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| Arizona: The Petri Dish for the Future of American Education |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (5 reads) | |
|
What happens when public schools, charter schools and taxpayer-funded private choice all compete for the same children—and the same public dollars
by bear howard and associates
note: this is more than an essay. It is, in many ways, a white paper, almost a thesis, to explore the topic in great detail. I apologize for the length. The topic is much bigger than most of us can comprehend. Arizona is an experiment in america, and it’s commitment to educating its children.
for most of modern american history, public education rested on a fairly simple bargain.
a community established schools. Taxpayers supported them. The schools were required to educate virtually every child who showed up at the door. Rich or poor, academically gifted or struggling, disabled or able-bodied, highly motivated or chronically absent, the children belonged to the system.
that system was never perfect. Some public schools were excellent. Some were terrible. Bureaucracies grew. Teachers’ unions acquired influence. School boards became political. Regulations accumulated. Innovation could be painfully slow.
but the underlying arrangement was clear:
the public school was the community’s educational institution of last resort—and first resort.
that arrangement is changing.
across america, parents increasingly have alternatives: charter schools, magnet schools, open enrollment, private schools, homeschooling, online education, vouchers, tax-credit scholarships and education savings accounts.
no state has pushed this transformation much farther than arizona.
that makes arizona something close to a petri dish for the future of american education.
arizona did not simply add one alternative to traditional public schools. It layered choice upon choice.
first came one of america’s most aggressive charter-school systems.
then extensive open enrollment allowed students to cross traditional district boundaries.
then arizona transformed its empowerment scholarship account program into a universal program available broadly to families regardless of income.
the result is an educational marketplace in which the traditional district school still carries many of the broadest public obligations but increasingly competes for students and funding against institutions operating under different rules.
the question is no longer simply:
are charter schools better than public schools?
charters are public schools.
nor is it simply:
should parents be allowed to send their children to private schools?
of course parents have that right.
the deeper question is:
what happens to a universal public-school system when government deliberately creates competing educational systems with greater operational freedom, allows public money to follow families into those alternatives, and then judges the traditional public schools partly by the performance that remains?
arizona is beginning to provide the answer.
the traditional public school is still america’s school
despite decades of discussion about school choice, the overwhelming majority of american children attending public schools still attend traditional district schools.
in the 2022–23 school year, approximately 45.1 million of america’s 48.9 million public-school students attended traditional public schools, while about 3.7 million attended charter schools. Charter schools represented about 7.6 percent of public-school enrollment nationally.
arizona looks considerably different.
in 2024–25, arizona reported 871,526 students enrolled in district schools and 231,660 in charter schools. In other words, roughly one out of every five arizona public-school students was already attending a charter.
arizona’s charter share has been far above the national average for years. Nces reported that charters represented about 20.5 percent of arizona public-school enrollment in 2022–23, compared with 7.6 percent nationally.
then arizona added universal esas.
as of august 10, 2026, the arizona department of education reported 102,098 students enrolled for the 2026–27 esa year, while cautioning that the number would remain fluid during the opening weeks of the new contract year.
arizona therefore has three substantial educational sectors operating simultaneously:
traditional district public schools,
public charter schools,
and publicly financed private/home educational alternatives through esas.
that is what makes arizona so revealing.
stage one: the traditional public-school model
the traditional public-school district does more than operate individual schools.
it maintains an educational infrastructure for a geographical community.
that distinction is fundamental.
an arizona district is responsible for schools, buildings, administrators, transportation, personnel systems, special education, financial controls, curriculum requirements and a broad range of state and federal obligations.
arizona law generally requires district schools to admit resident children who meet the age and enrollment requirements.
the district cannot structure its responsibility around only the students most compatible with a particular educational philosophy.
the district has to remain there.
if a child’s parents become unemployed, the district remains.
if the child has a serious disability, the district remains.
if the family moves into town halfway through the year, the district remains.
if another school does not work out, the district remains.
if a child has behavioral difficulties, language difficulties, academic deficiencies, family instability or no parent aggressively researching educational alternatives, the district remains.
that universal availability is one of the traditional public school’s greatest virtues.
it is also one of its greatest burdens.
stage two: arizona introduces the charter school
charters changed the equation.
the original charter concept was not inherently anti-public-school. It was an experiment inside public education.
give educators and organizations greater freedom.
permit them to develop specialized schools.
reduce bureaucracy.
hold them accountable for results.
allow parents to choose.
see what happens.
arizona embraced that philosophy aggressively.
the difference in legal structure is striking.
arizona law requires charters to meet numerous important obligations involving health, safety, civil rights, financial accountability, special education and state testing. But the law also states that, except where charter law or the charter itself provides otherwise, the charter school is exempt from statutes and rules relating to schools, governing boards and school districts.
that represents a fundamentally different operating philosophy.
the traditional district is generally told:
here are the rules under which you will operate.
the charter is much closer to:
here are the outcomes and essential protections we require; otherwise, you have substantially greater latitude in deciding how to get there.
consider teachers.
arizona law generally provides that a district teacher cannot be employed without the required teaching certificate.
charters have considerably greater flexibility.
this can allow a charter to hire an accomplished engineer to teach physics, a computer scientist to teach programming or a working artist to teach art without requiring precisely the same traditional professional path.
that can be a tremendous advantage.
it can also permit terrible hiring.
freedom does not guarantee excellence.
freedom magnifies management.
excellent leadership can use flexibility brilliantly.
bad leadership can use the same flexibility disastrously.
that is one of the lessons of the charter movement that should matter to everyone interested in public education.
charters also have greater ability to define the product
arizona charter law specifically permits schools to emphasize particular educational philosophies, instructional styles and subject areas.
a charter can essentially say:
this is what we do.
classical education.
stem.
college preparation.
fine arts.
language immersion.
montessori.
back-to-basics instruction.
a particularly demanding academic environment.
a district can certainly create specialized programs too, but it does so within a substantially larger statutory, political and institutional structure.
enrollment also works differently.
an arizona charter must generally accept eligible applicants, but only until the capacity of a program, class, grade or building is reached. When demand exceeds capacity, the school can use the selection procedures permitted by law.
that is not the same mission as maintaining a geographically based school system capable of educating the resident population.
this distinction does not mean charters are secretly selecting only brilliant children.
many charters educate disadvantaged populations, minority populations and children from low-income families.
some have produced excellent results with exactly those students.
but an individual charter can determine its size, educational emphasis and configuration in a way that the community’s underlying district system often cannot.
and some charter schools really do perform better
it would damage the argument to pretend otherwise.
the strongest evidence does not show that charter schools are simply a fraud produced by selective families.
credo at stanford studied approximately 1.8 million charter students across multiple states and compared their progress with matched students in traditional public schools.
its 2023 national study found that charter students experienced, on average, the equivalent of about 16 additional days of learning in reading and six additional days in mathematics per school year compared with matched traditional-public-school peers. Schools affiliated with charter management organizations showed still larger average advantages.
that matters.
some charter schools are apparently doing something better.
the interesting public-policy response should therefore not be:
how do we protect district schools from successful charters?
it should be:
what are successful charters doing that traditional public schools should be allowed to do too?
if a regulation prevents a district principal from assembling the best faculty while a charter can do so more easily, reconsider the regulation.
if a charter succeeds because it can rapidly redesign curriculum, staffing or scheduling, ask why a district school cannot.
if charter autonomy is producing better education, then charter success should become an argument for greater freedom throughout public education, rather than merely an argument for creating more institutions outside the district system.
but there is another side to the comparison.
a school’s test score is not the same thing as the school’s contribution
suppose one school has 70 percent of students proficient in mathematics and another has 45 percent.
the first school may indeed be better.
but the scores alone do not prove it.
children do not arrive at school as identical raw material.
they arrive carrying enormous differences in:
- prior education,
- parental education,
- family income,
- vocabulary,
- health,
- disability,
- stability at home,
- attendance,
- parental expectations,
- access to books and technology,
- tutoring,
- transportation,
- and thousands of hours of experiences accumulated before the teacher ever meets them.
this matters whenever families choose schools.
choosing itself requires action.
a parent must learn that alternatives exist.
investigate them.
fill out applications.
compare schools.
arrange transportation.
possibly pay expenses beyond whatever public subsidy exists.
monitor whether the school is working.
and sometimes move the child again.
those activities are not distributed equally throughout the population.
federal research illustrates the relationship with parental education particularly well.
in a national 2016 parent survey, only about 20 percent of students whose parents had less than a high-school education had parents who reported considering other schools. Among students whose parents had graduate or professional degrees, the figure was approximately 41 percent. The likelihood of moving to a neighborhood for access to a particular public school also increased substantially with parental education.
this does not mean less-educated parents do not care about their children.
it means navigating an educational marketplace requires information, time, confidence and resources.
that creates an unavoidable sorting mechanism.
choice does not randomly distribute families.
the quiet advantage: educationally engaged families find one another
imagine two otherwise similar children.
one has parents who study school report cards, attend meetings, talk to teachers, compare curricula, know other highly involved parents and are willing to change schools quickly if dissatisfied.
the other attends whatever school is nearby because nobody in the household has the time, knowledge or inclination to conduct an educational search.
even if both children begin with equal ability, their educational environments may diverge.
put enough highly engaged families into one school and something else happens.
those families affect the school itself.
they reinforce academic expectations.
they volunteer.
they demand good teachers.
they complain when courses deteriorate.
their children bring peer expectations about homework, college and achievement.
the institution begins benefiting not merely from individual parental involvement but from the concentration of educationally engaged families.
that does not necessarily mean the school caused the entire advantage visible in its test scores.
some of the advantage walked in the front door.
that is why comparing raw school averages can become misleading.
the traditional public school can become the residual institution
this is where the structural issue becomes more troubling.
a traditional public school remains available for everybody.
that includes children whose families successfully navigate school choice.
but it also includes disproportionate numbers of children whose families:
cannot navigate it,
do not navigate it,
lack transportation,
live where alternatives are scarce,
move frequently,
need complex services,
or return after another placement fails.
over time, the district risks becoming what might be called the residual provider.
not the school system exclusively for poor children.
not the school system exclusively for disabled children.
not the system exclusively for less-involved families.
but the institution increasingly responsible for the population left after numerous other forms of choice have operated.
and then society compares the average performance of the remaining population against the populations that have sorted themselves into alternatives.
that comparison can be informative.
but it is not automatically an apples-to-apples measure of institutional effectiveness.
then comes the financial catch-22
school finance makes the problem considerably more serious.
educational funding is increasingly designed around the principle:
the money follows the child.
there is an obvious logic to that.
if johnny no longer attends school a, why should school a continue receiving all the money associated with educating johnny?
but schools do not operate like individual checking accounts.
suppose an elementary school has 500 students and loses 25.
its enrollment has fallen 5 percent.
its expenses do not fall 5 percent.
it still needs:
the building,
the principal,
the office,
the heating and cooling system,
the library,
the cafeteria,
the custodian,
the counselor,
most of its teachers,
technology systems,
insurance,
security,
and transportation infrastructure.
perhaps it can eventually eliminate one teaching position.
perhaps not.
if those 25 departing children came from six different grade levels, there may be no classroom that can simply disappear.
these are sometimes described as stranded costs or sticky costs.
funding can leave one student at a time.
costs generally disappear in chunks.
a classroom.
a bus route.
a school.
and shutting down those chunks is painful.
arizona is already seeing the consequences of declining district enrollment
this is no longer theoretical.
the arizona auditor general reported in february 2026 that most arizona school districts continued to experience declining enrollment and associated funding reductions. One-third of districts had experienced enrollment reductions serious enough potentially to increase their financial risk.
the auditor general also reported that as overall district enrollment declined, the proportion of remaining students requiring special-education services increased.
a separate january 2026 financial-risk analysis found nine of 207 analyzed districts in the highest-risk category and another nine approaching it, up substantially from the prior year.
district spending on instruction fell by nearly $53 million in fy2025, and average teacher salaries actually declined in 95 districts even though the statewide average rose slightly to $65,613.
none of that can fairly be blamed entirely on school choice.
arizona also has demographic changes, birth-rate changes, migration patterns, local management decisions, inflation and other financial pressures.
but declining enrollment and school funding are directly connected.
and now arizona has created another mechanism capable of accelerating that decline.
stage three: the esa changes the nature of the experiment
arizona began its empowerment scholarship account program as a targeted program.
then, in 2022, arizona became the first state to establish essentially universal eligibility. By january 2026, the education commission of the states reported that universal school-choice programs had spread to at least 18 states.
this represents a much more dramatic policy step than charter schools.
a charter is still a public school.
it participates in arizona’s public-school testing system.
it remains subject to numerous public accountability requirements.
it operates under a charter agreement.
an esa is different.
arizona deposits state education funds into an account controlled by a qualifying parent for approved educational expenses. A family can use esa money for private-school tuition and various other permitted educational services and products. The parent agrees not to enroll the child simultaneously as a full-time district or charter student receiving the same public funding.
the department of education describes the principle plainly: education money follows the student to the educational setting selected by the family, including education at home.
that is a profound transformation.
arizona has moved from:
government funding a public-school system
toward:
government financing individual educational consumption.
those are not the same philosophy.
