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New NAEP Test Scores Are a Disaster. Blame Teachers Unions. <[link removed]> - Math and reading declines on the “main” NAEP follow the declines in math and reading reported in September on the NAEP long-term trend assessment of 9-year-olds. Although scores fell in nearly every state to a greater or lesser degree, as Harvard University’s Marty West found, student scores declined more on average in states where remote learning was more prevalent. The relationship between remote learning and learning declines is negative and statistically significant <[link removed]>, but the strength of the correlation is weak, with remote instruction explaining less than 10% of the change in test
scores, according to West’s analysis. Which means declines in test scores are most likely a combination of bad policies: school closures induced by teachers unions that require emergency remote instruction plus special interest groups’ preoccupation with radical gender ideology and critical race theory during this crisis. As early as the fall of 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting that in-person learning was rarely a source of COVID-19 outbreak. Yet teachers unions continued to fight to keep schools closed, some even doing so this year <[link removed]> in places such as Chicago,
Detroit, and Boston. Heritage Experts: Lindsey Burke <[link removed]> and Jonathan Butcher <[link removed]>  
 
Phoenix, Atlanta, and Miami Metros See Fastest Inflation <[link removed]> – Food, energy, and transportation are some of the fastest growing categories. Transportation costs are up across the country, with increases around 13% in metropolitan areas with both the highest and lowest overall inflation rates. The increase in food and beverage costs vary slightly among locations. Nationally, housing costs seem to be growing at moderate rates, obscuring that housing costs are growing quickly in some areas and slowly in others as Americans reshuffle where they live. Since housing comprises more than 40% of the consumer price index, changes in rents and home prices can have a substantial impact on the inflation figure for both the nation and individual regions. The cities and states with the fastest increases in housing costs also tend to have the highest inflation rates. Housing costs grew by 17.1% in Phoenix <[link removed]>, by 12.8% in
Atlanta <[link removed]>, and by 13.5% in Miami <[link removed]>. Meanwhile, housing costs rose by only 3.5% in San Francisco <[link removed]>, 4.9% in New
York <[link removed]> City, and 5.6% in metropolitan Washington <[link removed]>. Housing costs include both shelter and fuels and utilities. Heritage Experts: EJ Antoni <[link removed]> and Parker Sheppard <[link removed]>  
 
The Justice Department Gets Smacked Down <[link removed]> – Here, Justice Department lawyers failed entirely to abide by their ethical and professional duty to ensure that they do not engage in abusive discovery that is burdensome and, as the judge said, “not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible
evidence.” In fact, the judge noted that the new “narrowed” subpoena wasn’t really narrowed at all, it was asking for new information not even originally requested by the Justice Department. Judge Burken warned the department about the dire consequences of its misbehavior: Administrations change every four years, or at least every eight. Is the new standard going to be that these kind of subpoenas go out in legislation to any advocacy organization, and they want emails to their members, they want social media posts, they want things that the group just considered in their advocacy?…Is that where you think the Department of Justice thinks we need to go in this country? Because I promise you this, at some point this will
be aimed at the Southern Poverty Law [Center] and the ACLU, and their efforts, as well. Is this where we need to go? It is clear that subpoenas like this one are intended to harass those who are on the conservative side of policy debates in order to chill their speech, deter their active participation in the democratic, legislative process, and discourage citizens from contributing to or otherwise affiliating with organizations like the Eagle Forum. Such abusive discovery threatens the First Amendment rights of membership organizations to engage in free speech, associate with others who share their beliefs, and speak to their elected representatives and other government officials about public policy issues that concern them. Heritage
Experts: Hans von
Spakovsky <[link removed]> and Zack Smith <[link removed]> 
 
With immigration, Biden tries ‘open windows’ theory <[link removed]> – Biden has tested his open windows theory for well over a year. It has proved highly effective at attracting millions of people to cross our borders illegally. Most are economic migrants fleeing bad governments, high crime, and dysfunctional economies. Some thousands have criminal records. All are moving into an America that is increasingly unable to absorb them at current rates, with overwhelmed schools, medical care, and emergency public housing in major cities all over the country. This disastrous social experiment must end. Biden needs to get serious about border enforcement, require asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases work their way through the system, and sign asylum cooperative agreements with other countries to prevent the dangerous lure of his open border. Winter is approaching. It’s time to close the windows. Heritage Expert: Simon
Hankinson <[link removed]> 
 
