New York’s Charter Schools Live Up to Their Promise

Success Academy in the Bronx has a 90% poverty rate yet has reached a 96% proficiency rate in reading

By Jason L. Riley. Excerpts:

"we know from decades of empirical research that public charter schools often outperform their traditional counterparts. The problem is that the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and other opponents of school choice see charters as a threat—not to kids but to unions."

"the decline in the quality of public education in the U.S. predates the advent of charters in the 1990s. Charter schools are being blamed for a pre-existing trend"

"A study of reading outcomes in New York state public schools that serve high concentrations of economically disadvantaged children found a disproportionate number of charter schools winning the highest marks. Charters were 9.5% of the study’s sample but “earned 38.5% of the spots on our list of exemplars.”" 

"The 10 highest-scoring schools were located in New York City, and seven of those were charter schools in the Bronx, which is home to some of the poorest ZIP Codes in the country. “All serve a high concentration of low-income students, with 66% to 92% of children qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch,” the report noted. “And yet, 90% to 97% of their third graders were proficient readers in 2024, the year of our analysis. In comparison, the proficiency rate for all third graders across the state was just 43%.”"

"The top-scoring school was a Success Academy charter school in the Bronx, where the student-body poverty rate is 90% and 94% of students scored proficient in third-grade reading in 2024."

"A wait list in New York City runs to 163,000 students, yet lawmakers have placed an arbitrary limit on the number of charters" 

Are Trump’s Tariffs Winning?

He says yes, but let’s look at the evidence that voters feel judging by their views of the economy.

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"How much better would the economy be now without the tariffs and their on-again, off-again imposition? Prices on many goods would be lower, for one thing. Tariffs don’t cause general inflation, but they do raise relative prices."

"the authors [researchers at Harvard] note that the “retail pass-through” of the tariffs has been 24%—a measure of the extent to which a given tariff rate feeds through to consumer prices, given that the cost of the good at the border is only one part of the final price. This pass-through rate is higher than under Mr. Trump’s 2018-19 China tariffs." 

"The Harvard economists note in the same paragraph that U.S. consumers are bearing up to 43% of the tariff burden, with U.S. companies absorbing most of the rest.That aligns with other research"

"Americans pay one way or the other—via higher prices or less choice."

"The rates he declared on “Liberation Day” created a market swoon that quickly caused him to back down"

"most of those are far below his “liberation” rates."

"a major carve-out for consumer electronics"

"exceptions have since included bananas, coffee, cocoa, jet engines and rare-earth minerals"

"China. Beijing called Mr. Trump’s bluff with hefty retaliatory tariffs of up to 140% on American goods and a squeeze on rare-earth exports. The result has been a crisis for American soybean farmers"

"stock market . . . tends to rise when Mr. Trump dials back a tariff threat" 

"manufacturing employment declined by some 63,000 jobs in 2025"

"employment in steel production has barely budged during his year in office, and employment in industries that use steel such as auto manufacturing is declining." 

Mass Deportation and Florida Jobs

The state passed an E-Verify law. Job growth quickly declined

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"The Sunshine State’s job growth was consistently among the highest in the U.S. during the pandemic and the prior decade thanks to low taxes and a pro-business environment. Covid lockdowns in progressive states supercharged Florida’s population and workforce growth. But in May 2023, Florida Republicans passed legislation aimed at countering Joe Biden’s porous border policies.

The law’s centerpiece requires private employers with 25 or more employees to use the federal government’s E-Verify system to confirm the work authorization of new hires. Violations could result in $1,000 daily fines and suspension of a business’s license. Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed to be “fighting back against reckless federal government policies.”"

"the E-Verify mandate makes it harder for migrants to work to support themselves, and it adds a burden on employers. E-Verify can also be unreliable because it relies on federal records that aren’t always up to date."

"The state ranked 26th in the country in job growth over the past 12 months"

"One farmer told Spectrum News in early 2024 that he needed more workers to pick strawberries but that he purposefully limited the size of his workforce to less than 25 workers"

Virginians Will Pay, and Keep Paying, for ‘Affordable’ Energy

A judge overrules Trump’s effort to cancel CVOW, an offshore wind project, that will cost more than $20 billion.

