Ohio has pressing needs for public investment, from stemming the drug epidemic to preventing infant mortality; fixing the unconstitutional school funding system to making college affordable. Taxpayer revenues should be used for public services that benefit everyone, not for special tax breaks. The House is right in eliminating this tax break. The Senate should concur.

Ohio's charter-closure law requires the automatic closure of charter schools that fail to meet academic standards. However, closure law has a loophole that it places no penality on CMOs which causes "closed" schools to reopen. The report lists eight cases that shows the loophole on closure law and suggests that the government needs to take off CMOs and sponsors to ensure the qualiy of the closure law.

This report outlines the landscape, identigies challenges that limit families access to preschool, and looks at the costs that constrain programs in delivering top quality early education; concluded with policy reconmmendations

The new GOD federal tax law allow rich Americans who send their childrento private school a tax cut to save money for their higher education. However, the report states that the government should expand opportunity for all Ohioans not just rich people. Tax deduction are costly and does not make college more affordable to Ohioans. Such tax break will benefit the extreme wealthy but not benefit about college. The government should not use contribution to 529 plan to pay for K-12, but use to support public education.

Portland is nationally recognized as a city with an exceptionally high quality of life, progressive land use planning, abundant transportation alternatives, and leading-edge green development expertise. The city’s growing concentration of firms in clean technology further solidifies Portland’s position as a national leader in sustainability. The Portland region boasts internationally-recognized expertise in the athletic and outdoor industry and a globally competitive manufacturing base. These cultural values and economic attributes have attracted young, educated people and contribute to the competitiveness of our region’s workforce. While Portland’s reputation and economic assets reflects many of the city’s strengths, they gloss over the well-being and diverse experiences of Portland’s people, businesses, and neighborhoods. Regional economic productivity continues to climb but salaries and incomes in Portland lag behind those of peer cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Denver. While in-migration accounted for some of Portland’s higher-than-average unemployment rate during the recession, sluggish job creation trends remain. Moreover, for some people of color, the pain from our dysfunctional economy long preceded the recession: unemployment rates for African American men have remained above Portland’s recessional high of 12.6percentat roughly 15percent since the late 1970s. As population growth is anticipated to continue at 2.4perecent annually - or roughly six times the national average - job growth will continue to be an issue of critical importance. In recognition of the need for a quality economy that matches and broadens our quality of life, in July of 2009 the City of Portland adopted a Five-Year Economic Development Strategy. The Strategy seeks to expand prosperity and opportunity for Portland residents and create 10,000 net new jobs by 1) generating robust traded sector job growth, 2) driving urban innovation, and 3) stimulating neighborhood business vitality.

Tax abatements makes Ohio schools lost revenue, causing spotty reporting in forgone revenue with government compensation. The report provides recommendation for better tax abatements report.

This report lays out a set of policy and political interventions that cities, regions, and states can make to increase municipal revenue and to make their collections more progressive. Cities have historically suffered enormous budget shortfalls and after the Great Recession, available funds depleted even more drastically. There is a desperate need for more municipal tax revenue and for a more just system for collecting it, instead of the current practice of cities collecting their revenue in regressive ways. Across the United States, there are major political obstacles to raising any kind of revenue. And yet, although different, the obstacles at the municipal level are in some ways even greater than they are at the state and federal levels. Nevertheless, there are meaningful strategies that cities and counties can adopt. And there are political strategies that may be effective at generating state-level reform. This report lays these out in detail, discussing the political and policy strengths and weaknesses of each.

Business incubators and accelerators have emerged as a popular strategy to support the growth of entrepreneurial ventures, especially in the high-tech sector. They are designed to address the networking, education and capital challenges all entrepreneurs face. These challenges are most acute for women and minority tech entrepreneurs, suggesting that incubators and accelerators could have the greatest impact on their ventures. Yet, women and minorities are not participating in high-tech incubators and accelerators at the same rates as their white, male counterparts. Given the growing commitment, by both public and private sectors, to increase the numbers of women- and minority-owned high-tech businesses, a critical step will be to make incubators and accelerators more inclusive of diverse entrepreneurs. In addition, because these organizations, particularly accelerators, are attracting many young entrepreneurs, the underrepresentation of minorities among the entrepreneurs they support is especially concerning given that 43 percent of millennial adults are people of color ("Millennials in Adulthood," 2014). Given this demographic trend, helping incubators and accelerators to become more racially inclusive is important to ensure that all future tech entrepreneurs are given the same level of support.

There are 2.1 million undocumented college-age individuals in the country who have overcome significant obstacles in order to pursue their education and the American dream. Given some encouragement and support, these students, often called Dreamers, could reach their potential and contribute more fully to a high-quality workforce for the nation's economy. These students are prevented from receiving federal financial aid - including federal loans - and in some places are not eligible to pay in-state tuition rates. Providing in-state tuition and access to scholarships or financial aid for students regardless of their immigration status expands educational opportunities for students - on average, in-state tuition for undocumented students expands education opportunities for students by as much as 31 percent. Encouraging all students to pursue higher education reduces high school dropout rates - not only for undocumented students but for their classmates as well.

The United States has an enviable entrepreneurial culture and a track record of building new companies. Yet new and small business owners often face particular challenges, including lack of access to capital, insufficient business networks for peer support, investment, and business opportunities, and the absence of the full range of essential skills necessary to lead a business to survive and grow. Women and minority entrepreneurs often face even greater obstacles. While business formation is, of course, primarily a matter for the private sector, public policy can and should encourage increased rates of entrepreneurship, and the capital, networks, and skills essential for success, especially among women and minorities. In particular, this discussion paper calls for an expanded State Small Business Credit Initiative and an enlarged and permanent New Markets Tax Credit to encourage private sector investment in new and small businesses. These capital initiatives should be complemented with new federal support for local business networks, and for local skills acquisition initiatives, to make it more likely that small businesses will form, survive, and grow. For the United States to continue to grow, to innovate, and even more importantly to generate jobs, we need to expand our rate of business formation and improve the prospects for survival and growth of young and small businesses. Increasing the rate of minority and female entrepreneurship may help to reduce the race and gender wealth gaps, to reduce income and wealth inequality, and to increase social mobility. With the United States becoming more heterogeneous, increasing business formation by minority and female entrepreneurs is critical to improving the rate of entrepreneurship overall. Thus, if we are to grow as a country, create jobs, and make progress on correcting income and wealth inequality, we need to help minority and female entrepreneurs succeed.