Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Private Company Does in 3 Days What Government School Could Not Do in 12 Years

Sylvan Learning Center private company success by John Stossel –
With public schools spending more than $100,000 per student on K-12 education, you’d think they could teach students how to read and write.

South Carolina is one of many states to have trouble with this. It spends $9,000 per student per year, and its state school superintendent told me South Carolina has been “ranked as having some of the highest standards of learning in the entire country.” So let’s ask the infamous question, “Is our children learning?”

Dorian Cain told me he wants to learn to read. He’s 18 years old and in 12th grade, but when I asked him to read from a first-grade level book, he struggled with it.

“Did they try to teach you to read?” I asked him.

“From time to time.”[Read more…]

The Nanny State in Space

SpaceShipOne spacecraft
SpaceShipOne spacecraft

No sooner had SpaceShipOne safely landed in the Mojave Desert, making history as the first privately-funded manned space vehicle, than government officials rekindled their desire to regulate this nascent private industry. Such concern for the safety of future space travelers is commendable but somewhat disingenuous, given Congress’ rather poor record of oversight in maintaining the safety of NASA’s Space Shuttle program.

On Monday, October 4th, 2004, piloted by a civilian, SpaceShipOne reached space for the second time in two weeks. As reward for such a remarkable feat Mojave Aerospace Ventures, a private company headed by aeronautic legend Burt Rutan and funded by billionaire Paul Allen, will receive the $10 million Ansari X-Prize.

The revolutionary SpaceShipOne project was started by Burt Rutan partially in response to the challenge setup by the X-Prize. The prize was created to reward the first privately funded team that sent a three-person spacecraft into space on two different flights within a two-week period. With approximately $30 million in funds Rutan and his group were able to achieve this amazing goal in a relatively short amount of time and claim the award. [Read more…]