Quick Read
The Annenberg Center on the Study of Educators at Brown University took a look at employee retention in the Providence school district and concluded that there has not been an “exodus of teachers”: Using data up and including the start of the 2021-22 school year, we show that, while retention did fall in Providence more…
Sometimes when you’re busy and check in on the news, it seems nothing makes sense, so let me make sure I’ve got a complete picture, here. Immediately upon entering office, Joe Biden took deliberate steps that were certain to drive up the cost of fuel (restricting drilling, canceling a North American fuel pipeline, etc.), and…
Legislation from socialist state Representative David Morales should be a warning to institutions (whether non-profit organizations or for-profit businesses) about furthering the power of progressives: Industry leaders and university officials in Rhode Island were outraged after a bipartisan slate of lawmakers recently introduced a bill that would allow host cities to impose taxes on endowments…
Somehow, I’d hoped that a silver lining of the pandemic would be a little more wariness among lawmakers about tripping over unforeseen circumstances. But we’re back to normal, now, in ways good and bad, so the state Senate has returned to the pressing business of forbidding Rhode Island stores from offering customers the option of plastic…
The inaccuracy of Steve Ahlquist’s tweet is worth noting, but it should be a springboard, not a stopping point: 86% of Johnston voters voted to approve a $215 million proposal to finance the largest modernization of education facilities in Johnston’s history. The results table he appends does indeed show that 1,100 people voted to approve…
One bit of trivia that marks a step on road to full assimilation into the Ocean State when one learns it is that the State House dome is the fourth largest self-supporting marble dome on the planet. The list goes St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Minnesota State Capitol, the Taj Mahal, then Rhode Island’s…
Sometimes it isn’t clear whether progressive activists are warning about what they genuinely believe their nemeses will do or explaining what they will do once they have the power. Such is the case, here: “When we react to [legislation in Florida],” Equality Florida Nadine Smith apparently tells Disney employees in a virtual meeting, according to a…
The response to COVID showed that we aren’t a serious society. One hallmark of that condition for all to see (if they look) is that we are institutionally incapable of identifying the actual causes of our difficulties and, therefore, of addressing them. Consequently, because the solution of the clueless must always be to throw more…
Overstating the significance of individuals’ Twitter commentary is an easy pitfall, but Phil Eil is a journalist and writer and so spends more time observing and thinking about the world around him than the average. The following tweets are likely to be more representative of the progressive mindset than would be the case if it…
Here’s an important detail from a recent budget analysis by the Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council (RIPEC), as summarized by WPRI’s Eli Sherman: In a breakdown of the hospital’s financial picture, RIPEC estimated McKee is seeking to spend $143.7 million in state and federal revenue next fiscal year on the state-run medical and psychiatric facility,…