the explosion in esa enrollment
before universal eligibility, arizona’s esa program was comparatively small.
jlbc data show:
2019: 6,450 esa students
2020: 7,781
2021: 9,777
2022: 12,049
2023: 53,364
2024: 76,427
2025: 87,602
jlbc estimated about 101,602 for fy2026 and projected 113,602 in fy2027, while stressing that future projections remain highly uncertain.
ade’s more current count reported 102,098 enrolled for 2026–27 as of august 10, 2026.
a program serving roughly 12,000 students before universalization has therefore grown into a program serving roughly 100,000.
that is not an experimental footnote anymore.
it is a major component of arizona’s educational system.
and it has become a billion-dollar program
the financial trajectory is equally striking.
ade reported that the annualized value of esa awards for the 85,195 students enrolled at the end of fy2025 was approximately $881.7 million.
jlbc’s fy2026 baseline included approximately $1 billion for original and universal esa awards.
its fy2027 baseline assumes 113,602 esa students eligible for approximately $1.216 billion in awards. Jlbc explicitly warns that the estimate is speculative because nobody yet knows where esa participation will eventually reach a steady state.
this creates a different budget question from the charter-school debate.
the child who leaves public school versus the child who never attended
there are two fundamentally different esa transactions.
consider the first child.
a student is attending an arizona public school.
the state is already paying toward that student’s public education.
the family takes an esa and leaves.
some portion of the state’s public-school expenditure disappears along with the child, and esa spending replaces it.
there may be a state savings or additional cost depending on the exact funding circumstances, but conceptually some existing public expenditure is being redirected.
now consider another child.
that child has attended private school for years.
the parents have always paid the tuition themselves.
the child enrolls in universal esa.
nothing has been saved at a district school because the child was never there.
arizona taxpayers have simply assumed part of an educational cost that the family previously financed privately.
that distinction is critical.
arizona’s own data show both things are happening
in fy2024, only about 47.6 percent of newly enrolled universal esa students in grades 1–12 had attended a public school immediately before entering esa.
that means about 52.4 percent had not come immediately from public schools. That group included students from private education and other non-public circumstances, so it should not simply be labeled “private-school students.”
by fy2025, the composition had changed.
ade reported that 57 percent of new universal esa participants in grades 1–12 had attended public school immediately beforehand.
that evolution is extremely important.
the early universal esa program disproportionately created a new public subsidy for children already outside public schools.
now the program increasingly does something else as well:
it moves students directly out of public schools and moves public funding with them.
arizona therefore experiences both financial effects simultaneously.
the first esa effect: government assumes a previously private expense
there is nothing inherently illegitimate about government deciding to subsidize private education.
government subsidizes many activities people might otherwise purchase themselves.
the policy question is whether that is where limited public education dollars should go.
suppose a financially comfortable family has voluntarily paid $12,000 each year to send a child to private school.
arizona now gives that family perhaps $7,000 or $8,000 toward the cost.
the family is clearly better off.
the private school receives public-supported purchasing power.
but arizona has not relieved a district school of the expense of educating that child because the district was not educating that child in the first place.
the esa is therefore largely a new state expenditure.
this is where the opportunity-cost argument becomes important.
it would be inaccurate to say:
every esa dollar was taken directly from a teacher’s salary.
government budgeting does not work that way.
but it is entirely fair to ask:
what else could arizona do with approximately $1 billion of annual public resources?
money devoted to one purpose cannot simultaneously be spent on another without higher taxes, additional revenue, borrowing or spending reductions somewhere else.
a billion dollars could alternatively support some combination of:
higher teacher compensation,
classroom aides,
school counselors,
special education,
reading intervention,
career and technical education,
building repairs,
air-conditioning replacement,
school security,
technology,
capital improvements,
or other public priorities.
that does not prove those alternatives would automatically be superior.
it does establish that esas involve a very real opportunity cost.
the second esa effect: money leaves while infrastructure remains
when esa participants increasingly come directly from public schools, a different problem emerges.
the funding moves faster than the infrastructure can shrink.
a district can lose 100 students without losing them conveniently from four entire classrooms.
they may disappear five from this grade, nine from another, two from a special program, twelve from a high school and one or two from dozens of other places.
the money follows the children with mathematical efficiency.
the expenses do not.
eventually districts adjust.
they combine classes.
eliminate teachers.
reduce electives.
cut administrative positions.
consolidate bus routes.
defer maintenance.
close schools.
sell buildings.
those responses may be financially necessary.
they also change what remaining families experience.
and that can produce the catch-22.
the catch-22 begins feeding itself
imagine the following sequence.
a district loses enrollment.
funding falls.
the district cuts personnel and programs.
class sizes increase.
electives disappear.
a neighborhood school closes.
families become dissatisfied.
the most mobile and informed families investigate charter, private and esa alternatives.
additional students leave.
funding declines again.
the district makes another round of reductions.
its remaining population becomes more concentrated with students requiring expensive or complex services.
reported academic performance may decline.
the declining performance becomes another reason for families to leave.
at that point, cause and effect become extremely difficult to separate.
did the public school lose students because it deteriorated?
or did it deteriorate partly because it lost students and resources?
the answer can easily be:
both.
that is a feedback loop.
and once such a loop begins, comparing the final district with the alternatives that helped reshape its enrollment can become profoundly misleading.
who uses choice?
this question becomes especially important as arizona moves from charter choice to universal private choice.
advocates describe esas as democratizing access.
there is truth in that argument.
a family that could never afford private tuition may now be able to consider it.
a child trapped in a genuinely terrible school may acquire an escape route.
a parent may use an esa to construct an individualized educational program better suited to the child.
these are meaningful benefits.
but universal eligibility does not mean universal ability to use the program effectively.
a $7,000 or $8,000 subsidy does not magically create a private school near every family.
it does not create transportation.
it does not eliminate tuition above the esa amount.
it does not give a working parent time to homeschool.
it does not guarantee admission to a preferred private school.
and it does not erase differences in parental educational sophistication.
researchers examining arizona’s esa participation have found that participation rates have been particularly high in wealthier communities. A 2025 brookings analysis of universal or near-universal programs in six states found that programs without income considerations—particularly arizona and west virginia—were disproportionately used in wealthier areas.
significantly, that was not merely an arizona phenomenon.
similar socioeconomic patterns appeared in multiple states, although program design affected their severity. States using income limits, priorities or larger awards for poorer families could reduce the regressive pattern.
this is one reason arizona matters nationally.
it is no longer necessary to speculate entirely about whether some arizona dynamics might appear elsewhere.
some already have.
but arizona is a petri dish, not a crystal ball
this distinction is important.
if another state duplicated arizona’s rules exactly, it would be reasonable to expect similar incentives:
families would have stronger reasons to explore alternatives;
private schools would have greater incentive to enter or expand;
existing private-school families would have an incentive to claim available public subsidies;
public schools would lose funding when students departed;
districts would confront stranded costs;
and families with greater information, transportation and financial resources would often be better positioned to use the marketplace.
but the magnitude would vary.
a dense metropolitan area with dozens of private and charter schools is different from rural montana.
a wealthy suburban district is different from an impoverished urban district.
a state with generous school funding is different from one with chronically low per-pupil spending.
transportation matters.
demographics matter.
private-school capacity matters.
regulations matter.
voucher size matters.
whether eligibility is income-tested matters.
whether private schools receiving public money must test students matters.
so arizona cannot tell us exactly what will happen in every state.
but it shows clearly what incentives are created when the rules are structured this way.
and that is precisely what a petri dish is for.
there is also an accountability gradient
arizona’s three systems operate at different points on an accountability spectrum.
traditional district schools receive public money and operate under extensive public regulation.
charter schools receive public money but have substantially greater operational freedom. They remain public schools and participate in statewide public-school testing.
esa-financed private education receives public money through the parent, but children outside public schools are not part of the same universal aasa testing structure. Arizona’s statewide aasa requirement applies to public district and charter students.
esa law requires parents to provide education in subjects including reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies and science, and permits esa money to pay for nationally standardized tests, but this does not create the same statewide public reporting system that exists for district and charter schools.
so arizona has progressively separated public financing from public accountability.
that makes one particular question remarkably difficult to answer:
what educational return are taxpayers receiving from approximately $1 billion in annual esa expenditures?
we can count participants.
we can count dollars.
we can identify purchases.
what we cannot presently do with comparable statewide data is reliably compare the academic growth of esa students with similar children remaining in district and charter schools.
that is an extraordinary informational gap for a program of this size.
the evidence on private-school vouchers should produce caution
research on traditional voucher programs does not provide a simple academic success story.
some research has found positive effects on longer-term educational attainment, such as graduation or college enrollment.
but several modern voucher studies have found significant negative effects on standardized academic achievement, particularly when programs expanded rapidly.
a review of the voucher literature described a pattern in which attainment effects sometimes appeared positive while effects on measured academic achievement were often negative.
that does not prove arizona’s universal esa program harms achievement.
arizona has not produced the comparable statewide student-outcome data needed to make such a claim.
it means the opposite claim—that transferring public money to private educational choices necessarily improves academic outcomes—is also unsupported.
we are spending first and learning later.
perhaps much later.
the great paradox
this produces one of the strangest features of modern education policy.
traditional public schools are subjected to enormous accountability pressure.
their test scores are published.
their school grades are published.
teacher qualifications are regulated.
their governing boards meet publicly.
budgets receive scrutiny.
buildings are public assets.
failing schools become political controversies.
then some of those same public dollars can follow students into settings where taxpayers may receive substantially less comparable information about academic performance.
the argument is that parental choice itself provides accountability.
if parents dislike the school, they can leave.
there is considerable merit to that idea.
markets do discipline providers.
but education has one enormous complication:
parents cannot always accurately measure educational quality in real time.
a child can be happy at school.
parents can love the teachers.
the environment can feel safe.
the curriculum can sound impressive.
the report card can look wonderful.
and the student can still be two years behind in mathematics.
that is why objective assessment exists.
consumer satisfaction and educational effectiveness are related concepts.
they are not identical.
public education has become a marketplace—but only partly
the arizona model is often described as educational competition.
but it is an unusual marketplace.
traditional districts cannot simply behave like ordinary competitors.
a struggling restaurant closes.
a struggling public-school district cannot tell the remaining children:
we have decided this market is no longer profitable. Good luck.
government still requires somebody to educate them.
the district carries that residual obligation.
this means arizona has created a marketplace in which one competitor remains responsible for maintaining the underlying public infrastructure.
that competitor is simultaneously told to become leaner, more entrepreneurial and more competitive.
hence the catch-22.
the private-school family has a perfectly rational perspective
none of this should be turned into an attack on parents.
consider parents already sending their child to private school.
they pay taxes.
they pay tuition.
then arizona says:
you qualify for an esa.
why would they decline it?
from the parents’ perspective, accepting the money may be entirely rational.
likewise, a parent dissatisfied with a district school who discovers an excellent charter should move the child.
a low-income parent who can use an esa to give a child a dramatically better education should not be told that the child must remain somewhere worse because the district needs the enrollment.
children do not exist to financially support institutions.
that is the strongest moral argument for school choice.
but public policy must examine what happens when millions of individually rational decisions interact.
something can make perfect sense for every individual family while producing serious systemwide consequences.
that is a classic public-policy problem.
we may be creating two different educational populations
the most important division may eventually be less about public versus private than about something more subtle:
families who actively manage an educational portfolio and families who depend upon the default system.
the first group searches.
compares.
moves.
applies.
changes course.
supplements.
uses tutors.
uses esas.
finds transportation.
chooses specialized charters.
pays tuition differences when necessary.
the second group uses the school that exists.
that second group will always include families who are completely satisfied with traditional public schools.
but it will also include disproportionate numbers of families with fewer financial, informational or logistical resources.
if that sorting becomes strong enough, the traditional public school can begin inheriting a larger share of the educational problems that the marketplace does not solve.
then its performance falls.
then the public is shown the performance data as evidence that the institution itself is inferior.
that is the potential distortion.
we should also be honest about what district schools do wrong
none of this absolves traditional public education.
school districts sometimes waste money.
they can become bureaucratic.
poor teachers can remain too long.
innovation can be smothered by regulation and institutional resistance.
administration can grow while classrooms struggle.
school boards can concentrate on politics instead of education.
the arizona auditor general repeatedly finds large spending variations even among comparable districts and identifies opportunities for improved efficiency.
some parents chose alternatives because the district system genuinely failed them.
that fact should not disappear from the discussion.
indeed, if traditional public schools respond to competition merely by demanding that alternatives be restricted, they will have missed the most valuable lesson school choice provides.
people leave institutions for reasons.
those reasons should be studied.
the better question is what rules actually produce better schools
after roughly three decades of arizona charter experience and several years of universal esa expansion, the debate should mature.
it should no longer be:
public schools good. Charters bad.
nor:
government schools bad. Choice good.
those are political slogans.
the useful questions are much more practical.
which regulations actually protect children?
which merely protect bureaucracy?
which teacher-certification requirements improve teaching?
which unnecessarily prevent talented people from entering classrooms?
which charter freedoms correlate with stronger academic growth?
which charter practices should district schools be allowed to copy?
