Free Republic

The CFB rankings are out and TCU is #3. Surprising. They jumped Florida State. Alabama remains #1, then Oregon followed by TCU and FSU.

The Michigan Department of Education’s failure to incorporate students’ socioeconomic status in their high-stakes “Top To Bottom” rankings of public schools means the department is ignoring what is a prime determinant in academic achievement. Schools that perform in the bottom 5 percent of the MDE’s rankings risk being taken over by the state and also could be closed. Selcuk Sirin, an associate professor at New York University who has performed several academic studies on the topic, said a family’s expectations, how much they value educational achievement and the level of school-related activities in the home are partly determined by socioeconomic...

Those who run watchdog news websites are scratching their heads and trying to make sense of the latest data released by a California company that measures website traffic. According to data for July through September, almost every major website – from WND to the Drudge Report and Breitbart – saw its rankings drop on Alexa.com while pro-government sites mostly went up. Alexa Internet Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon. Familiar names in alternative media like the Drudge Report, Breitbart, Infowars, the Blaze, Newsmax, WND, FoxNews.com, and the Daily Caller all saw their rankings plummet while sites such as NPR.org, the...

The College Football Czar: 2014 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2014 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains the Czar's rankings for all 128 teams in Division I-A football, as well as conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you...

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has released a study that says the state of Michigan is using a flawed system to evaluate schools. As a result, schools are at risk of being penalized based not on their actual performance, but based on the portion of low-income students they enroll, according to the study. A key flaw of the state's ranking system is that it fails to take into account the socioeconomic status of students, according to the Mackinac Center study. Martin Ackley, director of the Office of Public and Government Affairs for the Michigan Department of Education, does not...

U.S. News & World Report released its college rankings at midnight and, as usual, there was no suspense in which university was crowned No. 1. During this annual autumn rite, Harvard University sometimes grabs the No. 1 spot and in other years Princeton does. Last year both shared the title. For the 2014 rankings, Princeton came out on top. In reaction to the criticism that mars this annual collegiate beauty pageant, U.S. News once again tinkered with its college rankings methodology. The rankings goliath gave less weight to class rank, which fewer high schools are reporting. On the other hand,...

These days, it’s becoming more difficult for gun owners across the country to find safe haven, as the powers that be on both federal and state levels begin introducing a quagmire of anti-gun legislation hindering the rights of law-abiding citizens. States like Illinois are notorious for their anti-gun agendas, while states like Texas are viewed as a sort of shooters’ paradise. But just how true are those reputations? To provide you, dear reader, with a primer of gun-friendly regions of the United States, we’ve analyzed all 50 states—and Washington, D.C.—and ranked them to find out which are the most pro-gun.States...

Two new studies show just how much work needs to be done to improve economic performance in Michigan and across the country. An analysis from Northwood University commissioned by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce looked at the state's economic competitiveness. While the state has improved in the past few years, particularly in state debt and taxation, Michigan has had a steady, decade-long decline in other economic areas compared to the rest of the country. The study looked at 200 variables including Gross State Product growth, tax policy, regulatory policy and the cost of doing business. While the past few years...

The United States, long considered the standard bearer for economic freedom among large industrial nations, has experienced a remarkable plunge in economic freedom during the past decade. From 1980 to 2000, the US was generally rated the third freest economy in the world, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Singapore. The ranking of the US has fallen precipitously; from second in 2000 to eighth in 2005 and 19th in 2010. By 2009, the United States had fallen behind Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Chile, and Mauritius, countries that chose not to follow the path of massive growth in government financed by...

Corporate Tax Competitiveness Rankings for 2012: U.S. Is #87Out of 90 Countries. For that one single statistic Obama should be thrown out of office. To be fair, I wonder what it was under the Bush '2000-2008 years. I'm going to look it up and post back here on what I find as soon as I can. 2012 Corporate Tax Competitiveness Rankings Cato Institute: Corporate Tax Competitiveness Rankings for 2012, by Duanjie Chen & Jack Mintz (both of University of Calgary, School of Public Policy): Cato ChartCorporate income tax reform is receiving serious consideration in Washington. The Obama administration has suggested...

