National School Choice Week is in full swing across the country and also in Oklahoma (kudos to Gov. Mary Fallin for proclaiming it so). As I told OETA’s Dick Pryor (see interview below), this is a week designed to highlight the many educational options available to parents, and to make the case that parents should be abl...

Family and government are two entirely different social institutions that serve very different purposes, writes conservative commentator and scheduled OCPA speaker Star Parker in her column this week.You can see why she'd feel compelled to clarify: Today, many Americans look to the government to supply any number of needs and...

Mitch Daniels isn’t afraid to say what needs to be said. In 2010 The Weekly Standard profiled the Indiana governor in a cover story called “Ride Along with Mitch.” Andrew Ferguson describes a scene in which the Harley-riding chief executive pulled into a McDonald’s to get some coffee.He got his coffee and moved to the ba...

Imagine a state where a mom using Medicaid could only take her daughter to a government hospital, or where child care subsidies from the state could only be used at a government-operated daycare center. Imagine a state where Oklahoma Higher Learning Access Program scholarships were granted only to students who enrolled at the...

Presidential inaugural addresses -- or so the editors of The Wall Street Journal tell us -- "usually include calls for national unity and appeals to our founding principles, which is part of their charm." In his second inaugural address Monday, President Barack Obama checked both those boxes -- but he also recited a list...

Oklahoma certainly has its share of school-performance woes, and I dare say over the last two decades no one in Oklahoma has spilled more ink (and pixels) drawing attention to those problems than yours truly. So it may surprise you to read in this month’s issue of Perspective my answer to this question: “Who’s responsibl...

Since the beginning of the year, millions have received their first paycheck for the year 2013. Many who received their checks experienced shock and awe because their checks were lower. The reports of confused, frustrated, disappointed and angry citizens now forced to plan for less income is a valuable lesson. Envy and coveti...

Writing in The Journal Record, OCPA Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow Andy Spiropoulos contends that Medicaid is too flawed a program to expand -- and urges conservatives to keep the argument about how best to structure our health care system alive.So what about Medicaid? The problem with the standard-issue Medicaid progra...

A couple of days ago, in a Wall Street Journal article to propose a second-term agenda for Mrs. Obama, Abby Schachter shared an insight that once would have been considered banal, but now can be fairly called provocative: [Michelle Obama's] "Let's Move" campaign to encourage exercise has probably done some good...

I’ve often argued that public policy should encourage and reward parents, who, after all, contribute mightily to the common good by producing and maintaining human capital. Parents face countless challenges on the journey, as they worry about their children’s health and safety, education, moral formation and much more. As a f...

During Blake Griffin’s sophomore (and final) season at Oklahoma, I made an effort to take my sons to Norman as often as possible to watch him play. As I told them at the time: What we’re seeing here doesn’t come along every day. We need to appreciate it while we can.In like manner, I hope Oklahomans realize what they’ve got i...

The 2013 legislative session has the opportunity to be a defining one—one that could position Oklahoma to lead the nation for years to come. One of the most important things policymakers can do is enact real pension reform. Real reform establishes a plan to keep its benefit promises to current employees and structures fu...

Writing in The Journal Record, OCPA Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow Andy Spiropoulos contends that "conservatives have failed miserably to advance public policies that will help all of us to avoid the life-destroying temptations of modernity and encourage us to take the path to true happiness."A healthy political culture...

Last Saturday was "Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day," an informal holiday initiated by concerned Americans who support Hobby Lobby in its lawsuit to challenge the Obama administration mandate that all employers provide insurance that covers contraception -- including the "morning after" and "week after" pills that can and do caus...

More than three months after my wedding, I find myself in the dreaded line at the Department of Public Safety (a.k.a. the DMV). It's before 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning in January and about 18 people are already assembled outside the unopened door of the office. Even though this winter has been unseasonably warm, it's more t...

In a lengthy article last month (“Brownback says his changes in Kansas are a model for the nation”), The Kansas City Star reported that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has rammed through massive income tax cuts, wiped away thousands of public sector jobs, and slashed spending for public broadcasting and social services. He squ...

Writing in The Journal Record, OCPA Milton Friedman Distinguished Fellow Andy Spiropoulos writes that the lottery has not lived up to its billing, raking in just $65 million this fiscal year when supporters said it would regularly raise $150 million a year. More importantly, Spiropoulos continues, the lottery hurts those it's...

The president and congressional Republicans have consistently disagreed about whether to allow taxes to go up on those the president deems "rich," but, to judge by rhetoric alone, they have apparently always agreed that the so-called "Bush tax cuts for the middle class" must not be allowed to expire. To be sure, the last-minu...

In the cover story of the December 17 issue of National Review (“An Agenda for the Middle Class”), Ramesh Ponnuru argues that “conservatives need an agenda to cut the costs of energy, health care, child-rearing, and higher education. Each initiative would raise the middle-class standard of living.”He’s right. And in a recent ...

Writing in The Oklahoman, OCPA vice president of policy Brandon Dutcher contends that, in at least one respect, the new Oklahoma school report cards are a gift to the education establishment: As long as concerned citizens are comparing Oklahoma school districts to each other, they aren't comparing them to school districts aro...