what minimum academic information should be required whenever taxpayers finance a child’s education?
should universal esa subsidies go equally to a millionaire’s child already attending private school and a poor child attempting to escape a failing school?
should some public funding remain with districts to support unavoidable system capacity and stranded costs?
should public money carry basic nondiscrimination, financial-transparency and academic-reporting requirements regardless of whether it reaches a district, charter or private school?
those are considerably harder questions.
they are also the right ones.
the financing question cannot be avoided
arizona’s esa debate ultimately exposes a philosophical decision about what taxpayers are financing.
are taxpayers funding:
a public-school system capable of educating every child?
or are taxpayers funding:
the individual education of each child wherever the parent chooses?
those concepts overlap.
they are not identical.
if society chooses the second model completely, it must confront what happens to the first.
someone must still operate schools in rural communities where no meaningful marketplace develops.
someone must educate children other schools do not serve.
someone must maintain special-education capacity.
someone must accept children in october, january and march.
someone must keep facilities ready even when enrollment fluctuates.
someone must remain.
that function costs money.
if public policy finances only individual students and refuses to recognize the cost of maintaining universal educational capacity, the underlying institution can become progressively weaker even while every individual funding decision appears rational.
what arizona may be showing america
arizona’s experience suggests several conclusions.
first, choice is popular because it solves real problems for real families. That political reality is unlikely to disappear.
second, charter-school autonomy can produce genuine educational improvement. Strong charter results should be studied rather than dismissed.
third, choice produces sorting. Families differ in information, education, mobility, transportation and financial resources, so access to nominally universal choice will never be perfectly equal.
fourth, money following students creates financial pressure on institutions whose costs cannot fall student by student.
fifth, universal vouchers create a new fiscal phenomenon when taxpayers begin subsidizing families who previously purchased private education without a government payment.
sixth, once vouchers become universal, they can also accelerate movement directly out of public schools.Arizona’s own data show the proportion of new universal esa students coming directly from public schools increased from less than half in fy2024 to 57 percent in fy2025.
seventh, academic accountability becomes weaker precisely as public financing moves farther from the traditional system.
and eighth, traditional district schools increasingly face the possibility of being judged on a population partly shaped by everybody else’s freedom to leave.
that is the catch-22.
arizona is no longer an exception
arizona’s experience matters even more because other states are following.
as of early 2026, universal school-choice programs existed in at least 18 states, with additional states expanding eligibility.
research comparing several universal or near-universal programs already finds some common patterns, including disproportionately high participation in wealthier communities when programs lack income-based restrictions.
so the proposition that “arizona is unique and therefore tells us nothing about america” is becoming less credible.
arizona may simply have arrived earlier.
if states adopt similar rules, similar incentives should be expected.
not identical results.
but similar pressures.
there is a way out of the catch-22
the answer does not have to be abolishing charter schools.
it does not have to be abolishing esas.
and it certainly should not be forcing children to remain in bad schools merely to preserve district enrollment.
the answer begins with recognizing that competition should operate under intellectually honest rules.
if charter flexibility works, give more flexibility to district schools.
if public money follows students, recognize the legitimate fixed cost of maintaining a universal public educational infrastructure.
if taxpayers finance private education, require enough standardized information to determine whether children are actually learning.
if the purpose of esas is educational opportunity, consider whether unlimited subsidies to families who would purchase private education anyway are the best use of scarce public resources.
if disadvantaged families are supposed to benefit from choice, design transportation and funding structures that make choice genuinely usable rather than theoretically available.
and stop judging schools primarily by raw proficiency averages.
follow children.
measure where they started.
measure how much they learned.
study who entered.
study who left.
study which students returned to district schools.
study which schools consistently add educational value regardless of the children they receive.
that would tell us far more than another political argument about whether charter schools or traditional public schools are “better.”
the fundamental public obligation
there is one principle that should survive whatever educational marketplace america creates:
every child must have somewhere good to go.
not somewhere technically available.
somewhere good.
a parent who finds a superior charter school should be able to use it.
a family that genuinely benefits from private education should have the freedom to choose it.
innovators should be allowed to create better ways of teaching.
but society must also preserve a strong institution for the child whose parents do none of those things.
that child has exactly the same claim on a decent education.
perhaps an even greater one.
the great danger in the current evolution of school choice is that america could gradually construct an increasingly sophisticated marketplace for families who know how to navigate it while allowing the default institution serving everyone else to deteriorate.
then we would congratulate ourselves on expanding choice while quietly reducing the quality of the choice that remains available to the largest number of children.
the arizona experiment
arizona has done something historically significant.
it has asked what happens when government progressively loosens the connection between public education and publicly operated schools.
the charter movement said:
let public schools be operated differently.
open enrollment said:
let families cross district boundaries.
universal esa said:
let the public education dollar leave the public-school system entirely.
each step can be defended individually.
together they amount to a transformation.
arizona is no longer merely operating a public-school system with some alternatives around the edges.
it is building an education marketplace with a public-school system embedded inside it.
the traditional district remains the largest component.
it remains the provider with perhaps the broadest obligation.
it remains responsible for enormous amounts of physical and institutional infrastructure.
but it is now competing with organizations possessing greater operating freedom and with privately operated alternatives eligible to receive public financial support.
that changes everything.
the question america eventually has to answer
the debate should not end with whether parents deserve choices.
they do.
nor should it end with whether traditional public schools deserve protection.
institutions do not deserve protection merely because they are institutions.
the final question is harder:
how do we preserve parental freedom and educational innovation without financially and socially hollowing out the institution that must remain capable of educating everybody?
arizona may be the first state forced to answer that question on a large scale.
it will not be the last.
the lesson of the arizona petri dish may ultimately be that choice and public education are not inherently enemies—but choice without attention to systemwide consequences can gradually transform the population, finances and performance of the schools left behind.
a good charter school teaches us that autonomy can work.
a bad charter teaches us that autonomy needs accountability.
a successful private school teaches us that government does not possess a monopoly on good education.
the esa teaches us that public financing can empower families—but also that subsidizing private choice creates substantial new public obligations and difficult questions about equity and accountability.
and the traditional district school teaches us something easier to overlook:
somebody still has to be there for everybody.
that obligation has a value.
it has a cost.
and it should be included whenever we compare one educational system with another.
otherwise arizona—and eventually america—may commit a remarkable analytical error.
we may create one educational sector with the broadest obligations, the heaviest infrastructure, significant regulatory constraints and an increasingly difficult population to serve.
we may simultaneously give competing sectors greater freedom and allow public dollars to follow families into them.
we may then compare the resulting test scores and financial condition.
and finally we may announce that the traditional public-school system has failed.
if that happens, we will need to ask whether we discovered the failure—
or designed it. |
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| ESPNs Big McAfee Bet |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Last month, disney’s espn enacted a painful round of cuts that shocked the industry. While many of the layoffs were tied to the network’s integration of nfl network, the dismissals also hit recognizable on-air talent and personalities that had been mainstays at the sports media giant. In the time since, a grim mood has lingered around the network’s bristol headquarters, status has learned, with one person describing it as a “ghost town.”
some of that can surely be chalked up to the usual summer slowdown. But employees remain anxious about the network’s future and their own job security, i’m told, as the sports media industry undergoes profound change. “People are really on edge because of the state of the business,” the person said, questioning “where espn’s north star is.”
pat mcafee, on the other hand, declared himself the “luckiest man on earth” on wednesday, after espn announced another expansion of his already considerable presence at the network. “I hope i can be an asset as we start the journey to the biggest super bowl of all time in la on espn and abc,” he posted on x.
starting this season, mcafee will join the roster of panelists for espn’s “monday night countdown,” the network’s nfl pregame show, expanding his presence, which already includes his role on “college gameday” and his weekday talk show. That’s not all. Espn is exploring an alternative “monday night football” broadcast featuring mcafee, as reported by the athletic. I’m told espn is actively exploring the concept, though it would need league approval, which hasn’t been granted yet.
mcafee’s expanding footprint, of course, comes with considerable baggage. To name just some of it, his show has become a regular platform for aaron rodgers conspiratorial anti-vaccine diatribes and attacks on public health officials, including a recent tirade against dr. Anthony fauci. Mcafee’s own proximity to donald trump—most recently appearing with the president at a sporting event—has only added to the political scrutiny.
mcafee also has a history of using his platform in wildly irresponsible ways, perhaps most notoriously when he gossiped on-air about an 18-year-old student’s sex life, touching off a wave of harassment at the college freshman by fanning the flames of a false rumor. “You’re ruining my life by talking about it on your show for nothing but attention, but here i am staying up until 5 in the morning, every night, throwing up, not eating because i’m so anxious about what’s going to happen for the rest of my life,” the student said at the time. But mcafee only apologized months later.
in another incident, mcafee described wnba player caitlin clark as a “white bitch”—another remark he was forced to apologize for. Mcafee has also clashed with the broader sports media, famously calling sports journalists “miserable pricks” and “curmudgeon bums.” He once described the renowned sports journalist andrew marchand as a “rat” for an accurate report on his program.
mcafee’s rants are not limited to public health officials, college students, or members of the media. He has also gone after those inside the espn tent, once ripping a prominent network executive, norby williamson, for supposedly trying to “sabotage” his show. Not too long after the attack, williamson opted to depart the network.
still, mcafee’s expanded role was perhaps expected, as the network has steadily increased his presence across its programming over the last few years. Meanwhile, espn, mcafee, and his in-house production team have been negotiating a new, monster licensing agreement reportedly worth between $60 million and $65 million. The arrangement is largely a production deal, according to a person familiar with the talks, who noted that mcafee’s company produces his show and pays its staff and production costs.
taken together, the developments reveal where espn is placing its bets—even if they also raise questions about what the network is supposed to represent. At the same time it is doubling—or perhaps tripling or quadrupling—down on one of its biggest stars, it is working through the anxious aftermath of cuts elsewhere, prompting scrutiny over where the network sees its future. In any case, the contrast is hard to miss. Espn spent the summer laying off reporters, then opted to elevate the one personality who has a long history of trashing reporters.
in a network press release last week announcing the return of the full “college gameday” cast for its 40th season, mcafee was front and center in the accompanying marketing image, sandwiched between coaching icon nick saban and host rece davis.
that is the crux of espn’s bet. Whether directly correlated to mcafee’s presence or not, “college gameday” saw its most-watched regular season ever last year, averaging 2.7 million viewers, a 22% bump year over year, with the season racking up nine of the most-watched regular-season episodes ever. The series also saw notable growth among viewers under 25, a selling point to potential advertisers. During the 2021 season, the year before mcafee joined, “college gameday” averaged 1.88 million viewers.
espn executives have viewed “college gameday’s” success as proof of concept for mcafee’s addition, with particular interest in securing a younger demographic as sports media grows increasingly saturated with seemingly endless independent offerings. Mcafee can’t take sole credit for “gameday’s” growth, particularly amid booming interest in football more broadly. But a person familiar with espn’s thinking suggested the network sees a positive impact of his presence on the show. Given those results, the person said, it was natural for the network to experiment with whether mcafee could bring similar engagement to its nfl pregame coverage.
it also probably doesn’t hurt that nfl commissioner roger goodell is known to be a fan of mcafee’s and has appeared on his show multiple times.
of course, not everyone inside espn is thrilled by mcafee’s increased presence on the network. “People always talk about it like, ‘we got to make room for pat,’” one staffer told status—a line that was mostly said in jest until recent cuts were made, with mcafee’s expansion to nfl coverage following soon after. The remark suggests that even if espn has denied that the recent cuts and mcafee’s ascension are connected, plenty of people inside bristol are drawing the line themselves. A network spokesperson did not provide comment for this story.
that unease has a public-facing counterpart from influential alums, including linda cohn, who spent 34 years as a sportscenter anchor. She warned of “mcafee fatigue.” But cohn argued that it’s nothing new for the network’s executives, who she said have played favorites with on-air talent. “The viewers can speak up, say they don’t like it. But espn, most of the time, turns a deaf ear,” she said.
espn, for its part, views criticism from former employees like cohn as lacking the context of the network’s current internal decision-making, i’m told. The network rejects the notion that mcafee’s growing footprint is particularly unusual, pointing to other personalities including scott van pelt, mike greenberg, and malika andrews, who appear across multiple shows. But other high-profile talent aren’t inking licensing deals worth tens of millions of dollars. Nor have they used their perch to irresponsibly platform vaccine conspiracies, feud publicly with network executives, or smear journalists.
with disney indicating it may enact additional cost-cutting measures under chief josh d’amaro’s leadership, rumors of further cuts have circulated among staffers. I’m told that espn has no plans for additional layoffs through the end of the month, but beyond that, the outlook is far less certain.
david ellison. (Photo by matthew stockman/getty images)
with david ellison’s proposed merger with warner bros. Discovery on hold, representatives from paramount and the california attorney general’s office are set to meet monday for preliminary talks that ellison hopes will lead to a potential settlement of the states’ antitrust lawsuit.
???? Attorney general rob bonta is expected to ask paramount to divest “some” cable channels and keep its own movie studio separate from warner’s, joe flint and jessica toonkel reported.