The top 25 are posted at the link. Here is their summary of the top 10 most conservative colleges and universities: Ave Maria University Grove City College Franciscian University of Steubenville Freed-Hardeman University Dordt College Brigham Young University (Utah) Oklahoma Christian University Covenant College Northwestern College (Minnesota) Washington & Lee University

With each vote cast in Congress, freedom either advances or recedes. Heritage Action’s new legislative scorecard allows Americans to see whether their Members of Congress are fighting for freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society. The scorecard is comprehensive, covering the full spectrum of conservatism, and includes legislative action on issues both large and small. Heritage Action's legislative scorecard isn't graded on a curve – it is tough and we don't apologize. After all, we are conservatives, not tenured university professors.

According to numerous media sources and several highly esteemed philantropic organizations all over the World, Europe, Canada, NYC, LA, certain corners of South East Asia and Australia boast the best surroundings for eco-friendly prosperity and success found on this planet. Especially Europe does. If we are to trust the experts in this field, conditions for successful human life are better in Scandinavia and Central Europe than anywhere else on Earth. Being Scandinavian, I won't deny I enjoy reading about how foreigners praise my corner of the World and talk of our our nations as an enviable place in which to...

I, working with Cambria Consulting (see below), was involved heavily creating the WSJ's rankings which are in today's papers. All questions on the methods, I defer to them. College, or university, rankings are not and cannot be all-encompassing. This is because colleges are not singular entities, but serve at least three distinct purposes. The first, and probably foremost in most students' minds, is job training. This is rational: most employers now want a candidates to have a "degree" (a certificate only weakly correlated with education). To which school should a student go to get the best job? Second is in...

U.S. News and World Reports just released their U.S. university rankings for 2011 and the big shock is that Harvard just took sole possession of number 1 away from Princeton. But the big question is whether all this fancy education is actually worth it. We're returning to Payscale's rankings of colleges based on return on investment and comparing them to the US News and World Reports rankings. We've taken the top 20 schools from Payscale, based on ROI over a 30 year period, after graduating from undergrad study at the university, and provided U.S. News and World Rankings beside it....

Sweden has the world's most hooked-up economy, according to a new report from the World Economic Ranking (WEF). Nordic countries all performed well on the list in the WEF Global Information Technology report released on Thursday. Sweden displaced Denmark to rank first on the chart, with the Danes sliding to third place. Other Nordic countries were also in the top 10, with Finland in sixth place and Norway in tenth. Singapore crept closer to the top, moving up from fourth place last year to second place now. Fellow Asian economy Hong Kong was in eighth place, also gaining from 12th...

From this year's National Journal Vote Rankings: The 10 Most Liberal Senate Dems Most Conservative Senate GOPers 1. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) 1. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) 1. Roland Burris (D-IL) 2. Jim DeMint (R-SC) 1. Ben Cardin (D-MD) 3. Jim Bunning (R-KY) 1. Jack Reed (D-RI) 4. Tom Coburn (R-OK) 1. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) 5. Jim Risch (R-ID) 6. John Kerry (D-MA) 6. John Thune (R-SD) 6. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) 7. John Ensign (R-NV) 8. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) 8. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 9. Chris Dodd (D-CT) 9. Richard Burr (R-NC) 9. Dick Durbin (D-IL) 10. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

President/ Score/ rank 2009/rank 2000 Abraham Lincoln 902 1 1 George Washington 854 2 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt 837 3 2 Theodore Roosevelt 781 4 4 Harry S. Truman 708 5 5 John F. Kennedy 701 6 8 Thomas Jefferson 698 7 7 Dwight D. Eisenhower 689 8 9 Woodrow Wilson 683 9 6 Ronald Reagan 671 10 11

In the rankings game, one standard re-emerges: Great presidents must be...

If presidents of some of the nation's top liberal arts colleges get their way, they will no longer be included in the U.S. News and World Report's influential collegiate ranking system. At issue is the "reputation survey," part of the ranking system that is filled out by the presidents of colleges included in the survey. Presidents from some of the nation's leading private and liberal arts colleges met in Annapolis Tuesday to discuss a possible boycott. Approximately 80 presidents and 71 academic deans of the nation's leading liberal arts colleges attended the annual meeting of the Annapolis Group, an organization...