Think Tanks
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Rand: Stricter Cell Phone Policies Associated With Reductions in Student Phone Use
SANTA MONICA, California, May 15 (TNSrpt) -- Rand issued the following news release on May 13, 2026:
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Stricter Cell Phone Policies Associated with Reductions in Student Phone Use
RAND study finds half of students still check their phones during class
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Stricter school cell phone policies are associated with less student phone use during class, but even the most restrictive policies do not stop phone checking entirely, according to a new RAND report.
Even in relatively restrictive policy environments where students are not allowed to use their phones at all at school, half of students
... Show Full Article
SANTA MONICA, California, May 15 (TNSrpt) -- Rand issued the following news release on May 13, 2026:
* * *
Stricter Cell Phone Policies Associated with Reductions in Student Phone Use
RAND study finds half of students still check their phones during class
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Stricter school cell phone policies are associated with less student phone use during class, but even the most restrictive policies do not stop phone checking entirely, according to a new RAND report.
Even in relatively restrictive policy environments where students are not allowed to use their phones at all at school, half of studentsreported checking their phones during their classes at least once per day. Roughly one-sixth said they did so more than five times per day. In the most lenient environments, roughly 8 in 10 students reported checking their phones during class at least once per day, including about one-third who did so frequently, according to the report.
"School cell phone policies and enforcement levels vary widely between schools, and this study gives us a clearer picture of how those differences relate to student behavior," said Melissa Diliberti, lead author of the study and an associate policy researcher at RAND. "While restrictive policies do appear to reduce cell phone use, what also matters is how strictly students perceive their teachers are enforcing the rules."
More than half of students (56%) reported trying at least one tactic to get around cell phone rules--from keeping phones in their pockets to using smartwatches as substitutes--but their perception of enforcement played a key role in their use of evasive tactics. Only 17% of students with very strict teachers reported keeping their phone in their pocket versus 50% of those who said their teacher was only a little strict.
Students indicated that cell phone policies are more restrictive and tightly enforced in middle school than in high school. Grade level also plays a role in both students' responsiveness to school policies and their participation in evasive tactics to hide their phone use.
According to the report, about 20% of 7th graders in schools with the most restrictive policy reported checking their phones during class, compared with about 80% of high school seniors in the same environment. Similarly, only 13% of middle schoolers reported trying to hide their phone in a hoodie or under their hair to get around cell phone rules versus 27% of juniors and seniors.
While the study identifies a relationship between policy restrictiveness and student phone use, it doesn't prove that stricter policies directly cause less phone checking. All findings are based on student self-reports.
"Restrictive policies probably won't eliminate students' cell phone use, but they might reduce it, especially when paired with firm enforcement," said Diliberti. "The challenge for schools and administrators is that the policies that students say work best also demand the most from educators who have to enforce them."
The study, How School Cell Phone Policy Strictness Shapes Student Phone Use, examines the association between common cell phone policies, their enforcement and student cell phone use. It draws on survey data from the RAND American Youth Panel, a nationally representative panel of middle and high school students, collected in December 2025. Based on research funded by Gates Foundation, it was conducted in the Education and Employment program of RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure.
Other authors of the report, How School Cell Phone Policy Strictness Shapes Student Phone Use, are Jonathan H. Cantor and Ryan K. McBain.
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About RAND Education, Employment and Infrastructure
The RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure division aims to improve educational opportunity, economic prosperity, and civic life for all. For more information, visit www.rand.org/eei.
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About RAND
RAND is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous.
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REPORT: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA4700/RRA4742-2/RAND_RRA4742-2.pdf
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Original text here: https://www.rand.org/news/press/2026/05/stricter-cell-phone-policies-associated-with-reductions.html
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Wall Street Journal: Don't Snuff Out the AI Data-Center Boom
NEW YORK, May 15 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on May 14, 2026, by senior fellow James B. Meigs to the Wall Street Journal:
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Don't Snuff Out the AI Data-Center Boom
The U.S. will benefit tremendously from artificial intelligence--if we can keep technology naysayers from strangling the baby in the cradle.