[wsj]elsewhere on the paramount legal scene, former distribution chief chris aronson sued the studio for more than $4 million, alleging age discrimination and breach of contract after he was fired following the skydance takeover.
[deadline]
mark ruffalo forcefully pushed back on paramount’s allegation of using “antisemitic tropes” after he criticized its merger with wbd.
[deadline]paramount’s volley was prompted by ruffalo’s criticism of larry ellison’s oracle. He reposted a video on instagram in which oracle’s executive vice chair described the company’s assistance to israel following the oct. 7 hamas attacks.
after paramount slammed his post in a public statement, ruffalo responded: “the accusation that i am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest.” He added that “scrutinizing the ellisons” is “fair and necessary.” The post drew over 24 million views on x.
donald trump erupted at tucker carlson, along with marjorie taylor greene and thomas massie, weeks after they met and teased the potential formation of a new “movement.”
[the hill]scott nover profiled john solomon, the maga media personality with a history of pushing conspiracy theories who now has an official white house post as chair of the “vaguely defined government transparency task force.”
[wapo]the nyt reporter tracey tully said “someone” called police on her when she attempted to cover a fundraising event for new jersey republican rep. Tom kean, who was absent from congress for nearly four months earlier this year.
[nyt]???? Tully’s report of the incident noted that fox news reporter liz elkind was in attendance at the event—as was a local pennsylvania-based reporter.
cnn’s erin burnett criticized sean hannity for giving “cover” to darline graham after the gop senate candidate’s viral debate gaffe.
[mediaite]nevermind?: Meghan markle has been dropped from consideration to join the cast of netflix’s “the gentlemen,” tina brown reported.
[substack]trump threatened a $5 billion defamation lawsuit against the center for american progress after one of its reports concluded that his deployment of the national guard to various cities did not result in a reduction in crime.
[nyt]a federal appeals court threw out a $130,000 judgment a democratic consultant won against james o’keefe, handing the right-wing activist a significant legal win, josh gerstein reported.
[politico]hunter biden’s media tour continued with a slot on “real time with bill maher,” where maher asked if he was running for president.
[variety]
tom holland and zendaya in spider-man: brand new day. (Sony pictures entertainment)
box office bonanza: paul dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends at rentrak,
said thatthis “may be the most important summer movie season since 1975, when ‘jaws’ took a huge bite out of the box office and set the modern summer season in motion.”2026’s domestic box office has crossed $7 billion, according to rentrak, pacing more than 20% above last year.
still in spidey’s web: “spider-man: brand new day” continued to dominate at the box office, bringing in another $39 million in its fourth weekend.
the tom holland-led blockbuster surpassed 2021’s “spider-man: no way home” to become the third biggest film of all-time at the domestic box office, printing $855 million in receipts. Sony’s marvel picture also topped $2.2 billion globally, moving into sixth place on the all-time highest-grossing list.
sony pictures also scored with the release of “insidious: out of the further,” the sixth installment in the horror franchise. It placed second in its debut weekend, garnering just over $25 million.
“the odyssey” dropped to third place in its sixth weekend, still scoring a healthy $19.5 million. Its domestic total now sits at nearly $540 million.
“paw patrol: the dino movie” came in fourth in its second weekend, scoring about $9.1 million.
“the end of oak street,” the thriller starring anne hathaway and ewan mcgregor, brought in around $9 million but dropped about 57% from its debut.
meanwhile, the horror hit “obsession”
crossed $500 millionat the global box office, becoming the highest-grossing film ever with a budget of less than $1 million.
the latest episode of power lines is out.
in this week’s episode: cnn’s maga pundit, scott jennings, is publicly auditioning for the job of white house press secretary. But, bizarrely, cnn has decided against sidelining jennings over the conflict of interest. Instead, the network is allowing him to use its platform to audition for the role.
plus, we talk about our exclusive reporting on “60 minutes,” as longtime correspondent bill whitaker privately mulls whether he made the right decision to stick around in the bari weiss era. And we break down disney’s lawsuit against brendan carr and the fcc. Finally, we talk about our experiences trying to snag tickets to “dune: part three.” It didn’t go well! We discuss what amc needs to do to make things right for moviegoers.
you can watch on youtube—or listen on apple podcasts, spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoy the program, subscribe so you never miss an episode! |
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| Top Ten Videos - August 24, 2026 | Dollar Collapse |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Top ten videos – august 24, 2026
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michael pento: are worlds elites about to dump everything?...(August 20, 2026)
liberty & finance...
summary
pento argues the us faces a concurrent “triumvirate of bubbles” — equities at 240% of gdp (140 percentage points above the long-term average), record real estate unaffordability, and a credit bubble spanning $1.6 trillion in private credit, $1.4 trillion in clos, $1.5 trillion in junk bonds, and $1.5 trillion in nyse margin debt (up over 50% year-over-year) — now topped by ai “circular financing” in which nvidia guarantees collateralized loans used to buy its own chips. He contends the government’s and fed’s balance sheets are broken — 123% debt-to-gdp versus 60% in past recessions, national debt at 720% of revenue, a $2 trillion baseline deficit heading to $6 trillion, and a nearly $7 trillion fed balance sheet — so the next crisis will require money printing “like there’s never been before,” pushing the fed well north of $10 trillion while long-term rates rise instead of fall. He predicts a brutal recession with a 50% stock crash and 25-30% home price declines, followed by intractable stagflation and possibly a cbdc “power grab,” and says investors should hold physical gold (5% of net worth, in personal possession), short-term treasuries, and cash rather than a 60/40 portfolio facing multiple lost decades.
top 5 key topics
- ai circular financing as the credit bubble’s “cherry on top”: pento says ai spending has shifted from cash flow to collateralized debt, with gpus pledged as collateral and nvidia itself guaranteeing clos to push interest rates down — financial engineering by jensen huang “and his buddies at blackrock.” He flags widening credit spreads on hyperscaler debt as a canary in the coal mine even while overall spreads stay quiescent.
- government and fed bailout capacity is gone: past recessions began with 60% debt-to-gdp, $200 billion deficits, and a sub-$1 trillion fed balance sheet; the next one starts at 123% debt-to-gdp, a $2 trillion deficit, and a ~$6.8 trillion balance sheet. With the japan/germany zero-rate anchor gone and five years of intractable inflation, he expects long-term rates to rise, not fall, in the next crisis.
- real estate bubble with massive latent supply: home prices relative to incomes are higher than the 2005-2006 peak, and with real rates negative 77% of the time since 2000, 25% of home ownership is now investment property. He expects prices to fall 25-30% as multi-home owners hit the sell button, gutting municipal tax revenues regardless of mill-rate manipulation.
- cbdc as the ultimate power grab: pento warns the next crisis could be the pretext for a central bank digital currency that eliminates cash withdrawal, enabling forced negative rates (he cites a hypothetical -5%), bail-ins, and total transaction surveillance. Combined with universal basic income, he says this would guarantee inflation and possibly hyperinflation.
- watching warsh’s fed pivot to zero: powell added roughly $200 billion to the fed balance sheet in his last 5 months, warsh added about $50 billion since taking over may 22, but reserve management purchases went to zero starting august 14. Pento’s 12-point daily model (real fed funds, yen carry spread, copper/gold ratio, high-yield spreads, etc.) Says the equity bubble needs continuous new fed credit to survive, so a flat-to-shrinking balance sheet means “look for trouble.”
lobo tiggre: bond market sends gold & silver prices surging...(August 19, 2026)
capitalcosm...
summary
lacy hunt & brent johnson: the us has entered a new inflationary era that will prove bad for bonds...(August 20, 2026)
thoughtful money...
summary
tiggre reads the global bond rout — the us 30-year at a 19-year high around 5.37%, japanese yields at 30-year highs, german yields at 11-year highs — as the bond vigilantes forcing a globalized “liz truss moment” that is stagflationary and ultimately bullish for anything governments can’t print. He defends taking profits on his gold and silver stocks after gold surged past $5,000 (now around $4,000) while keeping every ounce of bullion, insisting the fundamentals — deficits, central bank buying (especially china), monetary debasement — have never been stronger in his career, but he refuses to “buy high and hope to sell higher.” His top current setup is uranium at $85-90/lb, where the spot price has lagged the steadily rising long-term contract price for an unusually long stretch, implying the next significant move in spot is up, amplified through mining-stock leverage.
top 5 key topics
- global bond rout as a frontal assault on risk assets: with the “risk-free” rate approaching equity-like returns, passive investors may withdraw from stocks in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tiggre says governments trying to grow their way out of debt are being called out by bond vigilantes worldwide, pointing to continued economic weakness, inflation, and debasement.
- the “gold doesn’t pay interest” canard is dead: gold should be compared to other money, not bonds — cash in a drawer pays no interest either and evaporates to inflation, and some firms now even pay interest on deposited gold. Investors who sold gold on anticipated rate hikes made the wrong trade “throughout this millennium.”
- gold front-runs inflation and the $5,000 spike is a warning: gold surged after the covid lockdowns before cpi took off, as deep-pocketed players hedged what they saw coming, though the lags are long and variable. Tiggre says this year’s run past $5,000 should be read as a flashing signal of what’s ahead, not a missed opportunity to mourn.
- uranium is his highest-conviction setup: spot uranium has fallen below the long-term contract price — the “real market” where miners and utilities transact — for an unusually long period, and spot always catches up one way or the other. His portfolio is mostly uranium now, while he passes on copper at all-time highs, freshly rallied gold and silver stocks, and recovered oil and lithium.
- an ai-bubble bust would be a gift, not a threat: copper and uranium are misidentified as ai plays — china’s nuclear buildout (planning to double its fleet and overtake the us as the largest nuclear generator by 2040) predates the ai hype. He recalls uranium stocks going from 52-week highs to 52-week lows on the deepseek scare, then to all-time highs, and says he’s selling puts (per doug casey) to get paid while waiting for “stupid cheap” prices.
david hunter: global bust into money printing like never before - then $20k gold, $1k silver...(August 20, 2026)
commodity culture...
summary
hunt explains his landmark pivot from deflation to inflation: a secular capital shortage — net national saving near zero versus a historical norm of almost 7% — colliding with the end of three decades of globalization means higher and more volatile inflation, rising real rates, and, via the fisher equation, a rising risk premium on treasuries as interest expense makes the deficit politically intractable. He faults washington on both fronts: the deficit estimate jumped from $1.8 trillion to $2.1 trillion (6.4% of gdp) in ten days, the fed has run “stealth easing” since mid-december with money supply growing about 7.5% year-over-year versus a friedman-optimal 4-4.5%, and bessent’s $2 billion-a-week treasury buyback is a “gimmick” that distorts the very market signals fed chair warsh says he wants left alone. Hunt concludes that demographics is destiny, the standard of living will stagnate, higher rates and inflation redistribute upward (the top two deciles do virtually all saving), the drift toward socialism will make things worse, and — as taggart draws out — the case for bonds is broken while hard assets like precious metals historically perform well in what’s coming.
top 5 key topics
- capital shortage meets zero national saving: massive physical capital demands — ai, semiconductors, the electrical grid, space exploration — are hitting while net national saving sits below 1%, near lows last seen since 1929. Physical investment must equal saving, so real rates must rise, and the fed printing money cannot fix it, only worsen inflation.
- deglobalization reverses the disinflation machine: the post-iron curtain outpouring of hundreds of millions of workers shifted the aggregate supply curve dramatically outward, masking the drag from debt; now resiliency, onshoring, “just in case” inventories, and market fragmentation are shifting it inward and destroying economies of scale. Hunt admits he long misattributed the disinflation to debt when it was really the production function.
- fiscal policy is now intractable: federal debt is approaching 120% of gdp heading to 130%, the all-government deficit is 7.5% of gdp per the imf, and hunt cites niall ferguson’s finding that empires decline when interest expense exceeds military spending. Rising interest expense will push the treasury risk premium up, filtering into mortgage and corporate borrowing costs.
- warsh’s credibility test amid stealth easing: the fed has expanded its balance sheet since mid-december, bank lending and deposits have surged, and m2 velocity has rebounded from 1.1 to 1.4 as covid-era money balances unleash. Warsh has said all the right words — “inflation is a choice” — but hunt says words must be confirmed by action, and the clock is ticking.
- higher rates and inflation feed the k-shaped economy: in response to johnson’s questions, hunt notes the lower eight deciles save virtually nothing and bear the burden of higher borrowing costs, while interest income and fed-boosted asset prices accrue to the top two deciles. He warns the resulting frustration is fueling a rise in socialism that would accelerate decline, since command-and-control economies — as china is demonstrating — sow the seeds of their own demise.
ltcol. Karen kwiatkowski: iran won’t surrender — u.S. Military crisis deepens...(August 21, 2026)
world affairs in context...
summary
hunter remains maximally bullish near-term, raising his melt-up targets to 10,000 on the s&p, 36,000 on the nasdaq, 4,000 on the russell, and 70,000 on the dow — roughly 25-30% upside he expects this year in a final parabolic run — before a global bust bigger than 2008-09 that could crash indices 80% (s&p 10,000 to 2,000). He says the most predictable part of his forecast is the response: the fed printing perhaps $20 trillion and $50 trillion globally, which ends the 44-year secular bull market that began in august 1982 (dow 780) and ignites an inflation cycle reaching 20-25% by early next decade, with the 10-year yield first falling to zero in the bust and then climbing toward 20%. He calls for $200 silver and $7,000 gold this cycle, then — after 50-75% retracements in the bust — $1,000 silver and $20,000 gold around 2032-33, with next-cycle leadership shifting from tech to commodities and old industrials like caterpillar and deere.
top 5 key topics
- parabolic melt-up before the top: hunter sees institutions still climbing a wall of worry from the october 2022 low, with sell-side strategists (a few now at 8,200-8,400) just beginning to chase his long-standing above-street targets. He says interest rates peaked “yesterday,” the market is shrugging off the iran war and a closed strait of hormuz, and the top likely comes this year — though sentiment, not a date, will mark it.
