Interim findings from a three-year, three-state study of implementation of the Charitable Choice provisions of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA).
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Back To School
[W]hile school districts across the nation have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on safety and safety technologies, there is very little data about the relative effectiveness of these measures. While concern for student safety is certainly warranted, sound public policy should be based upon evidence of the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of these technologies, as well as their congruity with basic constitutional principles.
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Tilting the Level Playing Field
Normative notions of fairness are shaped by—and reflected in—a nation’s legal system. The idea of equality is a bedrock element of the American legal and political systems; we strive for a meritocracy and affirm the obligation of government to treat similarly situated citizens equally. The ‘level playing field’ is a favorite metaphor.
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Talking Past Each Other
When he was eight or nine, my middle son asked me one of those questions that make a mother’s head hurt. "I say the sky is blue, and you say the sky is blue. But how do we know we are seeing the same color? What if what I call blue is really what you call orange, and we just both call it blue because that is the color we say the sky is?"
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Who Pays the Piper?
In Merrie Olde England, so the story goes, there were pipers?lute players?who lived by their music. They would go to fairs or similar venues and perform, secure in the knowledge that they would be paid by one of the many who had enjoyed the pleasure of the dance. This is thought to be the origin of ?to pay the piper,? an adage that reminds us that if no one had come forward to pay the piper, the music would have stopped. This elementary rule of the market seems to have escaped the members of Indiana?s General Assembly.
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