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Across the U.S., people are fighting to block the construction of AI data centers. Activists, politicians and ordinary citizens worry these massive complexes will drive up electricity prices, deplete water supplies and hasten the arrival of
... Show Full Article
NEW YORK, May 15 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on May 14, 2026, by senior fellow James B. Meigs to the Wall Street Journal:
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Don't Snuff Out the AI Data-Center Boom
The U.S. will benefit tremendously from artificial intelligence--if we can keep technology naysayers from strangling the baby in the cradle.
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Across the U.S., people are fighting to block the construction of AI data centers. Activists, politicians and ordinary citizens worry these massive complexes will drive up electricity prices, deplete water supplies and hasten the arrival ofvarious AI doomsday scenarios.
According to analyst Robert Bryce, more than 70 communities have moved to restrict or reject data-center projects--in the first four months of 2026 alone. Mr. Bryce, who has spent years tracking opposition to wind and solar farms, writes, "I've never seen anything like the raging backlash against data centers."
Roughly one-third of U.S. states have attempted to limit the AI build-out. Maine's legislature recently passed an 18-month ban on data-center construction (Gov. Janet Mills vetoed it).
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced legislation requiring a nationwide pause in AI projects. "We must choose humanity over profit," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/dont-snuff-out-the-ai-data-center-boom-7d41e2c6)
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/dont-snuff-out-the-ai-data-center-boom
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Bloomberg Opinion: Not Everyone Will Need a Trump IRA
NEW YORK, May 15 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on May 14, 2026, by senior fellow Allison Schrager to Bloomberg Opinion:
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Not Everyone Will Need a Trump IRA
Years ago, I volunteered teaching financial literacy at a women's homeless shelter. I may have a doctorate in economics, but I was pretty useless.
Being poor in America requires making many complex financial decisions involving details of government benefits that I don't know much about.
Still, I like to think I was of some use when it came to retirement saving, which is my specialty. I was
... Show Full Article
NEW YORK, May 15 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on May 14, 2026, by senior fellow Allison Schrager to Bloomberg Opinion:
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Not Everyone Will Need a Trump IRA
Years ago, I volunteered teaching financial literacy at a women's homeless shelter. I may have a doctorate in economics, but I was pretty useless.
Being poor in America requires making many complex financial decisions involving details of government benefits that I don't know much about.
Still, I like to think I was of some use when it came to retirement saving, which is my specialty. I wassurprised how many of the women had money in a retirement account from a former job.
I gently suggested they make what is called a hardship withdrawal, get out of the shelter, and stop worrying so much about retirement. They were resistant.
Saving for retirement is important, they told me.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-05-14/trump-ira-accounts-aren-t-always-right-for-low-income-savers?srnd=undefined)
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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/not-everyone-will-need-a-trump-ira
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary: Kazakhstan Now Building More Powerful Drone-Based Army
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on May 14, 2026, by Paul Goble, former special advisor to the Secretary of State and a specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:
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Kazakhstan Now Building More Powerful Drone-Based Army
Executive Summary:
* Kazakhstan--which already has the strongest army in Central Asia--has committed itself to a two-year program of military modernization to be in a position to defend itself against both domestic unrest and threats from abroad.
* Those two factors have
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on May 14, 2026, by Paul Goble, former special advisor to the Secretary of State and a specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:
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Kazakhstan Now Building More Powerful Drone-Based Army
Executive Summary:
* Kazakhstan--which already has the strongest army in Central Asia--has committed itself to a two-year program of military modernization to be in a position to defend itself against both domestic unrest and threats from abroad.
* Those two factors haveguided Kazakhstan's security thinking since 2022. Unrest in its cities forced it to appeal to Russia for help, and the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine sparked fears Moscow might move against northern Kazakhstan next.
* Fears that Moscow might make a move remain high, and Astana is seeking to apply lessons from the war against Ukraine to convince Moscow that another invasion would be a mistake.