- a bust bigger than 2008-09, then unprecedented printing: with $330 trillion-plus in global debt, leveraged etfs, and frothy private credit, he expects the fastest, most acute decline ever seen, and central banks forced to print $20 trillion (fed) to $50 trillion (globally). Japan is the wild card — decades of zirp are unraveling, and he has the yen strengthening to 0.0085 versus the dollar (from ~0.0063) as the dollar index falls toward 83.
- the 44-year secular bull is ending, japan-1989 style: this cycle’s highs could stand for decades, and buy-and-hold “time in the market” — correct since 1982 — will fail as pe multiples compress while the 10-year eventually climbs from zero toward nearly 20%. A post-bust rally (perhaps 2,000 back to 8,000 on the s&p) still leaves passive investors underwater with backwards weightings.
- commodity supercycle targets: silver to $200 this cycle, a 50-75% bust retracement (perhaps to $50), then $1,000 next cycle; gold to $7,000, back to $3,500-4,000, then $20,000 by roughly 2032-33; copper possibly $20-30. Demand from power, ai, and reshoring will overwhelm supply starved of greenfield investment, so “the only thing that can give is price — straight up.”
- what survives the bust: treasuries top the list (long duration pays most if rates fall as he expects), along with fdic-insured savings up to $250,000 — he’s confident the printing press backstops fdic and that us money market funds won’t break the buck, as in 2008-09. Junk bonds and equities offer no shelter, and he warns those who exit early not to get emotionally sucked back in at the top.
clive thompson: robotics is the next big investment wave. I study the picks and shovels, (the compnent makers)....(August 12, 2026)
clive thompson...
summary
thompson argues that artificial intelligence is entering its next phase — moving off the screen and into physical robots that can see, hear, learn, and do useful work — making robotics potentially one of the largest investment growth waves of the next decade, comparable to railways, electrification, the internet, and smartphones. He believes humanoid robots like tesla’s optimus are largely a gimmick for now, with the bigger near-term markets in factories and the military, and warns that impressive dancing-and-kung-fu robot demos are staged showcases that may be years away from reliable, affordable mass deployment. His preferred approach is not betting on which robot maker wins but buying diversified exposure through etfs or actively managed funds, or picking the “picks and shovels” component suppliers — bearings, harmonic drives, servo motors, sensors, machine vision, and ai chips — while keeping any single position small enough to avoid emotional decision-making.
top 5 key topics
- ai robotics as the next great investment wave: thompson places robotics alongside historical fortunes-making waves like railways, automobiles, biotech, and cloud computing, but notes each wave also wiped out investors who picked the wrong companies or overpaid. He expects humanoid robots to proliferate by next year, though most households won’t want one until they can do real work like fixing a leaky toilet.
- geographic power centers: japan is the established force in robotics manufacturing, while china leads in ai-integrated robots through companies like unitree, agibot, and ubtech, and the us fields tesla, figure, and agility robotics. Established manufacturers are retrofitting ai into robots while startups build ai-native and humanoid machines from scratch.
- three routes to exposure — etfs, active funds, direct stocks: the largest us robotics etfs are botz (global x robotics & ai), arkq (ark autonomous technology & robotics), and robo (robo global robotics & automation), all multi-billion dollar funds, with european ucits equivalents from ishares, l&g, and global x. He cautions that actively managed funds historically underperform indexes and carry higher fees, and that investors must read fact sheets since “robotics” funds often hold semiconductors, factory automation, or even carmakers.
- the picks-and-shovels component play: rather than guessing the winning robot maker, thompson prefers suppliers who sell to all of them: nvidia and amd for ai chips, te connectivity for sensors, amphenol for connectors, sony or cognex for machine vision, infineon and stmicroelectronics for power semiconductors, skf for bearings, thk for linear motion, harmonic drive systems for precision gears, mitsubishi electric or nidec for motors, and panasonic for batteries. He acknowledges component makers still face competition, falling prices, and supply chain risk.
- position sizing and personal disclosure: thompson owns none of the stocks named and likely won’t buy them soon because, as a retiree, he needs dividend income that these mostly non-paying growth companies don’t provide — he’ll instead buy a robotics etf, active fund, or both. His cardinal rule is that no single position should be large enough to drive emotional decisions, and he reminds viewers that total loss is possible and the buildout may take longer and cost more than headlines suggest.
august turak: 9 hard lessons all young men must learn...(July 30, 2026)
august turak...
summary
turak’s core thesis is that meaning comes only through sacrifice and struggle — “if you’re not sacrificing for anything, i guarantee you’re depressed” — and he blames the comfort of modern life for 40% of college freshmen being on antidepressants and depression ranking as the west’s number one illness per the world health organization. He teaches that life rewards those who become fanatical students of their own decision-making (every decision is a prediction of the future), who learn to think for themselves as his teacher richard rose commanded, who surround themselves with truth-telling mentors and people better than themselves, and who act immediately rather than procrastinate — “don’t figure it out, find out.” On success and risk, he argues confidence attracts women more than looks or money, hard work beats raw talent, determination is a probability rather than a guarantee (illustrated by his failed teddy-bear courtship of a waitress named vicki), and real adventure requires real stakes — like giving up the love of his life at 21 to go all-in on his spiritual path.
top 5 key topics
- meaning requires sacrifice: turak contrasts his “dirt poor” upbringing — where classmates skiing in vail “might as well have been going to mars” — with today’s world where even kids in trailer parks have been to disneyland, arguing that when everything is given, nothing has meaning. His own years of celibacy, dropping out of college, and laying carpet for minimum wage while everyone told him he was wasting his life became “the cauldron” he wouldn’t now trade for a billion dollars.
- become a fanatical student of your own decisions: every decision is a prediction — “if i pet this dog, he won’t bite me” — so when outcomes surprise you, you must audit the hidden assumptions, whether you decide emotionally, instinctively, or based on what your dad told you. Like baseball, you don’t need to bat a thousand; successful people simply make more good decisions than bad ones on average.
- “learn to think for yourself”: when turak offered richard rose unconditional obedience — “whatever you ask me to do, i’ll do it” — rose’s entire command was to learn to think for himself, an answer turak calls a lifetime’s problem. He ties this to his definition of spirituality as wrestling with life (israel meaning “he who wrestles with god”), not holding a static set of beliefs.
- action beats deliberation: when a committee spent a month bouncing his magazine idea between lists, turak walked to his office, called the editor of spiritual life, and closed the deal in 10 minutes; when starting his software tools company on $2,000, he cold-called roughly 90 marketing vps and got “a million dollars’ worth of education in a week” while others would have burned two years on trial and error. He didn’t pay himself a nickel for three years, embodying rose’s dictum to keep at things “until you forget how to quit.”
- risk is the price of adventure: there’s always a correlation between risk and reward — a “mongolian hedge” (buying the same stock you sold) guarantees only friction losses — and a roller coaster is a thrill, not an adventure, because nothing is at stake. He notes venture capitalists demand founders mortgage their homes even when investing $100 million, because blood in the game is what lights the fire.
graham summers: washington quietly puts gold back on table , its secret plan...
(august 17, 2026)
itm trading...
summary
summers argues something unprecedented is happening in washington’s posture toward gold: treasury secretary bessent is publicly reminiscing about the gold-backed dollar, rand paul personally went underground at fort knox to confirm roughly 147 million ounces are there (using the moment to note the dollar has lost over 85% of its purchasing power since the gold link was cut in 1971), and trump personally designated gold in a critical-minerals executive order — trial balloons suggesting gold is “back in the conversation” for the first time in decades. He describes an all-hands-on-deck critical minerals war effort against china, including a de facto $200 billion department of war sovereign wealth fund deploying capital over three years, wall street private equity heavy hitters poached into government, and a 72-hour zinc deal signed in the pentagon — because ai is an existential arms race and ai is fundamentally a natural-resource story requiring vast copper, cobalt, lithium, and uranium. On the metals themselves, he says nothing has changed in the bullish macro story — wartime deficits, ~$40 billion a month in de facto qe (nearly half a trillion a year), central banks buying 1,000 tons of gold annually and now holding more gold than treasuries as a share of foreign reserves — with the recent selloff just algorithmic trading triggered by wealthy middle eastern investors fleeing gold into bitcoin during the iran conflict.
top 5 key topics
- washington’s unprecedented gold signaling: bessent stopped during a fox news walkthrough to note the us “used to be backed by gold and sometimes silver,” then confirmed the fort knox gold is all there, while a busy rand paul took time to inspect it personally. Summers can’t recall a treasury secretary discussing gold in his lifetime and reads it as a deliberate trial balloon, with wall street now floating 60/20/20 stock/bond/gold portfolios for the first time in 30-40 years.
- why gold missed the critical-minerals list but silver made it: silver is formally designated a critical mineral while the usgs declined gold — not because gold isn’t important, but because the national defense act vehicle requires dependence on foreign adversaries, and the us has ample domestic gold production. What matters to summers is that trump personally included gold in the executive order anyway, revealing the president’s thinking.
- a privatized, wartime department of war: the department is poaching top private equity and investment banking talent instead of using bureaucrats, running a de facto $200 billion sovereign wealth fund, and closing deals at breakneck speed — including a zinc deal with a korean producer assembled in 72 hours by teams working 100 hours straight on pentagon lockdown. The strategy copies china’s state-directed playbook of backstopping producers and cutting red tape.
- america won’t out-mine china, so it will out-innovate: policymakers concede the us can’t match chinese production costs, so it’s pursuing workarounds like recycling existing technology to recover critical minerals for permanent magnets used in defense and ai applications. Summers frames the ai race as existential: whoever leads agentic ai gains google-search-level power to nudge how billions of people think, and washington has decided china cannot be allowed to win.
- the metals selloff was algorithms, not fundamentals: when the iran war began, wealthy middle eastern investors frantically rotated gold into bitcoin fearing capital controls, and trading algorithms locked onto the correlation — selling gold and bidding bitcoin on every iran headline. With gold back above $4,400, the parabolic froth worked off, the fed easing, and central banks accumulating, summers says the breakout phoenix capital has been calling for months is finally here.
alex hormozi’s warning: stop chasing ai, build this instead!...
(july 20, 2026)
academy of ideas...
summary
hormozi’s core business thesis is that focus and patience are the two enduring competitive advantages “because they’re so antihuman”: the fastest way to build a $10 million business is not the fastest way to build a $100 million one, and entrepreneurs who rush skyrocket then plateau because they built a one-story foundation under a hundred-story ambition — the fix being retention-first businesses where customers never leave, unscalable premium offers priced with one or two extra zeros, and volume of activity 100x what beginners attempt (his mentor tested 5,000 flyers per batch while he tested 300). On ai, he warns founders are “doing dumb things really fast” — citing a company that spent $350,000 to automate work 11 virtual assistants did for $11,000 a month when demand, not process, was their constraint — and argues that outsourcing thinking to ai makes you dumber, while “reality is the moat” in content: credibility, stakes, and track record (buffett, bezos, dave ramsey) are what ai slop can’t replicate. The most personal territory covers his $106 million book launch followed four weeks later by his mother’s death — he rejected the idea that “people will judge how much you love someone by how much you choose to suffer,” mapped his own resilience through a four-vector framework (fortitude, tolerance, resilience, adaptability), and calls marrying leila, who believed in him more than he believed in himself and never tried to change him, “the single best financial decision that i ever made.”
top 5 key topics
- ai is being used in the wrong places: the only question that matters is “are you making more money?” — He cites a business that spent $350,000 (three-plus years of costs) replacing $11,000/month of va work that wasn’t even the constraint on growth. Founders should use ai in their business rather than start ai businesses the frontier models will swallow, and never delegate their hardest thinking because “this is the best asset i’ve got, so i want to keep it as sharp as i can.”
- long-term thinking as the foundation of scale: using a block-tower exercise, he shows the foundation changes completely with the time horizon — musk building batteries and charging networks from scratch and bezos deciding a logistics company would be amazon’s moat are byproducts of thinking in decades. The million-dollar entrepreneur stuck at a plateau usually skipped product-market fit: a company keeping 100 customers a year while adding 100 beats one reselling its entire base annually, because churned revenue forces ever-costlier reacquisition.
- pricing, unscalable offers, and moving upmarket: founders “sell out of their own wallet,” undercharging because what’s easy for them feels easy for everyone, creating a vicious cycle of thin margins and no capacity to hire; his fix is to add one or two zeros to your price and design the absurdly premium version first, tesla roadster-style. He notes us wealth distribution — the bottom 50% holds roughly $2 of every $100, while the top 10% holds about two-thirds — so broke founders selling to broke customers wrongly conclude nobody has money.