By Judge Glock. Excerpts:

"the electricity produced by this Project will be among the most expensive sources of power” in the U.S., whether measured by total capacity created or by actual electricity delivered. It is also the “costliest project being undertaken by a regulated utility in the United States.”"

"The state expected the cost of construction at about $10 billion, but once financing and other long-term costs are included, the total will be more than $20 billion."

"These costs don’t include the billions of dollars in federal tax credits for the project"

"offshore wind is the most expensive type of energy generation available—besides a type of gas turbine used mainly during emergencies—and is more than twice the cost per megawatt hour of onshore wind."

"the Virginia Clean Economy Act mandated that several fossil-fuel generators shut down."

"It will make the most power in spring and fall, when demand is lowest, and the least in summer afternoons, when demand is highest."

"the project would typically produce less than half its full power capacity." 

Government Won’t Help the AI Job Transition

By Phil Gramm and Michael Solon. Excerpts:

"our ability to generate and sustain higher living standards, has come in part from developing new technology and benefiting from being the first to implement it, and in part from our ability to move labor and capital dislocated by the wave of creative destruction efficiently into higher and better uses."

"On average, every month since 2000 some 5.1 million American workers were separated from their jobs or were laid off and more than 5.2 million new jobs were created. In 2025, three times as many Americans changed jobs as did workers in the European Union."

"most industrial subsidies in China are used to sustain noncompetitive businesses."

 "The 1962 Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provided training, job-search and income support to workers harmed by foreign trade, has provided benefits to more than five million people. Numerous public and private studies have highlighted TAA’s failure by comparing the transition of TAA beneficiaries with workers who lost their jobs during the same period but didn’t receive TAA."

"TAA is insufficient in supporting dislocated workers to re-enter the labor market. It didn’t improve earnings. Benefits were used mostly as income support, and nonparticipants were re-employed faster than those who participated in TAA."

"for every week of extra benefits [of unemployment insurance], the covered worker was unemployed for as much as an extra day."

"many workers find jobs in the weeks immediately before and after their benefits run out."

"on average the longer unemployment insurance is provided, the longer the worker will remain unemployed."

"as the annual federal welfare spending surged to more than $70,000 per poverty family, labor-force participation among able-bodied persons in the lowest income quintile collapsed to 36%, from 68% in 1967." 

Cut Entitlements, Not Immigration

By Jeffrey Miron and Eric Jin.

"President Trump’s suspension of immigrant visas for 75 countries took effect on January 21. The pause affects those who seek to immigrate to the US permanently, not short-term visitors like tourists or students. The administration’s rationale for the freeze is to reduce the fiscal burden of immigrants, asserting that “[foreign nationals]...extract wealth from the American people.”

However, America’s fiscal issues don’t arise from the impacts of new immigrants; rather, they stem from existing, overly generous transfer programs. A recent financial report by the Bureau of Fiscal Service warns that entitlement spending, Medicare and Social Security in particular, are on an unsustainable path. Indeed, the CBO projects that spending on Medicare and Social Security as a percentage of GDP is increasing at a far higher rate than federal revenue growth due to aging demographics.

It is important to clarify that the unsustainable nature of such transfer programs is independent of the participation of immigrants. According to this study, legal immigrants consumed “24% less welfare and entitlement benefits than native-born Americans” in 2023. This is largely because immigrants arrive young, thus entering entitlement programs later, and take many years to naturalize.

Moreover, the same legal immigrants actually reduce the strain on transfer programs as their tax contributions far outweigh their fiscal burden. A 2024 study states that “legal immigrants increase natives’ welfare [because their] tax contributions…greatly exceed the benefits they receive, thereby reducing the tax burden on natives.” Quantitatively, this study examining the net fiscal effect of immigration found that in 2023, immigrants paid $1.3 trillion in taxes while only receiving $761 billion in benefits. In fact, over the 30-year period from 1994 to 2023, immigrants had a positive net fiscal impact of $14.47 trillion. Even after considering second-generation-immigrant children, the figure remains positive at $7.93 trillion.

