Neal McCluskey

Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom has been closely analyzing the transition from surprise lockdowns last year, to the muddled, volatile start of the new school year.

By ignoring the Constitution, we have torn down the bulwark intended to protect us from rule by a single government, or a single person.

In one year, COVID-19 contributed to the permanent closure of at least 132 mainly low‐ cost private schools. But that was better than some feared.

The Constitution only gives the federal government specific, enumerated powers, and none are about education.

2021 has been an especially strife‐ torn year in public schooling. But it is not an aberration. It is a symptom of an education system that makes wrenching conflict inevitable.

It is well past time to end the repayment freeze, the drive for mass cancelation, and the student loan programs themselves. Taxpayers need relief.

Moving to SAVE will more than double that taxpayer burden.

While disputes about library holdings and reading assignments have always been a part of public schooling, the country entered an especially contentious period around fall 2021.

How do public school libraries select books in the first place, and do they offer a balance of opinions on controversial issues?

People should want to know what is being purchased, and why, in the first place, not wait to see what eventually hits shelves and then fight over it.