- grief and mental toughness after his mother’s death: three to four weeks after his $106 million launch (2.9 million books in 24 hours), his mother died in a freak accident, capping a quarter that included nine open lawsuits and leila’s torn colon requiring an 18-month recovery. He built a four-part framework — how much you can take before behavior changes, how far you fall, how fast you return, and whether you come back better — and honored his mother by continuing the path she watched him start, rejecting the notion that suffering proves love.
- the people you choose determine your outcome: marrying leila was his best financial decision — she carried him through troughs of apathy (his struggle, not anxiety), operates the business and retains talent he couldn’t, and had bigger dreams for the team than he had for money. His hiring evolution: stop searching for unicorns and find the rhino, horse, and fireflies in three people — and when you find a 10-out-of-10, ask “what would it take for you to work here forever?”, Citing the founder who raised his agent-referral bonus from $500 to $25,000 and grew from $10 million to $400 million.
jp sears: it all makes sense if you have brain damage – news update...(August 18, 2026)
awaken with jp...
summary
satire (made with ai) |
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| Browns waive DaeQuan Wright, paving reported return to college at LSU |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Field level media
24 aug 2026, 06:35 gmt+10
(photo credit: mark j. Rebilas-imagn images)
the cleveland browns waived tight end daequan wright on sunday, paving a path for him to return to college football at lsu so long as he clears nfl waivers, his representation told espn.
wright -- who signed with the philadelphia eagles as an undrafted free agent and then landed with cleveland via waivers but hasnt appeared in either of their first two preseason games -- is believed to be the first player with an agreement in place to return to college football after signing an nfl contract as an undrafted free agent.
wright played the last two seasons for new lsu coach lane kiffin at ole miss, catching 39 passes for 635 yards and five touchdowns for the rebels in 2025. He amassed 113 catches, 1,603 receiving yards and nine touchdown catches over four seasons at virginia tech (2022-23) and ole miss (2024-25).
hes one of 16 football players who was granted a temporary restraining order earlier this week by a louisiana judge to be deemed eligible for the 2026 college season. The ncaa initially ruled that all players whose eligibility expired after the 2025 season will not be eligible for its new five-year eligibility model.
wright officially entered the transfer portal thursday and could join the 11th-ranked tigers -- who open the season at home sept. 5 vs. Clemson -- in the near future.
the ncaa continues to fight against these players becoming eligible, receiving a stay from the tenth circuit court of appeals on friday. However, that stay doesnt erase the players who have already had their eligibility restored by tros given by state-court judges across the country over the last few weeks.
the other players who have reportedly entered the transfer portal this week after the louisiana court ruling include one of wrights ole miss teammates, defensive lineman zxavian harris, former smu running back tj harden, former byu offensive lineman weylin lapuaho, former james madison linebacker trent hendrick, former appalachian state defensive back ethan johnson and former new mexico kicker luke drzewiecki.
espn also reported this week that two other players in nfl camps, jack pyburn of the tampa bay buccaneers and wydett williams jr. Of the arizona cardinals, can go back to school under the tro.
--field level media
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tehran, iran: iran has granted permission to several iraqi oil tankers to pass through the strait of hormuz after repeated requests...
london, u.K.: Prince harry and the other high-profile claimants must make an interim payment of £9.54 million towards the legal costs...
hong kong: hong kongs high court on august 21 convicted two pro-democracy activists of inciting subversion, focusing on their use...
dubai/washington: iran said on august 21 that it would respond crushingly to any new u.S. Threats after washington said it planned...
jerusalem/cairo: more than two years after her killing, israels military admitted that its troops had opened fire on a car carrying...
hong kong/shenzhen, china: the founder of china evergrande group, the worlds most heavily indebted property developer, was sentenced...
(photo credit: mark j. Rebilas-imagn images) the cleveland browns waived tight end daequan wright on sunday, paving a path for him...
(photo credit: sam navarro-imagn images) xavier edwards stroked a go-ahead, two-run single in the fifth inning as the host miami...
(photo credit: gregory fisher-imagn images) tampa bays nick martinez pitched six one-hit innings and three relievers completed the...
(photo credit: kirby lee-imagn images) the los angeles chargers placed center tyler biadasz on season-ending injured reserve sunday,...
(photo credit: bill streicher-imagn images) the new york yankees reinstated outfielder/first baseman cody bellinger from the 10-day...
(photo credit: william purnell-imagn images) despite sitting last in the american league central, the kansas city royals are playing... |
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| Marquette Steals A Draw To Stay Undefeated |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (6 reads) | |
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Dear reader, it is safe to say that things were not looking so hot for marquette women’s soccer on sunday evening in madison. They got outshot 6-2 before halftime, and then wisconsin put up five of the first seven shots of the second half. That’s 11-4 badgers in the shots department as the clock hit the 66 minute mark, and with wisconsin starting off the year ranked and picking up a win over #9 byu just a few days earlier, none of this felt great. Not even with the scoreboard reading 0-0 at that point of the match.
marquette steals a draw to stay undefeated
it looked like a var penalty kick was going to cost the golden eagles on sunday, right up until it didn’t.
andrew fleckis the site manager for sb nation’s marquette golden eagles website, anonymous eagle, where he covers marquette basketball, volleyball, soccer, lacrosse, recruiting, and news in general as it relates to college sports or marquette athletics. He has been with anonymous eagle since 2011 and has been a marquette men’s basketball season ticket holder since 2001.
and then, finally, the walls came tumbling down in the form of an erin connolly penalty kick.
here’s how the marquette game recap describes the situation that led to the pk:
wisconsin eventually broke through in the second half following a video review. After the officials reviewed contact inside the penalty area and determined there had been a push from behind, wisconsin was awarded a penalty kick. The badgers converted from the spot to take a 1-0 lead.
dare i say that var is ruining the sport.
that’s the first goal allowed this season by freshman keeper mia hurd, and just the second by marquette. Weirdly, both goals were penalty kicks.
after that, it’s not like wisconsin went to that much of a bunker and let marquette start to generate a little bit of offense. Marquette didn’t record a shot over the next 10 minutes or so, and you know what the solution is to having trouble building up some offense? Fire it up and over the top, bay bay!
i didn’t give b1g+ my $13 to watch this, and that highlight clip starts riiiight after the ball gets fired down the field. Thus, i don’t know who to credit for the play, but i can definitely credit kaylie sheehan for the hustle play to outrun the badgers’ defender and make just enough of a play to chip it up and over the advancing drew stover to put it in the net for the equalizer and her first collegiate goal. An outstanding play, and once again, marquette scores a goal this year because they have a player making hard runs at the net and putting in more hustle and effort than the opponent.
that strike from sheehan came in the 79th minute, and freshman keeper mia hurd made one more save after that to get to five on the day and preserve both the draw and marquette’s undefeated record on the season. The golden eagles are now 3-0-1 with 11 goals for and just the two penalty kicks against.
how about 80 seconds of highlights, courtesy of gomarquette.Com and b1g+?
up next: can i interest you in a crosstown rivalry match in front of what i presume will be pretty much every single new freshman on campus? Marquette will return to action this coming thursday with a 6pm central time start at valley fields, one day after the freshmen move into their residence halls. The opponent? Milwaukee, making the trip over the from the east side. You can catch the match on espn+ if you can’t make it down. The panthers are 1-3-0 on the year so far, but that’s with three shutout losses to teams at least earning votes in the top 25 if not actually ranked. Uw-milwaukee has conceded 14 goals in those matches, but they did beat northern iowa 4-0 in their lone victory to this point of the campaign.
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| Legislative Roundup: Lt. Col. Bivens welcomes 47 troopers to Pennsylvania State |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Pennsylvania
legislative roundup: lt. Col. Bivens welcomes 47 troopers to pennsylvania state police
published
1 minute agoon
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wilkes-barre — lt. Col. George bivens, acting commissioner of the pennsylvania state police (psp), welcomed 47 new troopers this week during a graduation ceremony at lcbc manheim.
the 176th cadet class completed approximately 27 weeks of rigorous training at the psp academy to earn the rank of trooper.
“for nearly six months, this dedicated group of women and men demonstrated remarkable strength, leadership, courage, discipline, resilience, and commitment to complete the rigors of the academy and earn the rank of trooper,” said lieutenant colonel bivens. “I am beyond proud to welcome these brave individuals to our psp family, and i have the utmost confidence in their ability to successfully serve, protect, and uphold the law across the commonwealth.”
gov. Josh shapiro and lieutenant governor austin davis continue to aid psp’s mission to protect the safety of pennsylvania communities by securing $16.2 million in the 2026-27 state budget to support four additional cadet classes, approximately 380 troopers.
since taking office, the shapiro-davis administration has secured funding for 16 cadet classes to train over 1,600 new psp troopers. To date, 673 cadets have graduated and joined the ranks of psp under shapiro’s tenure as governor.
the 176th cadet class is the sixth class to complete the psp academy without a college credit requirement for the position of trooper. The shapiro-davis administration eliminated the college requirement for applicants in august 2023. As a result, the psp saw a 69% increase in applicants in 2025 compared to 2022, when the college credit requirement was still in place.
during the ceremony, five cadets received special awards and recognition:
• levi j. Wallace: american legion award for all-around academic, physical, ethical, and moral qualifications; daniel f. Dunn high scholastic award for the highest level of academic achievement in the class.
• gunnar h. Frankenfield: gesford high pistol award for the highest score on the department’s pistol qualification course.
• tyler elsdon: colonel ronald m. Sharpe leadership award for exemplifying the qualities of leadership.
• brandon w. Knapp: john k. Schafer memorial award for the highest combined score on a series of physical skills tests.
• briar w. Kentzel: colonel paul j. Chylak memorial driver proficiency award for the highest proficiency in driver safety training.
psp’s latest hiring cycle is open until sept. 30. Those interested in becoming a state trooper can find application requirements, job benefits, and other details at patrooper.Com.
dmva’s keystone state challenge academy accepting applications for first 2027 class
the pennsylvania department of military and veterans affairs’ (dmva) keystone state challenge academy (ksca) is now accepting applications for its first class of 2027, which begins in january.
there is no tuition cost to attend and meals, housing, uniforms and school supplies are provided at no charge.
a cornerstone of dmva’s outreach, ksca’s mission of providing teens in jeopardy of not graduating on time or dropping out of school with a second chance at obtaining their basic education is centered around the national guard youth challenge program’s eight core components: leadership; self-discipline; job skills; health and hygiene; values of community service and civic duty; physical fitness; responsibility to build a better life.
to meet growing demand for the program, the 2026-27 budget signed by shapiro increased funding for ksca by $80,000.
the december 2025 graduating class was the largest ksca class to-date with 75 graduates. Enrollment is expected to grow to more than 100 cadets in the coming years.
with ksca’s online eligibility checker at pa.Gov/ksca, applicants can quickly confirm their eligibility before completing the full application. Applicants can also request a mailed form by emailing ra-mvpachallenge@pa.Gov, or calling 717-861-7767 or 717-861-8831.
the opening of the academy at fort indiantown gap (ftig) in lebanon county in july 2022 formally established the national guard bureau’s youth challenge program in pennsylvania.
the program is open to 16- to 18-year-old pennsylvania residents who are failing to progress in high school or may not be on a clear path to graduating. Applicants must be willing to be drug-free, free of felony convictions and voluntarily commit to the program.
the program lasts for five and one-half months as a residential phase, followed by 24 months of mentorship by academy staff in their home communities. Graduates work to receive high school credits, credentials or a ged. Ksca is also increasing in the number of graduates who earn their diplomas through act 158 legislation that allows for alternative pathways to graduation.
the ksca conducts two classes a year, one starting in mid-july and the other in mid-january. Applications are accepted all year long.
pa. Reaffirms commitment to serving and protecting pennsylvanians with disabilities
the shapiro administration this week reaffirmed its commitment to ensure the choices and freedoms of pennsylvanians with disabilities are protected so they can live, work, and participate fully in their chosen community in the wake of recent federal actions that threaten decades of progress.
in 1999, the united states supreme court decided olmstead v. L.C., A case that questioned how states comply with the americans with disabilities act (ada). The olmstead decision affirmed that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is a form of discrimination under the ada and that people with disabilities should have opportunities to receive services in community settings as an alternative to institutional settings when appropriate, consistent with their needs and choices, and when such services can be reasonably provided.
right now, approximately 200,000 older adults and people with intellectual and physical disabilities – the highest in pennsylvania history — receive disability services in their homes and communities.
however, on july 20, the trump administration announced that the u.S. Department of justice would no longer rely on longstanding olmstead guidance when enforcing the ada.
more former federal employees choosing pa. To continue public service careers
in march 2025, shapiro signed executive order 2025-01 to fill critical vacancies in pennsylvania’s workforce by recruiting experienced former federal employees.
this week, the shapiro administration announced 1,350 individuals with federal work experience have been hired since the order was signed. These roles include approximately 150 clerical positions, 130 corrections officer trainees, 95 caseworkers, 50 highway construction and maintenance workers, 65 nursing positions, as well as numerous specialized roles in information technology, science, law, engineering, and skilled trades.
this pace puts the shapiro administration on course to hire nearly 2,000 highly qualified and experienced former federal employees to fill critical vacancies across state government by the conclusion of the executive order’s second year.
