Goldwater Institute

The power of eminent domain was granted to governments for the purpose of constructing public infrastructure but has increasingly been used as a redevelopment tool to transfer private property from one owner to another. Although there are legitimate reasons for invoking eminent domain, the current practice of condemning private property in the name of redevelopment is rarely about building public infrastructure and regularly about turning areas that produce little tax revenue into high revenue generators. Taking a property owner's brake shop or barber shop because it is too small, too old, too ugly, or another party has a "better" use for the land violates fundamental constitutional principles, creates uncertainty about property rights, and can deter individuals from opening or expanding their businesses.

For America's Founders, a federalist system was paramount to protecting and enhancing the exercise of personal liberty. By making the jurisdictions to which people are subject smaller, federalism opens the door to numerous freedoms. Theoretically, someone who has grown frustrated with the actions of their state government may choose to relocate to a state whose policies they prefer. If, in actuality, citizens and businesses exercise their options in response to the policies state governments pursue, policymakers should be mindful of how their decisions may help or hinder the attraction and retention of residents.

In the year 2000, the United States Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) surveyed all of the nation's public schools concerning their special education students. The resulting data-known as the OCR 2000 Elementary and Secondary School Survey-allow for the exploration of the possible existence of racial bias in the assignment of special education labeling. Specifically, the OCR data contain information not only about the race of disabled students, but also about the type of disability labels they carry at the individual school level.

There is a growing body of literature comparing the effectiveness of charter schools and traditional public schools. No consensus has yet been reached, but there are persistent concerns that performance differences might be due to "better" students attending charter schools. Researchers must therefore first determine whether charter school students and traditional public school students are substantially different before they can attribute any achievement differences to the education provided by these schools.

Arizona's public education landscape offers a plethora of choices, from open public school enrollment to charter schools to private school scholarships funded by income tax credits. The one missing ingredient is school vouchers, which would provide private school opportunities to children whom the public schools are not serving well.