Kazakhstan, with the strongest army in Central Asia, has committed itself to a two-year program of military modernization (The Astana Times, May 9). The goal is to be able to defend itself both from any outburst of domestic unrest and from any threats from abroad, two phenomena that Kazakhstan's leaders believe are closely interconnected (Tengri News, October 12, 2022). Their belief that these two factors are linked has guided Kazakhstan's security thinking since the first two months of 2022. Unrest erupted in its cities in January, which forced Kazakhstan to appeal to the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for help (see EDM, January 19, 20 [1], [2], 21, 2022). A month later, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and sparked fears in Astana that Moscow might follow with a move against northern Kazakhstan (see EDM, April 5, May 12, 2022). Because the Russia-Kazakhstan border is the longest continuous land border in the world and northern Kazakhstan still has a significant ethnic Russian population despite declines in recent decades, such fears were and remain far from groundless (Altyn-Orda, February 20). These fears have been behind Astana's decisions both in the development of its naval forces on the Caspian, where it now has more ships than Russia does, and on the modernization and expansion of its army, which lags far behind Russia's despite its overwhelming strength vis-a-vis other Central Asian countries (Tengri News, May 19, 2022; see EDM, January 21, 2025).
Astana is trying to catch up. It is applying lessons it has learned from Russia's war against Ukraine, in particular the use of drones and artificial intelligence, as well as devoting ever more attention, similarly to Ukraine, to the importance of multiple foreign supplies and increased domestic defense production (Caravan, May 11, 2022; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 26, 2024 May 7; see EDM, April 16; The Times of Central Asia, May 7). It is doing so in the first instance in part to convince Moscow that any Russian instigation of unrest in Kazakhstan or, even more, an invasion such as the one Putin has carried out in Ukraine, would be a disastrous and counterproductive move. Unsurprisingly, Russian commentators are denying that Moscow represents any threat. They argue that Kazakhstan's increased military spending--to more than $5.5 billion and 3 percent of its GDP this year--is unnecessary given that relations between the two countries are relatively good (Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, October 22, 2025; Expert, May 6).
Since 2022, Astana has sought to modernize its army. It has worked to increase its size to 110,000 active duty troops and reorganize them into special reaction forces, begun to supply them with drones and other digitally based weaponry, built up its domestic defense industry--which, until then, had been quite small--and diversified its foreign allies and suppliers lest dependence on any one of them could compromise Kazakhstan's independence and national security (Caravan, May 11, 2022; Window on Eurasia, May 26, 2022, January 7, 2023; Kursiv, May 8). Over the last year, such efforts have intensified, as when the Kazakhstan government announced plans to dramatically increase defense spending in October 2025 (Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, October 22, 2025). That represented a clear sign that Astana is increasingly worried about global turbulence and the government's desire to send a signal to anyone, including Russia in the first instance, that any military moves against Kazakhstan will be countered effectively and at great cost to those behind them.
Now, Astana has gone further. On May 6, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev delivered a programmatic address in which he outlined with far greater precision how his country plans to transform its military over the next two years into "a high-tech fist" capable of responding to the challenges of "global turbulence" even as it continues to pursue diplomatic efforts to cooperate with as many countries as possible, including Russia and the People's Republic of China (PRC), and assist others (President of Kazakhstan; Anadolu Ajansi, May 6; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, May 7). Tokayev said that his country remains committed to good relations with all countries but is particularly proud that it is "the only country in the Commonwealth of Independent States which has a UN mandate for carrying out independent peace-keeping operations." At the same time, he said that Kazakhstan must be prepared to counter any threats, both foreign and domestic. That requires modernizing its military not only structurally but in terms of armament and doctrine, including rapid mobility and the use of drones. These are just some of the lessons that Kazakhstan and other countries are drawing from Putin's war against Ukraine, where Kyiv's skillful use of drone technology has changed the nature and perhaps even the course of the war.