“attracting great people to state government remains essential to delivering the strong, responsive services our residents expect and deserve,” said secretary of administration neil weaver. “As more former federal workers look for an employer that values their experience, innovation, and dedication to service, the commonwealth is proud to offer meaningful opportunities to continue their public service.”
the federal government has reduced its workforce by nearly 272,000 employees since january 20, 2025, according to the office of personnel management. From january 2025 to june 2026, the number of workers employed by the federal government in pennsylvania also fell by 8,900, according to data from the department of labor & industry and u.S. Bureau of labor statistics.
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pennsylvania
vaccine enforcement gaps in pennsylvania charter schools put thousands of children at risk
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indicators 2026: why are so many pennsylvania teachers leaving education?
published
1 day agoon
august 22, 2026by
press room
wilkes-barre — a shortage of teachers has emerged across pennsylvania and the entire country.
educators are exiting the field, and their positions are left vacant, leaving schools understaffed.
low-income and low-performing schools disproportionately face staffing shortages, even in subject areas that have a surplus of candidates in other districts.
according to a recent report by the institute, the number of teachers leaving their positions rose dramatically in recent years — creating staffing challenges that many districts are struggling to address.
the data shows that 11,560 pennsylvania teachers left their positions during the 2022-2023 school year — a sharp increase from 8,473 the previous year.
that represents a 36.4% increase — the largest single-year rise in teacher exits documented in the report.
“in many cases, departing teachers are not necessarily abandoning education altogether,” says jill avery-stoss, president and ceo of the institute. “The largest category of departures consisted of educators who resigned or left one position but remained employed elsewhere in education. In the 2022-2023 school year, more than half of all teacher departures statewide fell into this category, accounting for 6,104 educators, or 52.8% of all exits.”
avery-stoss said retirement remains another major factor driving turnover. She said pennsylvania’s aging population has translated into an aging educator workforce, and retirements have consistently represented one of the largest reasons teachers leave their jobs.
in the region of lackawanna, luzerne, and wayne counties, avery-stoss said approximately 40% of education workers are between the ages of 45 and 64 — meaning a significant number are approaching retirement age.
avery-stoss said local data mirrors the statewide trend. In lackawanna county, teacher departures increased from 74 in 2020-2021 to 124 in 2022-2023. During that most recent year, 56.5% of departing educators left their positions, but remained in education elsewhere, while another 33.1% retired.
avery-stoss said luzerne county experienced similar challenges. Teacher departures climbed from 132 in 2021-2022 to 160 in 2022-2023. For the first time in the period studied, she said educators moving to other positions within education slightly outnumbered retirements as the leading cause of turnover.
at the same time, avery-stoss said fewer people are entering the field. Teacher preparation programs are not producing enough graduates to replace those leaving. Licensure exams are also a potential barrier, as the tests can be costly, and many candidates do not pass on their first attempt.
the consequences are evident in schools across pennsylvania.
“during the 2024-2025 school year, there were more than 2,400 full-time classroom teacher vacancies statewide,” notes avery-stoss. “As shortages persist, districts increasingly rely on substitute teachers and emergency permits to fill classrooms.”
although the reasons behind pennsylvania’s teacher shortage are complex, avery-stoss said a multi-level approach can help chip away at the problem. She said potential solutions include collaboration between school districts, county education agencies, teacher preparation programs, and state policymakers.
“this effort should also include advocacy for state-level policy changes, such as increased funding for public education, improved teacher compensation packages, pension reform, education incentives, and the expansion of alternative certification pathways,” avery-stoss said. “These strategic investments are key to building a stable educator workforce.”
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pennsylvania
pennsylvania, new jersey face weekend storms with flooding risk before sunday clears out
published
2 days agoon
august 22, 2026by
press room
philadelphia – parts of pennsylvania and new jersey could see strong thunderstorms and localized flash flooding late saturday night into sunday morning as a cold front moves through the region.
what to expect in pennsylvania and new jersey
what we know:
the national weather service says showers and thunderstorms are likely as the front approaches overnight.
the greatest chance for strong to potentially severe storms is north and west of philadelphia and into northern new jersey after midnight through the pre-dawn hours sunday.
locally heavy rain could lead to isolated flash flooding in those areas, according to the national weather service.
saturday flash flood threat(fox weather)
what about saturday?
what we know:
showers and possibly a thunderstorm could affect extreme southern new jersey saturday morning into early afternoon.
forecasters said the heaviest rain is now expected to stay south and east of most of the region, reducing the earlier flooding concern. The remaining excessive-rainfall risk is focused on delmarva and cape may county.
when does the weather improve?
what’s next:
the cold front is expected to pass through late sunday morning.
conditions should improve sunday afternoon, with dry and seasonable weather expected monday through at least the middle of next week.
jersey shore rip current risk
the national weather service has issued a moderate risk for dangerous rip currents at the jersey shore on saturday.
beachgoers should only swim near a lifeguard and avoid entering the water if caught in a rip current. Instead, swim parallel to the shore until out of the current.
the source: this article was written using information from the national weather service in mount holly, new jersey and fox weather. |
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| Legislative Roundup: Lt. Col. Bivens welcomes 47 troopers to Pennsylvania State |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (5 reads) | |
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The times leader legislative roundup: lt. Col. Bivens welcomes 47 troopers to pennsylvania state police bill o?Boyle, the times leader, wilkes-barre, pa. Mon, august 24, 2026 at 1:16 am utc 6 min read add yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on google.
aug. 23—wilkes-barre — lt. Col. George bivens, acting commissioner of the pennsylvania state police (psp), welcomed 47 new troopers this week during a graduation ceremony at lcbc manheim.
the 176th cadet class completed approximately 27 weeks of rigorous training at the psp academy to earn the rank of trooper.
for nearly six months, this dedicated group of women and men demonstrated remarkable strength, leadership, courage, discipline, resilience, and commitment to complete the rigors of the academy and earn the rank of trooper, said lieutenant colonel bivens. I am beyond proud to welcome these brave individuals to our psp family, and i have the utmost confidence in their ability to successfully serve, protect, and uphold the law across the commonwealth.
advertisement advertisement gov. Josh shapiro and lieutenant governor austin davis continue to aid psps mission to protect the safety of pennsylvania communities by securing $16.2 million in the 2026-27 state budget to support four additional cadet classes, approximately 380 troopers.
since taking office, the shapiro-davis administration has secured funding for 16 cadet classes to train over 1,600 new psp troopers. To date, 673 cadets have graduated and joined the ranks of psp under shapiros tenure as governor.
the 176th cadet class is the sixth class to complete the psp academy without a college credit requirement for the position of trooper. The shapiro-davis administration eliminated the college requirement for applicants in august 2023. As a result, the psp saw a 69% increase in applicants in 2025 compared to 2022, when the college credit requirement was still in place.
during the ceremony, five cadets received special awards and recognition:
advertisement advertisement —levi j. Wallace: american legion award for all-around academic, physical, ethical, and moral qualifications; daniel f. Dunn high scholastic award for the highest level of academic achievement in the class.
—gunnar h. Frankenfield: gesford high pistol award for the highest score on the departments pistol qualification course.
—tyler elsdon: colonel ronald m. Sharpe leadership award for exemplifying the qualities of leadership.
—brandon w. Knapp: john k. Schafer memorial award for the highest combined score on a series of physical skills tests.
—briar w. Kentzel: colonel paul j. Chylak memorial driver proficiency award for the highest proficiency in driver safety training.
advertisement advertisement psps latest hiring cycle is open until sept. 30. Those interested in becoming a state trooper can find application requirements, job benefits, and other details at patrooper.Com .
dmvas keystone state challenge academy accepting applications for first 2027 class
the pennsylvania department of military and veterans affairs (dmva) keystone state challenge academy (ksca) is now accepting applications for its first class of 2027, which begins in january.
there is no tuition cost to attend and meals, housing, uniforms and school supplies are provided at no charge.
a cornerstone of dmvas outreach, kscas mission of providing teens in jeopardy of not graduating on time or dropping out of school with a second chance at obtaining their basic education is centered around the national guard youth challenge programs eight core components: leadership; self-discipline; job skills; health and hygiene; values of community service and civic duty; physical fitness; responsibility to build a better life.
advertisement advertisement to meet growing demand for the program, the 2026-27 budget signed by shapiro increased funding for ksca by $80,000.
the december 2025 graduating class was the largest ksca class to-date with 75 graduates. Enrollment is expected to grow to more than 100 cadets in the coming years.
with kscas online eligibility checker at pa.Gov/ksca , applicants can quickly confirm their eligibility before completing the full application. Applicants can also request a mailed form by emailing ra-mvpachallenge@pa.Gov , or calling 717-861-7767 or 717-861-8831.
the opening of the academy at fort indiantown gap (ftig) in lebanon county in july 2022 formally established the national guard bureaus youth challenge program in pennsylvania.
advertisement advertisement the program is open to 16- to 18-year-old pennsylvania residents who are failing to progress in high school or may not be on a clear path to graduating. Applicants must be willing to be drug-free, free of felony convictions and voluntarily commit to the program.
the program lasts for five and one-half months as a residential phase, followed by 24 months of mentorship by academy staff in their home communities. Graduates work to receive high school credits, credentials or a ged. Ksca is also increasing in the number of graduates who earn their diplomas through act 158 legislation that allows for alternative pathways to graduation.
the ksca conducts two classes a year, one starting in mid-july and the other in mid-january. Applications are accepted all year long.
pa. Reaffirms commitment to serving and protecting pennsylvanians with disabilities
advertisement advertisement the shapiro administration this week reaffirmed its commitment to ensure the choices and freedoms of pennsylvanians with disabilities are protected so they can live, work, and participate fully in their chosen community in the wake of recent federal actions that threaten decades of progress.
in 1999, the united states supreme court decided olmstead v. L.C., A case that questioned how states comply with the americans with disabilities act (ada). The olmstead decision affirmed that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities is a form of discrimination under the ada and that people with disabilities should have opportunities to receive services in community settings as an alternative to institutional settings when appropriate, consistent with their needs and choices, and when such services can be reasonably provided.
right now, approximately 200,000 older adults and people with intellectual and physical disabilities — the highest in pennsylvania history — receive disability services in their homes and communities.
however, on july 20, the trump administration announced that the u.S. Department of justice would no longer rely on longstanding olmstead guidance when enforcing the ada.
advertisement advertisement more former federal employees choosing pa. To continue public service careers
in march 2025, shapiro signed executive order 2025-01 to fill critical vacancies in pennsylvanias workforce by recruiting experienced former federal employees.
this week, the shapiro administration announced 1,350 individuals with federal work experience have been hired since the order was signed. These roles include approximately 150 clerical positions, 130 corrections officer trainees, 95 caseworkers, 50 highway construction and maintenance workers, 65 nursing positions, as well as numerous specialized roles in information technology, science, law, engineering, and skilled trades.
this pace puts the shapiro administration on course to hire nearly 2,000 highly qualified and experienced former federal employees to fill critical vacancies across state government by the conclusion of the executive orders second year.
advertisement advertisement attracting great people to state government remains essential to delivering the strong, responsive services our residents expect and deserve, said secretary of administration neil weaver. As more former federal workers look for an employer that values their experience, innovation, and dedication to service, the commonwealth is proud to offer meaningful opportunities to continue their public service.
the federal government has reduced its workforce by nearly 272,000 employees since january 20, 2025, according to the office of personnel management. From january 2025 to june 2026, the number of workers employed by the federal government in pennsylvania also fell by 8,900, according to data from the department of labor & industry and u.S. Bureau of labor statistics.
local journalism matters, and your support makes it possible. You can help sustain this work by making a donation or choosing one of our subscription options. Subscribers enjoy valuable benefits, including full access to our e-edition, a reduced ad experience on timesleader.Com , and more.
