Sometimes parents in low-income areas get a bad rap. Many are thought to be negligent and uncaring about their children’s education and futures. While that may be true in some extraordinary cases, you will rarely ever meet a parent who wants to enroll their child in a low-performing school. In fact, research suggests that when parents are given free choice about where to place their children in school, they will choose the best school they can find.

The positive outcomes for parental choice have been demonstrated yet again in a new study by Matthew M. Chingos of the Brookings Institution and Paul E. Peterson, Director of Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance.

In “The Effects of School Vouchers on College Enrollment: Experimental Evidence from New York City,” Chingos and Peterson studied the college-enrollment outcomes of school voucher programs and found that the percentage of African-American students who enrolled part-time or full-time in college by 2011 was 24 percent higher for those who had won a school voucher lottery while in elementary school and used that voucher to attend a private school.

The study concludes the following:
Read more on Education Choice Helps Minorities…

Man the Political Animal: On the Intrinsic Goodness of Political Community
Michael W. Hannon , Public Discourse

Our arguments for limited government should recognize political community as an intrinsic good, not mistake it for a merely instrumental one.

Read more on PowerLinks 05.17.13…

On Tuesday, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said that Uwe and Hannelore Romeike along with their children were not persecuted by the German government and will not be granted asylum in the United States.

Read more on German Homeschoolers Denied Asylum in U.S….

Standing up for religious principles in an increasingly secularized and politicized country has become extremely difficult for religious and clergy. It doesn’t help their spiritual causes when these very same religious and clergy cannot delineate between what their respective faiths teach and what is simply the desire to attain a political or economic result.

For example, the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, a member of the Interfaith Counsel on Corporate Responsibility, have issued a shareholder proxy resolution to Walgreens requesting the drugstore chain abandon the sale of tobacco products.

To borrow from Sam Cooke, I don’t know much about running a successful franchise but I do know a bit about most of the world’s major religions, especially Roman Catholicism. Not a whole lot of faiths espouse anti-tobacco theology. Those that do require only that their followers adhere to religious practices and customs rather than forcing everyone else outside the flock obey as well. That last, incidentally, exists only in the secular realm populated by such statist politicians as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

So the radical sisters from the City of Brotherly Love want Walgreens to stop selling tobacco? Back in my corporate-flack days, this was called “diluting the brand” as there’s nothing in Roman Catholic doctrine that addresses cigarettes, cigars, snuff and chew or the selling thereof. Read more on Sisters’ Proxy Resolutions Dilute Catholic ‘Brand’…

While the Obama administration is busy dealing with the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal and the seizure of reporters’ phone records, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is skirting around a problem as well. Sebelius has been asking for donations for Obamacare costs from the very people and industry who will be charged with implementing it and getting government money to do so.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.

Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.

Read more on Sebelius Asks Health Care Industry For ‘Donations’ To Prop Up Obamacare…

One of the realities of using race to socially engineer the racial make-up of college freshman classes by elite decision-makers, is that it does nothing but perpetuate the injustice of institutional and planned discrimination. This is the greatest irony of affirmative action education policy. The attempt to redress past injustices does nothing but set the stage for new forms of injustice against other groups.

Today, Asian-American high-school students are faced with the reality that, if they are high achievers, top schools do not want too many of them. In fact, checking “Asian-American” on your college admissions application can prove to be a real liability.
Read more on Affirmative Action Limits Opportunities For Asian Americans…

Yesterday, Jordan Ballor explored the relationship between money and happiness, referring to money as “a good, but not a terminal good,” and pointing to Jesus’ reminder that “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Over at Café Hayek, economist Russ Roberts offers a good companion to this, advising college graduates to have a healthy perspective about money and meaning when entering the job market:

Don’t take the job that pays the most money. Nothing wrong with money, but it’s the wrong criterion for choosing if you are fortunate to have a choice in this not-so-great job market. People often confuse economics with anything that is related to money as if the goal of economics is to make you rich. But the goal of economics is to help you get the most out of life. Money is part of that of course, but usually there are tradeoffs–the highest paying job has drawbacks. Don’t ignore those. So take the job that is the most rewarding in the fullest sense of the word. Sure, money matters. But so does how much you learn on the job, how much satisfaction it gives you and whether it lets you express your gifts. The ideal is to find a job you love that still lets you put food on the table and a roof over your head. You spend a lot of time at work. Don’t do something you hate or that deadens your soul just because it pays well.

Time is precious. One of the simplest but most important ideas of economics is the idea of opportunity cost–anything you do means not doing something else. Don’t spend all of your leisure on email and twitter and entertainment. Keep your brain growing. Listen to Planet Money. Read a novel. Take a cooking class or keep working at that musical instrument.

Of course, the Christian must be especially careful that this goal of “getting the most out of life” is properly grounded and directed. Read more on Advice for College Graduates on Money, Meaning, and Mission…

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) took to the Senate floor yesterday and quoted Lord Acton’s well known dictum, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” There’s a partisan bite to his words, but he mostly warns against the grave dangers and tyranny under concentrated and centralized power.

Read more on Senator Cornyn Quotes Lord Acton on Abuse of Power…

After the recent admission by the IRS that employees targeted conservative groups, two prominent Christians have come forward claiming they too were harassed for their political views. Franklin Graham, son of the famed evangelist, and Dr. Anne Hendershott, a Catholic professor and author, say they were audited by the IRS after making political statements that criticized liberal political groups.

Franklin Graham recently sent a letter to President Obama saying that he believes his organization was also unfairly targeted for extra scrutiny because the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association urged voters to back “candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel” during last year’s presidential race.

The newspaper ads the group ran concluded with the words: “Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me (Billy Graham) that America will remain one nation under God.” Graham says the ads were purchased with designated funds given by friends of the ministry for that purpose.

Three months prior to the election, both Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association received notification from the IRS that a review would be conducted for the tax year ending 2010. Graham says that in light of the subsequent revelations, “I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence—or justifiable.”

Similarly, Hendershott says the IRS audited her in 2010 and demanded to know who was paying her and “what their politics were.” The professor says she was surprised she was being audited on business grounds since her freelance activity primarily consists of writing for Catholic outlets for which she receives no pay. Her husband was not included in the audit even though he brings in most of the family’s income and the couple filed a joint tax return.
Read more on Evangelical and Catholic Leaders Claim IRS Harrassment…

Liberty Without Virtue: A Nation Without Its Heart
Tyler Castle, Values & Capitalism

Having witnessed the same act of kindness twice in only two or three days, my first thought was that people apparently have a very hard time holding on to their clothing accessories. But I also thought the acts of kindness were out of place in Brooklyn and D.C.—locations not known for their hospitality and civic virtue.

Read more on PowerLinks 05.16.13…