A Holiday Wishlist for Oregon

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

By Eric Fruits, Ph.D.

‘Tis the season for holiday wishes. And, toward that end, we at Cascade Policy Institute have some of our own wishes for the New Year.

We hope that someday soon, Oregon high school students who are 15 or 16 years old will be allowed to take the GED exam and graduate early with a diploma. Currently, it’s near impossible for high school students to take the GED. But, Cascade has a bill proposal that will change that and open up new opportunities to graduate early.

We wish that Oregon would join dozens of other states in fostering school choice. It can be as simple as enabling inter-district transfers or lifting the cap on charter school enrollment. It can be as bold as shifting state funding to support students, rather than the system. Just this year, Arizona expanded its school choice scholarship program to include all students. Oregon should follow their lead.

Lastly, a wish for all Oregonians. We hope that your power stays on in the years to come. Our elected leaders and unelected bureaucrats are taking drastic steps to electrify everything, from cars to stoves to furnaces. But, we simply don’t have enough electricity to do it. In this season of reflection, let’s hope that our policymakers take a pause in their march toward forced electrification, so that we can keep our lights on this Christmas and into the future.

Eric Fruits, Ph.D. is Vice President of Research at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.

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