Achieving those goals requires, Tokayev argued, both ramping up domestic production of the most modern weapons and expanding the range of alternative suppliers abroad. In his remarks, the Kazakhstan leader pointed to the PRC and Russia. Other and likely ever more important suppliers include Azerbaijan and Turkiye, according to Kazakhstani and Russian experts commenting on this momentum (President of Kazakhstan; Anadolu Ajansi, May 6). Kazakhstani commentators welcome the links to Azerbaijan and Turkiye not only because Astana and Baku already have increasingly close defense cooperation, but also because Turkiye, as a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member, is in a position to help Astana by serving as a balance to Moscow and Beijing (Kaspiiskii Vestnik, May 6, 7). For precisely those reasons, Russian writers have expressed alarm (The Times of Central Asia, May 7). This is an indication that, at least in Moscow, there may be a push for long-threatened moves against northern Kazakhstan, lest the innovations Tokayev has announced make doing so in the more distant future impossible. For some observers, Tokayev's brief appearance in Moscow for Putin's Victory Day parade overshadowed his speech on defense expansion and modernization (Eurasianet, May 11). There can be little doubt, however, that the expanded defense program he has now outlined will prove more important not only for the future of Kazakhstan-Russia relations but also for power relations across the former Soviet space in particular, and Eurasia more generally. Kazakhstan has been a rising power for some time. The developments Tokayev is making for the military suggest that its future ascent will be even more rapid and higher than it has been, meaning Russia's influence and control in Central Asia will recede more rapidly and completely than before. This is yet another way in which Putin's expanded war in Ukraine is proving counterproductive.
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Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/kazakhstan-now-building-more-powerful-drone-based-army/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary: Japan's Bond Market and the Perils of Incomplete Analysis
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on May 14, 2026, by adjunct fellow Mark Siegel:
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Japan's Bond Market and the Perils of Incomplete Analysis
The recurring panic over Japanese government bonds tells us more about the limits of conventional financial modeling than it does about Japan's fiscal trajectory.
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For more than three decades, a cottage industry of financial analysts has warned that Japan's government bond market is heading for collapse. The arithmetic,
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on May 14, 2026, by adjunct fellow Mark Siegel:
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Japan's Bond Market and the Perils of Incomplete Analysis
The recurring panic over Japanese government bonds tells us more about the limits of conventional financial modeling than it does about Japan's fiscal trajectory.
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For more than three decades, a cottage industry of financial analysts has warned that Japan's government bond market is heading for collapse. The arithmetic,they insist, is unforgiving: debt exceeding 200 percent of gross domestic product, persistent deficits, an aging population that draws down savings, and a financial system saturated with sovereign paper. The conclusion, repeated with solemnity at each successive inflection point in global markets, is that the Japanese government bond (JGB) market is on the verge of a crisis.
Analysts have been expecting collapse for a very long time. And they have been wrong--consistently, expensively wrong--in ways that deserve more serious examination than the financial press typically offers.
The Widow-Maker Trade and Its Lessons
Commentators call the market bet against JGBs the "widow-maker trade" for good reason. Investors, armed with compelling quantitative models, have repeatedly bet against Japanese government bonds and have suffered the consequences. Yet the trade never loses its appeal because the models that generate it are seductive in their simplicity: High debt loads are dangerous, and persistent deficits are unsustainable.
The problem is that these metrics, applied to sovereign debt markets, are not comprehensive. The relationship between a country's fiscal ratios and its bond market behavior is not mechanical--it is mediated by institutions, history, and culture. Debt sustainability analyses (DSAs) are useful tools, but they have limitations. They capture quantities and flows with precision, but they can't measure the social and institutional conditions that determine whether those indicators will trigger a crisis or persist in productive tension.
Japan is perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this limitation in the developed world.
Understanding the Equilibrium
To understand why the JGB market has remained stable at interest rates that confound outsiders, one should reckon with the aftermath of Japan's asset bubble collapse in the early 1990s.
Japanese households, businesses, and financial institutions emerged from the bubble's implosion deeply scarred. The result was what economist Richard Koo called a "balance sheet recession," a prolonged period in which private sector actors, rather than seeking to maximize profit, focused almost entirely on eliminating debt.[1]
This over-saving led to a shortfall in private demand. The Japanese government, confronted with an anemic economy, stepped into the breach. It spent, invested, and ran deficits as a structural response to an unusual social and economic condition in which households, through a combination of trauma and cultural inclination, delegated economic agency to the state.
This arrangement reflected an implicit social compact. Japanese households and institutional investors directed their excess savings into JGBs. In most economies, the government extracts resources from the private sector through taxation. In Japan, the private sector lent to the government at low rates because deploying capital in a deflationary domestic economy with uncertain returns was less attractive. The government's fiscal position was not a pathology. It was, in a meaningful sense, the mirror image of private sector behavior that the government itself had not created and could not easily reverse.
