Blog

There’s no question that children throughout the country have suffered learning losses since the onset of the pandemic and the transition to virtual learning. The vital questions now center around how much learning loss has occurred and how can those losses most effectively be overcome. Thanks to ne… Read More

State legislators are considering the elimination of the personal income tax in the upcoming Spring session. These discussions have sparked a conversation about taxation and why it is essential to a government’s functioning.   Opponents to abolishing the income tax claim that West Virgini… Read More

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle… Read More

Some things in life simply require a second serving. Ice cream, Netflix episodes, and French fries all aren’t the same without just a little bit more. Unfortunately, our gluttonous state government has gone in for seconds- on an expensive and complex technology contract. As reported by Metro News, G… Read More

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 V… Read More

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… Read More

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… Read More

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… Read More

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 co… Read More

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… Read More