. The survey finds that the average premium per employee for single coverage is $3,383 per year; for family coverage, it is $9,068. For single coverage, employees pay $508 a year (15 percent of the total), with employers paying $2,875 (85 percent). For family […]
Do it for the teachers
Negotiations to bring 15 more charter schools to Michigan have hit an impasse. Meanwhile, 3,000 people protested the proposal outside the capitol. The Detroit Free Press said of the crowed “many of them teachers,” but I suspect the percentage was close to 100 percent, and if not teachers, then their allies in other unions or the education establishment.
Are schools for students … or teachers?
Michigan politicians are negotiating the expansion of the state’s charter law, a move that would allow another 15 charter schools in Detroit. The teachers union responds by … organizing a protest that draws so many teachers out of the classroom that the school system sends students home.
More charter schools in Michigan
An agreement has been reached in Michigan to expand the number of charter schools–currently maxed out at 150 (the existing cap)–by 135. Showing that school boards of existing governments schools are as much of an obstacle to reform as the teachers unions, the director of the Michigan Association of School Boards says that his group is “dead set against this. We’d be pouring more money down […]
Detroit Public Schools Chief: We Want Charter School Money
Michigan allows several authorities, including local school districts and state universities, to hold the charter of charter schools. Robert Thompson, a retired businessman wants to build, out of his own money, $200 million worth of school buildings for some new charter schools for Detroit. The proposal has been hindered by the refusal of the Detroit Public Schools chief, who has used his friends in the […]
Megaprojects, Cost Overruns, and Political Games
Cost overruns are a given when dealing with large public works projects. The Chicago-area based Daily Herald has a lengthy story today about the subject, and a study that says Chicago officials are underestimating the true cost of expanding O’Hare International Airport. If true, O’Hare expansion would follow in this tradition: The Big Dig, a road project underneath Boston Harbor, quadrupled in cost, to $15 billion. […]