Critics who reduce this to "unsustainable fiscal imbalance" are not wrong. But they are missing the architecture of the system they are criticizing. The deficit and the debt were the product of a social equilibrium, not a failure of political will.
What the Models Miss
Debt sustainability analyses are good at projecting how debt will change over time based on assumptions about growth, interest rates, and government finances. But they cannot account for the political and institutional factors that can contribute to or mitigate market stress or instability.
The standard DSA framework does not recognize that the overwhelming majority of JGBs are held domestically, by institutions whose behavior is not driven by return-maximizing logic. It fails to see the psychology that suppressed interest rates for a generation and ignores the Bank of Japan's demonstrated willingness to intervene in bond markets at scale. Japan still has the capacity to adjust--through taxation, structural reform, or changes in spending--when circumstances change. The DSA framework should inform, but not replace, judgment. When a trade has been consensus-wrong for 30 years, the appropriate response is not to run the model again with slightly different parameters. It is to ask what the model is missing.
New Challenges, Genuine but Manageable
None of this is to say that Japan does not face fiscal challenges. It does. The end of deflation--a development that many economists and policymakers spent years trying to engineer--distorts the mathematics of debt financing. When rates were near zero and inflation was negative, the carrying cost of a large debt stock was manageable. As the Bank of Japan cautiously normalizes policy, the refinancing calculus becomes more demanding.
At the same time, Japan's demographic trajectory is troublesome. A shrinking workforce and a ballooning retired population will shift aggregate savings behavior in ways that erode one of the structural pillars of JGB stability. Retirees tend to dwindle their savings. They do not buy government bonds, and the domestic pool of capital available to buy new debt will not grow indefinitely; it may shrink.
Defense spending commitments add further pressure. Japan's pledge to expand defense outlays represents an increase in expenditure that does not come with an immediate revenue source.
The Political Opportunity
Tokyo's political landscape makes the current moment more promising than the bears admit. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has taken office with approval ratings that give her unusual latitude, backed by a supermajority in the Diet that could support significant structural reform.
Japan's untapped fiscal capacity comes from well-known sources. It's no secret that agricultural policy has coddled inefficient small-scale farming at enormous cost, and patient bank lending continues to sustain zombie companies. At the same time, businesses operate in the shadows of the tax system, and large corporations hoard retained earnings. These elements have resisted reform for decades because altering them would mean imposing concentrated costs on organized constituencies while delivering diffuse benefits.
A prime minister with high popularity and a legislative supermajority is well-positioned to confront this problem. The time to think carefully about reform is now, not after a market disruption has forced the issue.
Conclusion
The recurring alarm over the JGB market is not without a factual basis. Japan's fiscal ratios are extraordinary by historical standards, and the transition from a deflationary to a mildly inflationary regime does alter the relevant arithmetic. But alarm that ignores three decades of contrary evidence, treats DSA outputs as verdicts, and fails to engage seriously with the institutional and social dynamics that have sustained JGB stability is not rigorous analysis. It is the same trade, dressed in new clothes, that has been wrong before and will likely be wrong again.
Japan's fiscal situation calls for reform and political courage--not panic. Analysts who keep predicting a crisis would serve their clients and the broader public better by asking, with intellectual humility, why they have been wrong for so long. The answer to that question is more illuminating than any debt sustainability model they are likely to run.
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Endnote
Richard Koo, Balance Sheet Recession: Japan's Struggle with Uncharted Economics and its Global Implications (Wiley, 2003).
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Mark Siegel is an adjunct fellow at Hudson Institute.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/economics/japans-bond-market-perils-incomplete-analysis-mark-siegel
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center for American Progress: Voters Demand Balanced 'Both/And' Immigration Approach, Rejecting Enforcement-Only Extremes, New Poll Reveals
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following news release on May 14, 2026:
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Voters Demand Balanced 'Both/And' Immigration Approach, Rejecting Enforcement-Only Extremes, New Poll Reveals
The Center for American Progress and Blue Rose Research released new polling data today that reveal a massive disconnect between the Trump administration's maximalist enforcement tactics and voter appetite: American voters want a balanced "both/and" immigration strategy that pairs increased border security with expanded legal immigration and earned pathways to citizenship.
