Drew Johnson “It’s for the kids.” That cliché rang in the ears of Tennesseans in 2005 when Gov. Phil Bredesen made his pitch to wildly expand the state’s Pre-Kindergarten program and put state government—which by nearly every measure fails miserably at educating five to 18 year olds—in the...

By Drew Johnson Last week, a Johns Hopkins University study labeled 37 of Tennessee’s high schools “dropout factories,” sending the state’s high school principals and state education bureaucrats into a tizzy. According to the report, 14.2 percent of Tennessee’s public high schools failed to...

By Drew Johnson When it comes to education, it sure seems that Governor Phil Bredesen has his priorities in order. In January, he kicked off the legislative session with a State of the State Address featuring only one topic: education. He followed that up by recommending an “education first” budget...

By Drew Johnson When it comes to education, it sure seems that Governor Phil Bredesen has his priorities in order. In January, he kicked off the legislative session with a State of the State Address featuring only one topic: education. He followed that up by recommending an “education first” budget...

By Dan Lips For most teenagers, an 18th birthday is a special occasion, a milestone in the journey to adulthood. Yet for many children in foster care, an 18th birthday is often nothing to celebrate. That is the age when many foster children are transitioned out of the state’s child welfare system and...

Drew Johnson What do Georgetown, Duke and M.I.T. have in common besides prestige, sky-high tuition fees and some of the toughest admissions standards in America? According to a recent study by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), seniors graduate from these famed universities knowing less about...

By Luci Stephens A commentary by Tennessee Center for Policy Research Education Policy Fellow Luci Stephens in the September issue of BusinessTN magazine introduces an innovative idea for improving schools by turning educators into entrepreneurs. If the scores of Tennessee’s students on recent nationwide...

Drew Johnson In his “State of the State” address, Governor Phil Bredesen reiterated his costly plan for a statewide, government-controlled, voluntary pre-kindergarten. Bredesen’s scheme—which according to the governor’s own varying estimates stands to cost taxpayers from $275 to $380 million...