Families Are Hurting From The Biden Administration’s Economic Brain Freeze <[link removed]> – American families simply cannot afford <[link removed]> to live in Biden’s America. Their real disposable incomes have fallen 11.7%, homeownership affordability is down 32%, monthly savings have collapsed 83.1% and credit card debt has ballooned 22.7%, all since Biden took office. Real earnings have also fallen 5.5%, meaning that the average family has lost over $6,000 in annual purchasing power. Adding insult to injury, so far in 2022, the average 401(k) has lost $34,000 <[link removed]>. There simply are no data that in any way support the president’s claim of the economy being “strong as hell.” The economy more closely resembles a splattered scoop of ice cream fallen on the sidewalk than the cone Biden held while making that proclamation. Sadly, economic indicators are forecasting things will get worse for Americans’ finances. Consumer spending is running on fumes as families deplete their savings and take on debt to try and sustain their standard of living. Similarly, businesses are only being sustained by a backlog of unfilled orders. Prices continue rising and energy prices in particular are poised to spike again this winter. In the coming months, the economic pain will intensify. Heritage Experts: EJ Antoni <[link removed]> and Joel Griffith <[link removed]> 
 
New California Laws Will Create ‘Ideological Purity Test’ for Police by Banning Ties to ‘Hate’
and ‘Bias,’ Critics Say <[link removed]> - California Gov. Gavin Newsom <[link removed]>, a Democrat, has signed two bills into law that will limit who is eligible to become a peace officer, even as many cities across the Golden State struggle with police shortages. Critics say the new laws will create an “ideological purity test,” preventing some conservatives and Christians from joining already-strapped police forces. Newsom on Sept. 30 signed AB 655 <[link removed]>, which bars Californians who previously had been members of a “hate group” or involved in “hate group activity” (in the past seven years) from police service. It remains unclear when the law will go into effect. The governor also signed AB 2229 <[link removed]>, which requires applicants to be screened for “bias” before they can join a police force force. The “bias” requirement had been enacted previously in 2020, but mistakenly was stricken from the law in 2021, according to a legislative analysis <[link removed]>. According to the law’s text, it went into effect immediately upon signing. Although AB 655 uses a strict definition for the term “hate group” tied directly to “genocide,” critics note that the new law also requires agencies to investigate “a complaint made by the public that alleges, as specified, that a peace officer engaged in membership in a hate group, participation in any hate group activity, or advocacy of public expressions of
hate.” Heritage Expert: Tyler O’Neil <[link removed]> 
 
Democrats Stake Midterm Election Hopes on Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision in Dobbs. It May Not Be Enough <[link removed]>. - In all <[link removed]>, six certified abortion-related measures are on the ballot in November state elections, with seven more awaiting certification as of the end of September. How these state battles to protect the unborn will shake out at the local level is anyone’s guess. What’s clear is that Democrats seem to be in a bit of a tailspin, anxious that they’ve peaked too soon <[link removed]>—spending earlier in battleground
states than their Republican opponents, squandering brief leads resulting from cooling gas prices and a purportedly “pro-worker” spending bill—and now are cobbling together contingency plans <[link removed]> if Biden decides not to run for a second term. At 79, and considering increased questioning about the president’s mental fitness, that outcome appears more likely than not. The most seismic shift apparent from the recent New York Times poll <[link removed]> came from independent voters who are women. In September, they favored Democrats by 14 points. Now, the same women back Republicans by a striking 18 points. At bottom, recent polling shows that today, women—those for whom the purported “right” to abortion was created by the Supreme Court in 1973—want little to do with the very thing the Supreme Court made up in 1973. Heritage Expert: Sarah Parshall
Perry <[link removed]>   
 
A Modern Naval Act to Meet the Surging China Threat <[link removed]> – A 2023 naval act, as it did in 1938, can grow the
nation’s naval shipbuilding capacity for a potential war with China. It would draw attention to a national security priority while not competing directly with other military service budget needs. It would further protect shipbuilding from fluctuating and tardy budgets that have retarded needed capacity investments. A modern naval act, echoing the nation’s historic success in preparing for war in the Pacific, would galvanize meaningful action. Congress has indicated it is willing to make the needed investments—a new naval act is one way of acting on that intention. Heritage Expert: Brent Sadler <[link removed]>

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