The
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- The Center for American Progress issued the following news release on May 14, 2026:
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Voters Demand Balanced 'Both/And' Immigration Approach, Rejecting Enforcement-Only Extremes, New Poll Reveals
The Center for American Progress and Blue Rose Research released new polling data today that reveal a massive disconnect between the Trump administration's maximalist enforcement tactics and voter appetite: American voters want a balanced "both/and" immigration strategy that pairs increased border security with expanded legal immigration and earned pathways to citizenship.
Thepoll of 12,100 voters, fielded in April 2026, found that Trump's signature policies are highly unpopular with voters, including a majority of swing voters. Yet congressional Republicans are doubling down on Trump's reckless agenda and plan to force through tens of billions of dollars more to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol to ramp up indiscriminate mass deportations. Meanwhile, the most popular policies tested are practical measures that enhance border security and increase legal immigration--including those laid out in CAP's immigration plan, which are significantly more popular than enforcement alone. A pathway to citizenship remains one of the most popular policies even as Trump has doubled down on mass deportation efforts.
Key data points:
* Trump's signature policies are unpopular: Mass deportation, ending birthright citizenship, and massive ICE funding are all underwater and are among the worst-performing policies tested by Blue Rose across all issue areas.
* Voters (68 percent) support an earned pathway to citizenship for long-term residents (10+ years), including a majority of Trump voters (57 percent) and swing voters (64 percent)--and support grows as the length of residency increases.
* Leading with border security strengthens support for legal immigration: While 64 percent of voters are concerned about border security, a pro-immigration plan paired with enforcement outperforms the maximum enforcement alternative by 12 points.
* Voters want real fixes to asylum policy: Voters are wary of "catch-and-release," but back CAP's framework of 30-day adjudications at the border (58 percent support)--suggesting a path for humane reform that still satisfies the demand for order.
"Voters are sending a consistent, coherent signal: They do not view enforcement and legal immigration as a zero-sum game," said Becca Siegel, chief insights officer at CAP. "Instead, voters see them as two sides of the same coin: They want illegal immigration brought under control, but they also want expanded pathways for workers and families and an earned path to citizenship for those who have lived here a long time."
"The CAP plan aligns with where most of the country thinks we should be," said , senior director of Immigration Policy at CAP. "Voters reject Trump's terror tactics and seek a balanced approach like CAP's plan that both safeguards our borders and modernizes our immigration policies. When attempting to chart a path forward on immigration, policymakers should look to CAP's plan."
Read: "Voters Want Both Border Security and Expanded Legal Immigration" (https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/Immigration-Polling-Memo_-Voters-Want-Both-Border-Security-and-Expanded-Legal-Immigration.pdf)by Neera Tanden, Becca Siegel, and Debu Gandhi.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Rafael Medina at rmedina@americanprogress.org.
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Original text here: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release-voters-demand-balanced-both-and-immigration-approach-rejecting-enforcement-only-extremes-new-poll-reveals/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues Commentary: Florida Teacher Union Gets Beat by School Choice and Sues the Competition
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on May 14, 2026, by senior fellow Kali Fontanilla:
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Florida teacher union gets beat by school choice and sues the competition
The Florida Education Association is suing to force feed unwanted schools on families that now have better options.
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Imagine a corporation that has been running the only restaurant in town for decades. The food is mediocre at best, the service is painfully slow, and the tables are always sticky. Oh, and some customers have died after eating their food. But people keep showing up
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on May 14, 2026, by senior fellow Kali Fontanilla:
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Florida teacher union gets beat by school choice and sues the competition
The Florida Education Association is suing to force feed unwanted schools on families that now have better options.
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Imagine a corporation that has been running the only restaurant in town for decades. The food is mediocre at best, the service is painfully slow, and the tables are always sticky. Oh, and some customers have died after eating their food. But people keep showing upbecause there is nowhere else to eat, at least for this cheap. Then one day, new restaurants opened that have similar prices but better service and food. There is real competition in town. And now they are losing customers every week. Instead of hiring a better chef or cleaning the kitchen, they call their lawyer.
