Cascade CounterPoint

This month Wyoming became the 15th state to give students universal school choice. Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, any K-12 child in Wyoming may apply for an Education Savings Account of $7,000 per student. The new law also includes preschool children from low-income families. The Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act allocates $30 million to Education Savings Accounts that will initially serve a...

Charter schools are public schools, but students attending Oregon charter schools receive a fraction of the public education funding allocated to regular district school students. According to the Oregon Coalition of Community Charter Schools,  charter school funding works out to about 48%  of regular district schools’ per-pupil funding. It’s time to address this disparity so that charter schools—...

On March 11 the Joint Transportation Committee of the Oregon Legislature took testimony on HB 3453, which would create a new transit authority with a mission to take over TriMet’s Westside Express Service (WES) commuter line and expand it to Eugene. While I share the enthusiasm of the bill’s sponsors for passenger rail, the history of WES shows that a market for commuter rail does not exist. WES w...

At its March 4th meeting , Portland Public School board will hear an update on the Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE). The $60 million CBSE was included in the bond measure approved by voters in 2020, without any prior due diligence. None of the money has been spent. It hasn’t been spent because no one at PPS can explain what the Center is supposed to be or how it will improve academic per...

Idaho families are the winners after the state’s legislature passed a refundable $5,000 education tax credit last week. Idaho’s Parental Choice Tax Credit (House Bill 93) will help parents pay for private school tuition, textbooks, transportation, and other qualifying education expenses. The program is universal, meaning any family can apply, but families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty...

Oregon’s death tax has earned our state a reputation as “the worst place in the U.S. to die.” The 10-16% tax is levied on Oregon estates valued over $1 million at the time of death. The $1 million threshold hasn’t changed for 20 years , not even to adjust for inflation. It’s time for this to change. House Bill 2301 would raise the tax exemption level to $7 million and decrease the tax rate to 7%....

Tennessee’s Education Freedom Act of 2025 has become the nation’s 13th universal school choice law. Tennessee lawmakers last week passed the statewide educational choice program, which will initially fund 20,000 scholarships—worth about $7,296 each—to children who want to attend private schools. Half of the scholarships in the first year are reserved for families whose incomes are at or below 300%...

This week parents, educators, and students nationwide are celebrating  National School Choice Week , an annual event highlighting education options available to K-12 children today. School choice means  empowering parents  to choose the educational environments that will best help their children succeed. To really improve academic outcomes in Oregon, families must be able to send their children to...

This week marks the inauguration of President Trump and the opening of the Oregon legislative session. With new opportunities ahead, policy makers should think hard about why government exists. The most basic thing we expect from the government is protection of lives and property. Unfortunately, many elected officials find this boring. They are obsessed with electric vehicles, fossil fuels, plasti...

January 26-February 1 will be the 15th annual National School Choice Week , the world’s largest celebration of parental choice and effective education options for all children. National School Choice Week (NSCW) “informs, inspires, and empowers parents to discover the K-12 education options available for their children.” Week organizers say the event will partner with 209 schools and organizations...

The Portland School Board (PPS) wants voters to approve a construction bond measure of $1.8 billion in May. If approved, the measure would authorize the Board to impose taxes on all properties within the district to pay the principal and interest on bonds for the next 30 years. The total cost of debt service would likely be $3.5 billion or more. In any bond campaign, advocates are saying to voters...

What if all parents could choose schools based on where their children learn best, regardless of neighborhood zoning or income level? With school choice, they can.  School choice programs allow education funding to follow students  to the schools or learning services their families choose. It puts parents, not bureaucracies, “in the driver’s seat” of education, helping families customize schooling...

At a December 17th meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Interstate Bridge Replacement, legislators were promised that the proposed light rail service to Vancouver, WA would arrive every 6.7 minutes during weekday rush hours. We don’t need to guess whether this forecast will be wrong. We already know it. Before the Yellow Line opened in 2004, TriMet promised that peak-hour trains would...

In 2021, Sherwood School District opened the largest high school in Oregon. At 350,000 square feet, Sherwood High accommodates 2,000 students. The 73-acre campus includes a 600-seat performing arts center, a football stadium complex, and seven multipurpose sports fields. The total cost was $186 million, paid for by Sherwood taxpayers. The Beaverton School District is currently rebuilding Beaverton...

The Board of Portland Public Schools has been working to craft a district-wide  policy regarding cell phone use  at school. During the Policy Committee’s December 2 meeting, board members discussed a  draft policy  that would require personal electronic devices to be “off and away” during the school day, including lunchtime and in hallways, “so that the device cannot disrupt students or the learni...

In mid-November, the Portland City Council approved a 1.3-mile extension of the Portland Streetcar in Northwest Portland to service anticipated housing development near the Montgomery Park building. Council members assumed that the streetcar is a critical mobility option for Portland residents, but the facts suggest otherwise. According to TriMet, monthly ridership in 2024 has been 39% lower than...

The  Portland Tribune  recently reported  that Oregon elementary students’ academic proficiency remains “significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels.” It also noted that while every state “experienced a decrease in average assessment scores,” “compared to every other state, Oregon was third last for improvement in reading test scores….” All children deserve effective educational options that will...

On November 21, the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission is scheduled to adopt a carbon rationing scheme known as the Climate Protection Program. The regulation will set a statewide cap on the emissions of human-caused carbon dioxide, and then steadily reduce the cap over time. By 2040, most fossil fuels will be outlawed. The effects of this cap will be swift and painful. Based on experience in...

Is more money the answer to Oregon’s abysmal K-12 academic rankings?  The Heritage Foundation annually releases an Education Freedom Report Card , which ranks states according to school choice, academic transparency, regulatory freedom, and education spending. The report assesses what each state does well, identifies where it can improve, and suggests how local leaders can better address education...

Thirty years ago, an iconic goal of liberal activists was to offer a free breakfast for all public school students, regardless of family income. In response, Congress authorized a three-year pilot program to test the effects of universal free meals for students. In 2004 the USDA Economic Research Service published the results of what it called the “definitive data on the impact of universal-free b...

On October 14, Google announced that it will finance the construction of seven small nuclear reactors in the U.S. built by energy start-up Kairos Power. The agreement will provide 500 megawatts of clean, reliable electricity to feed Google’s growing need for data centers. This follows on the September 20th announcement by Microsoft and Constellation Energy that the Unit 1 nuclear reactor at Three...

The Heritage Foundation annually releases an Education Freedom Report Card , which analyzes and ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia according to factors related to school choice, academic transparency, regulatory freedom, and education spending. The report seeks to assess what each state does well, identify where it can improve, and help policymakers achieve real reforms. This year, F...

This week the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is holding its final public hearing on a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 90% from fossil fuels used in Oregon. Since there is a rough proportionality between fossil fuel combustion and CO2 emissions, that means the DEQ rule is a mandate to reduce the actual use of carbon-based fuels by 90%. This would essentially shut down t...

Environmental advocates who demand that we buy certain products rarely seem concerned about cost. But earlier this week, New York Times reporter Christopher Flavelle wrote about his experience last July replacing his home air conditioner with a heat pump. As a “climate” reporter, he felt obligated to buy the heat pump based on claims that it would have fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a traditi...

The Oregon Convention Center (OCC) was opened in 1990 with the backing of Metro, the Portland regional government. It was opened to create more economic growth opportunities in Portland. In 2003 the convention center was underperforming, and Metro made the decision to upgrade. This renovation came with the promise of generating surplus revenue. Unfortunately, the site continued to underperform, le...