• • An education savings account (ESA) is a government-funded account for parents to allocate toward the K-12 education of their children.
    
  • Parents and students can use funds to pay for a wide range of educational expenses. These include tuition, tutoring, textbooks, curriculum, test fees, therapies for students with special needs, and educational technology.
  • Due to this flexibility, ESAs are the gold standard of the various types of school choice programs.

By: Dr. Keri D. Ingraham

• • Despite increasing evidence that these international efforts to transform the agriculture industry are causing more harm than good, these same ideas are being pushed by top Biden administration officials.
    
  • This has led to the creation of Climate-Smart Ag, a $3.1-billion USDA initiative that promises to cut U.S. agriculture emissions while keeping up production. 
    
  • Some scientists have warned these projections are likely overstated and these climate-smart programs will not actually reduce GHGs. Other reports have found that cover crops don’t absorb as much carbon as previously thought and diminish crop yields. 

By: Mandy Gunasekara

• • Universities have benefited the most from student loan programs, subsidies, and other taxpayer-funded programs, all while raising tuition for students well above inflation.
  • The student debt crisis is really a college cost crisis, helped along by ever-increasing loan backing from the federal government.
  • Universities have benefited enormously from the status quo; they should help pay for the solution and have skin in the game going forward.

By: Inez Feltscher Stepman

• The medical interventions include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries intended to alter the body to be more like the patient’s opposite-sex gender identity. But these treatments come with serious risks.
• These risks include irreversible harm to sexual function, reproductive health, and general health.
• Gender transition patients sometimes lose the ability to orgasm, experience sexual pleasure, reproduce, or breastfeed. They are also at higher risk of osteoporosis, seizures (in epileptic patients), cardiovascular problems, stroke, heart attack, and other health problems.

By: Hadley Heath Manning

• The Army recently announced it will fail to meet its critical recruiting requirements for the second year in a row. The nation’s main ground force could experience a significant decline of up to 7% within a mere two-year timeframe.
• The Army is not the only branch falling short with the Navy expecting to fall about 6,000 short of its goals, and the Air Force around 10,000 when taking into account the active component, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve.

By: Meaghan Mobbs

• A college diploma does not guarantee higher productivity; relevant experience can be more valuable. Increasingly private and some public employers are removing diploma requirements for different jobs. 
• In lieu of degree requirements, employers should audit their hiring process, look for talent in non-traditional places, and groom talent in-house.
  
• Combating degree inflation can reverse shrinking labor force participation, boost productivity in the public and private sectors, and expand middle-class opportunities to people who are excluded from pathways to upward mobility. 

By: Patrice Onwuka