That's essentially what the Florida Education Association (FEA), Florida's largest teachers union, is doing right now.
The FEA filed a lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Court against the Florida Department of Education, alleging there is a disparity between traditional public schools and private schools receiving taxpayer vouchers that violates the state constitution. The press release was dramatic. The FEA announced that "parents, students, educators, school board members, civil rights organizations, and representative groups" had all joined the fight. Civil rights organizations. Plural. So I read the complaint.
The actual plaintiffs listed in the 39-page filing are: eight individual parents, a single Manatee County schoolteacher named Robert Lyons, and the Florida Education Association. That's it. Not one civil rights organization is named anywhere in the legal document. No NAACP. No Urban League. No one. This may be because many civil rights organizations know that one of the greatest ways to empower minority parents and students is school choice, and even those who have opposed school choice in the past have faced stiff opposition from minority communities. I am sure a plethora of black and brown parents would be greatly disappointed in these organizations for fighting to take away their ability to choose their child's school.
Speaking of empowerment, the complaint challenges the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program and Florida's charter school statute. The filing asks a court to declare the programs unconstitutional and block funding. To put this plainly, they want a judge to make 521,000 children go back to schools their families wanted to leave.
The constitutional lingo they are using here is Florida's requirement that the state provide a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high-quality system of free public schools." The FEA argues that the state has built a system in which publicly funded schools operate under very different rules, resulting in unequal service for students.
The suit asks the court to declare the current scholarship program unconstitutional and to block the flow of public money to private schools, which, according to the Big Labor plaintiffs, operate without the oversight or standards required of traditional public schools. Of course, this ignores the very point of standards and oversight, which is to provide a quality education, something that parents more than anyone else can judge best for their children. Thus the market competition itself fulfills the role of providing the greatest oversight: parents voting with their feet, fleeing failing schools. What's the point of oversight rules and regulations when public schools routinely fail to teach the basics to students? As the proverb goes, wisdom is justified by her children.
Going back to the restaurant analogy, this is like our failing, mediocre-at-best, and sometimes poisonous hole-in-the-wall restaurant suing on a technicality over food regulations, while few people want to eat there, and ignoring the fact that of those who do, many get sick. The gall of the FEA here is remarkable. Only 21 percent of Florida eighth-graders scored proficient or above in math, and just 25 percent in reading. The union wants to drag the state into court over oversight and accountability for private schools while their own product is failing most of the children sitting in them.
About a quarter of the state's education budget now goes to voucher programs, up from 12 percent in 2021. When demand for an alternative doubles in three years, something is wrong with the original product.
There were about 521,000 students enrolled in private and homeschooling options with voucher funds for the 2025-2026 cycle. More than half a million Florida families, given a real choice, chose something different. Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas put it plainly:
Florida's a state that has over 2.8 million students. About 1.4 million of those students are participating in the Choice option because families are now empowered to choose the educational option that best meets their child's individualized needs. We will stand unapologetically convicted on that principle.
I spent 15 years in California public schools. I know what the union model depends on: parents who have no other option but to send their kids to public school. Families, especially working-class and minority families, sent their kids to the neighborhood school not because it was the best in the area, but because private schools are expensive. School choice broke that model.
In Florida, Governor DeSantis signed HB 1 in March 2023, eliminating income and tuition caps on the scholarship program and allowing any K-12 student to access a voucher of about $8,000 annually for private tuition or other education costs. Florida is the fourth state in the country with a universal voucher program.
The union's answer to this isn't "let's become a school that parents actually want." It's "let's get a judge to take away all the exit doors."
The sober reminder here is that the battle for school choice in any state is never won. The forces arrayed against it are patient, well-funded, and have eager lawyers on their side. If they lose in the legislature, they try to win it in a courtroom. If they lose there, they will wait for the next election cycle and try again. This is because their very livelihood and existence are threatened. That is why parents who finally have a choice for their children must be more committed to keeping it than the teachers unions that are hellbent on taking it away.
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Kali Fontanilla
Kali is serving as CRC's Senior fellow, particularly focusing on topics related to K-12 public education.
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/fea-voichers-lawsuit/
[Category: ThinkTank]