Finally, most transfer programs already exclude immigrants partially or fully. For example, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 bars legal immigrants from federal benefits for 5 years or until they naturalize while programs like Medicare require 40 quarters of Medicare taxes before eligibility.

In conclusion, America’s fiscal challenges arise not from public spending on immigrants but from the unsustainable generosity of its transfer programs. Even as legal immigrants consume fewer benefits and contribute more via taxes, an aging population and increasing structural costs only increase the federal deficit. The root causes of spending imbalances are missed by the Trump Administration’s immigration restrictions and are better addressed by reducing the welfare state—independent of immigration—or by further restricting immigrant access to the welfare system."

Banning Investors Won’t Fix America’s Housing Shortage

By Edward P. Stringham.

"President Trump just signed an executive order intended to reduce housing costs by imposing a government ban on private equity firms and institutional investors from participating in the single-family homes marketplace. Not only does this proposed overreach interfere with market forces that want to spur more investment in housing, and increase supply, but it will do little to improve housing affordability. 

It is a perfect example of the adage: don’t just do something; stand there. Renters would be better off without this proposal. 

At present, only 3% of all single-family homes are owned by institutional investors. Forcing those investors to sell, or blocking new ones from entering the market, would do little to lower prices. In fact, investment in housing helps increase supply. When you cut off investment, you get less construction and fewer homes. When supply falls, prices rise. It’s that simple. 

Trump states, “People live in homes, not corporations.” True enough. But the main point of having investments in housing is so investors can rent them out, such that only “people in live [those investment] homes, not corporations.”  

Moreover only “people” invest in investment firms, so why is government excluding whole groups of people from investing more in housing markets? Banning institutional investors or private equity firms from investing in housing makes as much sense as banning institutional investors or private equity firms from investing in stocks.  

Consider this analogy from fractional, and often institutional, ownership of companies (ie, the stock market): If I want to invest in high tech, I could show up in Silicon Valley to buy an entire company, but the only problem is I don’t have a trillion dollars sitting around. Even if I could afford it, I do not want to buy all of a small firm. 

Instead, stock markets allow millions of people like me to invest small amounts of money to own a small fraction of a company. I can buy just one share through my stockbroker or even through a mutual or index fund that holds small pieces of many companies. Private equity brings many investors and even the richest investor Elon Musk needed to use private equity when he led a team of investors to purchase Twitter. 

Private equity and institutional investments are simply a set of tools and ownership structures that people use to expand investments. Private equity and institutional investments also make markets run more smoothly, and that is good for everyone. 

The same holds true for real estate, and we should be encouraging more investment in the real estate industry not less. 

Economists recognize that at present many zoning laws interfere with the supply of housing and that drives prices more than where they should be. Another set of problems arises with Mamdani-style price controls on housing that encourage landlords to invest less in their housing and sometimes even abandon their housing. But the solution is to reduce those government restrictions, not to reduce investments in housing.  

I personally have benefited from private equity firms investing in housing on more than one occasion. When I moved to Hartford 18 years ago, I did not want to pony up a few hundred thousand dollars for a home when I was unsure where I wanted to live. Instead, I had the benefit of interacting with a Boston-based private equity firm that had gathered institutional money and built the tallest residential building in Connecticut. All I had to do was show up with one month’s rent deposit.  

I was always grateful for that private equity firm, and at the beginning of each month I would write them a thank you card in the form of my rent. I, paying customer, benefited them and the private equity funded landlord who fronted all of the costs benefited me. Denying the idea that investments can be mutually beneficial for investors and consumers is entering Mamdani territory. 

Would Trump retroactively apply this new ban on institutional investments to the residential projects he worked on in the past? I imagine that at least some, but more likely most, of Trump led real estate projects involved him lining up investors including institutional ones to pay for the costs up front and ideally get compensated with profits later. That’s the American way. 

The people who live in apartments, multi-family, or single-family homes made possible by institutional investors and private equity real estate funds all benefit. Adam Smith’s invisible hand coordinated the investors, architects, builders, and workers spending years getting the property in great shape for me and all of my neighbors. We should not ban investments and institutional investing in real estate and instead be grateful for what they do."