Though hard to believe, West Virginia has some interesting history when it comes to paradigm-shifting deregulatory acts. 40 years ago, on October 14, 1980, the Staggers Rail Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter – freeing up the freight market from onerous regulation. Representing West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, Harley Staggers was a…

Adam Kissel has made a career of helping others and advocating for liberty. He supported civic literacy with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, fundamental rights at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and philanthropy at the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) and The Philanthropy Roundtable (TPR). He has even spent time as the deputy assistant secretary…

Earlier this week, as I was scrolling through news articles looking for what to highlight in our weekly newsletter, I came across a very interesting piece detailing how the sons of a single father in upstate New York were about to be “exited” from their NY school district because they had been doing their distance…

Have you ever been curious about the intersection between free-market policy and urban issues? Do you wonder if rural America and urban America have anything in common? Today, we dive deep into the Jagged Heart of Appalachia as Garrett interviews Scott Beyer, the founder of Market Urbanism Report. He shares with us how he became…

Education, as you likely know if you are reading this, is an important policy area for the Cardinal Institute. For this reason, like Alice, we can often find ourselves going down a rabbit hole while conducting research on the topic, and on the rare occasion, we find a shiny, beautiful nugget. Peter Thiel, the founder…

This week Garrett interviews Andrew Campanella, President of National School Choice Week about his new book The School Choice Roadmap: 7 Steps to Finding the Right School for Your Child. In this episode, Andrew tells us why he wrote the book, what he thinks about the school choice debates raging across the country, and his…

Some state vs state differences just make sense: Louisiana has more gator attacks than Texas, Florida gets more tourism than Alabama, and Maine catches more lobsters than Minnesota. One that makes no sense can be found at the edges of the great state of West Virginia. According to the bureau of Economic Analysis, people in…

In today’s episode, Garrett interviews Jason Huffman, the State Director of Americans for Prosperity - West Virginia and a native West Virginian. Jason shares with us stories about his family’s proud heritage as coal-miners, why he decided to stay in West Virginia, and what he thinks it will take to build the West Virginia Miracle. …

Schools reopened across the Mountain State this Tuesday, but despite additional measures taken by many schools to remain safe, nine counties were prohibited from conducting in-person classes this week. The West Virginia School Re-entry Metrics and Protocol Program, a color-coded map used to track coronavirus cases and determine eligibility for districts to reopen schools, has…

Teachers, parents, students, and everyone in between are gearing up for some kind of start to the 2020-21 school year. There’s no denying that uncertainty is the prevailing theme this school year.   Will the year start in person or virtually? Can the spread of the coronavirus be contained? What will enrollments look like? Is…