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| Meet Janelle Ranek |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (6 reads) | |
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Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to janelle ranek. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
janelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
the biggest risk i’ve ever taken was deciding to make a living as an artist.
i knew from the time i was a kid that i loved creating, becoming different people, and making people laugh. Theater saved me. I didn’t attend college. Instead, i took a fast and furious detour into addiction. Even at my lowest, my imagination and need to create never left me. After getting sober, i realized something: i had to be an artist. There really wasn’t another option.
i tried working in sales for about five minutes. Every manager told me, “you have to believe in what you’re selling.” I didn’t. So, i quit, threw it out to the universe, and gave myself six months to be able to find work as an artist.
one audition led to another audition, which turned into a paying acting job, then an opportunity to become an actor/educator. This is when i discovered that i was a natural teacher and that i could combine my skills as a performer with education in my own unique way.
for the next 35 years, i built a career that looked nothing like i imagined. I worked with young people in charter and alternative schools, adults with disabilities, and communities that often get overlooked. I found that my own struggles helped me connect with people in a real way. Along the way, i wrote original plays, became an artistic director, performed professional improv, and created a one-woman holiday show where i play multiple characters.
then the universe stepped in again. I lost my longtime teaching jobs and suddenly found myself unemployed.
after the panic wore off, i realized i’d become comfortable and complacent. I was showing up for a paycheck instead of a purpose. So, i took another leap.
with the unwavering support of my wife, i reinvented my career. Today i teach improv to adults and seniors, use theater with adults with disabilities, and lead professional development workshops that use improv to build communication, teamwork, and confidence. I continue to create original performance work, which i plan to adapt into a show that can be toured.
as an artist, when i truly embrace my wildest ideas and take the path that scares the shit out of me, more often than not i find the greatest rewards.
as always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
as an actor/educator i teach using improv, theatre, storytelling and multimedia. My experience and ability to tailor each lesson to meet learners where they are is what makes me successful.
for more than 30 years i’ve worked with reluctant adults in required professional development seminars, neurodiverse people, and distrustful kids in a level 5 ebd (emotional and behavioral disorders) setting. I have worked with k-12 and adults in a variety of settings: traditional public schools, alternative and charter schools, after school and community programming. Much of my work has been with underserved populations in north minneapolis and the east and west sides of st. Paul. Classes have included: improv, leadership, peer mentoring, storytelling, speech, creating and editing podcasts, creating filming and editing documentaries and science tv shorts, scene reading, writing and performance.
for the past nine years, i’ve led a residency at guadalupe alternative programs (gap) school in west st. Paul, working with young adult refugees and immigrants as they pursue their high school diplomas and build their english skills. It’s one of the most rewarding projects i do. I come in as a stranger and ask these students—from all over the world—to take big risks: play improv games, share their culture, tell personal, often painful stories, and eventually perform…in english. Throughout the project i watch them grow from hesitant participants to confident performers who understand how their stories can elicit empathy and spark change.
my work with senior citizens is incredibly rewarding for me. Through improv, i am able to bring laughter, socialization, and support physical and cognitive skills to groups in varied settings.
as an experienced director and teaching artist, i work with adults with disabilities, creating theatre, i’ve directed everything from “aesop’s fables” to adapting “the sound of music” and “i love lucy” episodes. I teach improv classes to reinforce social skills.
i also direct plays at hastings high school and have coached professional actors in improv and sketch writing with the rev theatre company in auburn, new york. I lead professional development sessions for educators, youth workers, and other professionals—offering practical ways to integrate theatre and improv techniques into their work.
i’ve been performing my original one-woman show, “letters to santa”, at the bryant lake bowl for over 20 years. I play 10 different characters; every year is always a new show. My wife, brenda lucy, is my co-writer and co-creator. Like my teaching, this work is rooted in connection and authentic engagement with the audience.
whether i’m creating new comedy, collaborating with agencies, or working alongside educators to meet specific goals, i approach it all with curiosity, creativity, and heart. I’m always learning, evolving, and finding new joy in the process. I strongly believe in the transformative power of the arts.
is there mission driving your creative journey?
my mission is simple: i want people to discover that they’re more creative, capable, and courageous than they think they are.
as both an actor and an educator, i use improv as a tool to help people step outside their comfort zone, trust themselves, connect with others, and have fun doing it. Whether i’m teaching a community education class, working with seniors to strengthen cognitive skills, or using theater with adults with disabilities to build confidence and social skills, the goal is always the same.
i want people to leave feeling a little braver, a little more connected, and most importantly, understand that laughter can change the way we see ourselves, each other and how we show up in life.
i have created my own brand which is inside out underwear – this name has double meaning for me. One, it’s silly and makes people laugh, and two, the initials are iou – which is at the core of my work, giving back and passing it on.
what do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
the most rewarding part of being an artist is watching people leave happier than when they arrived.
as a performer, making an audience laugh is the most important part of my work. That’s why i continue to challenge myself by creating a brand-new one-woman show every year, playing ten completely different characters in a 90-minute comedy. I’ve been doing it for more than 20 years. This show has developed a following and people come back year after year to spend the holidays with characters they have come to love as well and to meet the new characters we’ve created.
i’m also lucky to create these shows with my wife, brenda lucy. She’s a librarian by profession, but she’s also my co-creator and creative partner. She challenges me to be honest, take bigger risks, and never settle.
as an educator, the reward is different but just as meaningful. I love watching people surprise themselves. People walk into class convinced they’re “not creative” and leave after taking risks, laughing, and realizing they’re capable of much more than they thought. That’s why i believe so strongly in improv. I believe that the power of play can be the path to confidence, communication, problem-solving, and genuine growth.
contact info:
- website:
https://insideoutunderwear.Com/ - instagram: @insideoutunderwear_iou
- facebook: @janelleranek
- youtube: @insideoutunderwear_iou
image credits
thomas bonnieville, brenda lucy, project soar
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| Meet Gabby Hinz |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (5 reads) | |
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Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to gabby hinz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
gabby, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
yes! I am officially a corporate creative. For the last two years, i have been an assistant fashion designer for woven tops at a large brand. Going into college, i was lucky enough to know that i wanted to study fashion, but my only real experience was thrift-flipping and studying street style forums. I am slightly embarrassed by my first few projects in school, and i remember reading a review from my very first professor saying i don’t have what it takes for the industry. I came very close to quitting.
i learned a lot about trust and patience. I had to hold onto my initial spark at each step to keep going! To reach the goal of creative employment, you need to truly believe in what you have to offer, and act like it. Reach out to everyone you can, and be proud of what you have.
i don’t think speeding up the process should be goal. Instead, ride the river and be patient! Now that i’ve “made it,” it is easy to forget about the passion projects and the reason i got here. Make sure to treasure them in your process.
great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
i’m gabby hinz, a fashion designer with a background in childrenswear and knitwear. I love to design knit graphics and anything else that brings me joy! I currently design woven tops at chico’s and am always looking for new projects to jump into. I love to collaborate, especially across other creative categories.
i got into fashion design through my interest in subcultures. It is fascinating to learn how dedicated people are to their collective. I especially loved j-fashion and fawned over fruits magazines. By junior year of high school, i knew i wanted to be on a design team, but i had no idea what it would take to get there. Thankfully, that’s okay! I can’t recommend discovering yourself at art school enough to a young creative.
after being in the industry 2 years, i am now rebuilding my personal brand. My work’s foundation is in whimsy and intuition. What i do in my spare time inspires me – drawing with pencils and pastels, reading comics, people watching. I take in everything i can, even when there isn’t much around. The beautiful part of corporate design is how your art on the outside influences your work on the inside. The balance of these is my focus.
we often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
there are specific criteria to be called an artist.
while talking to my mom the other day, i mentioned still feeling like an amateur. She was shocked and had to remind me that i get paid for my art now! If i can’t call myself an artist now, i never will. Even still, i am no more a real artist than the self-taught or the students a few years behind me. Confidence in the label is so freeing!
is there mission driving your creative journey?
some sort of intangible creative euphoria. I had a well-timed “click” in junior year of college that felt like breaking through a creative wall. The stars aligned and i knew that i was making something good! It is very difficult to keep that momentum going. My mission is to keep chasing those walls, and break them all down!
contact info:
image credits
vogue runway, scad fall 2024
dylan cole
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| PM Wongs National Day Rally 2024: 10 Key Highlights |
| Posted on Monday, August 24 @ 00:03:49 PDT (6 reads) | |
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Singapore prime minister lawrence wong announced comprehensive national policy updates during his national day rally speech on aug 23 at ite college central in ang mo kio, targeting family financial support, housing accessibility, technological regulation, and long-term territorial planning.
the sweeping measures are designed to keep the republic trusted, relevant, and resilient. According to prime minister wong, family support and technological advancement form part of one larger mission to prepare the nation for a rapidly changing world.
sg child support package replaces baby bonus scheme families will see a significant restructuring of state subsidies under the newly introduced sg child support package. According to prime minister wong, the program will replace the existing baby bonus scheme and deliver approximately $70,000 in direct financial support to every singaporean child by age 17, regardless of birth order.
under the updated framework, children will receive $2,000 annually in child credits from age 1 to 16. This funding will be supplemented by annual edusave top-ups during primary and secondary school years, followed by a $10,000 deposit into a post-secondary education account when the child turns 17. By comparison, parents currently receive between $27,500 and $56,500 per child depending on birth order.
children born on or after april 1, 2027, will fall entirely under the new package. Those born in or turning 1 to 17 in 2026 will receive benefits scaled to their corresponding age in 2026 and subsequent years.
did you know? Prime minister wong delivered his national day rally address on aug 23 at ite college central in ang mo kio, outlining a total of 10 major policy highlights in english, malay, and mandarin.
expanded childcare leave and lowered preschool fees working parents will receive increased flexibility through an expanded childcare leave scheme. Every working parent will become eligible for eight, 10, or 12 days of childcare leave annually, determined by whether they have one, two, or three or more singaporean children aged 12 and below. Current regulations limit working parents to six days if their youngest child is six or younger, and two days if the youngest child is between seven and 12. Furthermore, the government will cover the total cost of all statutory child-related leave up to the reimbursement limit, shifting away from the previous cost-sharing arrangement between the government and employers. The start date for this updated leave policy will be announced later.
preschool costs will also drop significantly at government-supported centres. Full-day childcare fees will decrease to $150 per month, while infant care fees will fall to $300 per month. These reduced rates will apply to every singaporean child regardless of household income once the target is fully achieved by 2030. Currently, families above certain income thresholds pay nearly $600 monthly for childcare and more than $1,000 monthly for infant care. Lower-income families will continue receiving supplementary subsidies.
housing policy adjustments and ballot incentives to accommodate demographic shifts in marriage and family planning, the income ceiling for build-to-order (bto) flats will increase from $14,000 to $16,000. Executive condominium (ec) income ceilings will rise from $16,000 to $18,000. Prime minister wong noted that these revisions address the trend of singaporeans marrying later and crossing existing thresholds before settling down.
[live] national day rally 2026: pm wong’s malay and mandarin speeches for hdb buyers, the bto adjustment takes effect for individuals applying for an hdb flat eligibility letter starting aug 24. The new ec ceiling applies to developments with land sale tender closing dates from the same date, though it excludes balance units in existing ecs. Additionally, starting with the february 2027 sales exercise, first-time bto and sale of balance flat applicants will receive one additional ballot chance for every child they have or expect.
stricter social media rules and ai safeguards digital regulation will tighten as singapore addresses safety concerns for minors online. The government will require social media platforms to implement and enforce robust, reliable age verification checks. Prime minister wong stated that reliance on voluntary user age declarations—typically set at a minimum age of 13—is failing. The republic plans to prioritize safety by design and may consider further platform restrictions if existing safeguards prove inadequate. Additional details regarding these requirements will be released soon.
in artificial intelligence, singapore intends to build coalitions to establish practical safeguards. Citing an incident where an openai agent bypassed its test environment to attack a company, prime minister wong emphasized that the country will not embrace new technology blindly. Instead, authorities plan to anticipate risks, establish safeguards, and maintain human control.
autonomous vehicles, dialect film guidelines, and island infrastructure transportation and cultural policies will also evolve. Autonomous vehicle (av) trials in punggol have generated strong public interest for expanded routes, additional pick-up points, and 24-hour service. Prime minister wong stated that av use will scale up progressively once the technology is proven, keeping safety as a primary focus while accounting for an aging taxi workforce and difficulties in recruiting bus captains. Adoption will be managed carefully to support affected drivers.
cultural guidelines will shift in september when screening limits on dialect films are lifted, provided the films include chinese subtitles and a mandarin-dubbed version. Prime minister wong acknowledged dialects as valuable cultural heritage while affirming that singapore’s bilingual policy and the promotion of mandarin will continue.
[live] national day rally 2026: pm wong’s english speech long-term territorial planning includes forming a new western island in the coming decades by merging pulau semakau, pulau bukom, pulau sudong, and smaller southern islands. This merged landmass will support petrochemicals, new industries, and future power-generation infrastructure. Separately, sentosa’s beaches and waterfront will be enhanced, ntuc will construct a downtown south resort on pulau brani, and land will be reclaimed to link sentosa and brani.
finally, singapore is studying the feasibility of building undersea tunnels to connect pulau tekong to the mainland. Reclamation of southern pulau tekong will expand training space for the singapore armed forces (saf), leaving roughly 500 hectares available for future civilian use.
frequently asked questions what financial support will singaporean children receive under the new sg child support package?
every singaporean child born on or after april 1, 2027—and scaled cohorts born in or turning 1 to 17 in 2026—will receive $2,000 annually in child credits from age 1 to 16, annual edusave top-ups during primary and secondary school, and a $10,000 post-secondary education account top-up at age 17, totaling around $70,000 by age 17.
how will childcare and infant care fees change by 2030?
full-day childcare fees at government-supported preschool centres will decrease to $150 per month, and infant care fees will drop to $300 per month for all singaporean children regardless of household income.
what are the new income ceilings for bto flats and executive condominiums?
the bto income ceiling is raised from $14,000 to $16,000, and the executive condominium income ceiling is raised from $16,000 to $18,000.
how do these sweeping policy changes balance immediate family relief with singapore’s long-term infrastructure goals? |
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