Clark County Education Association

This week, the CCEA teacher union came out in support of Ballot Measure 3 — the “Energy Choice” proposal that would provide Nevada with a competitive consumer energy market. Explaining its endorsement, CCEA said that “Nevadans know that monopolies… don’t work for consumers.” Agreed, but the comment remains especially noteworthy, given that teacher unions themselves play a major role in the government’s monopoly control over education. Maybe CCEA should apply this same logic to education, given that almost 60 percent of Nevadans support expanding the state’s Opportunity Scholarship program, and 70 percent support the concept of Education Savings Accounts for special-needs students. Or would that be a bridge too far? (Read more)

Employee Freedom: A voice and a choice

National Employee Freedom Week is over, but that doesn’t mean people are done talking about it. The national survey NPRI conducted this year was groundbreaking — as it demonstrated just how many unionized employees appreciate the outcome of the Janus case, which affirmed the right of public sector workers to leave their unions. As Nevada Policy Research Institute Communications Director Michael Schaus told the Free Beacon, “This study shows just how many union members value having a voice and a choice in the workplace. Workers expect value from their union, and they clearly value the right to vote with their dues.” (Read more)

Educational Choice

Activists against school choice have been gleeful about a new report that supposedly proves school choice vouchers actually harm children. There’s just one problem: The study doesn’t even look at a single private school serving a single student with a school voucher! Even more telling was that the study’s “results” were pretty much preordained from the beginning. As Patrick Wolfe, from the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas, notes, the study’s bogus finding were “obtained from an outdated, non-experimental, underpowered, sample-of-convenience analysis of places and people that were not participating in actual private-school voucher programs.” Hardly an indictment of educational choice. (Read more)

Partisan politics

Even your fast-food choices are apparently a political statement nowadays. This week, the head of the California Democratic Party called for a boycott of In-N-Out Burger after it was revealed that the company had donated $25,000 to the Californian Republican Party. Of course, not all Democrats are on board with the plan to turn their back on a famed fast-food restaurant simply because of political disagreements. Anthony Grigore, a registered Democrat in California, made it clear that the boycott idea was a step too far. “Eating at In-N-Out is such a standard thing to do across California,” Grigore said, dismissing the boycott idea as a bit silly. (Read more)

Free speech

As an undergraduate at ultra-liberal Williams College, Zachary R. Wood was part of a group that invited Suzanne Venker, an author critical of feminism, to speak to students. It wasn’t because Zachary agreed with her — in fact, he is a self-described “liberal Democrat” who supported Hillary Clinton for President. Instead, he invited the conservative critic of feminism because he believed in the value of hearing opposing views. Unfortunately, the liberal mob at Williams College disagreed, and his group was forced to cancel the invitation. Zachary sat down with Reason.com’s Nick Gillespie to discuss why universities have closed themselves off from intellectual diversity, and what can be done to fix the political censorship on campus. (Read more)

Government corruption

There is no shortage of corruption, abuse-of-power and arrogance in government. That’s why the work done by investigative journalists like Kimberley Strassel is more important than ever. Her groundbreaking reporting on the abuse and corruption within the FBI probe of the Trump campaign has been making headlines for months now, and NPRI is again bringing Strassel to Nevada this September to speak about her crucial work! Kimberley will be speaking to attendees at Nevada Policy’s Anniversary Celebration in Las Vegas on September 20th. So don’t miss the opportunity to hear her scintillating analysis of corruption, power abuse and political bias now besetting the nation! (Click here to register.)