Lance Izumi
Commentary
LAUSD teachers should exercise their Janus rights, not follow their union off a fiscal cliff
Despite the recent settlement of the Los Angeles teachers strike, mostly in the teacher union’s favor, the deal largely ignores the shaky financial realities of the school district. While the union crows about its apparent victory, the potential fiscal disaster should make teachers consider leaving the union, not rallying around ...
California
The best solution to Los Angeles teachers’ strike? More school choice
Conventional analyses of the Los Angeles teachers strike present the public with a false dichotomy: is the teachers union right or is the school district right? The reality is that both sides are wrong, and the solution for parents and students is greater school choice for all children. First, the ...
Blog
Federal Lawsuit Filed Over Biased Curriculum
Policy debates over curriculum often center on test scores and other student performance indicators. However, according to a recent lawsuit filed in federal court, curricular bias and indoctrination have reached shocking levels that raise serious constitutional concerns. The lawsuit was filed by Fair Education Santa Barbara, whose members include parents ...
Classroom Ideology
Are Teacher Unions the Biggest Threat to Freedom?
What is the biggest threat to freedom in our country? According to an eye-opening new book by educator Rebecca Friedrichs, who gained fame as the named plaintiff in a U.S. Supreme Court case challenging forced fees from teachers to unions, teacher unions are thwarting freedom on a massive scale. In ...
Blog
Honoring Our Veterans
Veterans Day, which we celebrated on November 11th, is not only a national holiday where we honor those men and women who served in our armed forces, but it is also an intensely personal day where family and friends remember their loved ones who wore the uniform. My father is ...
Commentary
Homeless Kids – Federal Problems Block Local Solutions
Homelessness among children is more widespread than imagined, and the many problems faced by these children, from instability to personal safety, seriously impact their education. Yet federal housing policies undercut the ability of local organizations to implement proven solutions. A recent study by Schoolhouse Washington, an education research initiative in ...
Blog
The Race for CA’s Top Ed Official: A Study in Contrasts
While much of the media is focused on which party will control Congress, one of the most important races in California is for state superintendent of public instruction, the state’s top education official. In one corner is education reformer Marshall Tuck, who lost a close race four years ago to ...
Commentary
At Last, Schools Paying for Suppressing Students’ Free Speech
While anti-Trump bias continues to reign in America’s schools, courageous students are standing up for their First Amendment free-speech rights, and the courts are starting to back them up. In Oregon, a high school outside Portland suspended student Addison Barnes because he refused to cover up his “Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.” t-shirt. An ...
Commentary
The Wisdom of Trump’s Plan to Merge the Departments of Education and Labor
While his efforts in these regard haven’t received many headlines, President Trump has put forward proposal after proposal to make the federal government’s work on education policy less costly, less intrusive, more logical, and more effective. His latest idea — a proposal to merge the U.S. Departments of Education and ...
Climate Change
How the media got the Janus decision wrong
In their stories on the Supreme Court’s historic Janus decision striking down compelled fees for non-union public employees to public-sector unions, the liberal media fumbled badly in reporting the basic reasoning behind the ruling. The case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), involved Mark Janus, a non-union Illinois state employee, who ...
LAUSD teachers should exercise their Janus rights, not follow their union off a fiscal cliff
Despite the recent settlement of the Los Angeles teachers strike, mostly in the teacher union’s favor, the deal largely ignores the shaky financial realities of the school district. While the union crows about its apparent victory, the potential fiscal disaster should make teachers consider leaving the union, not rallying around ...
The best solution to Los Angeles teachers’ strike? More school choice
Conventional analyses of the Los Angeles teachers strike present the public with a false dichotomy: is the teachers union right or is the school district right? The reality is that both sides are wrong, and the solution for parents and students is greater school choice for all children. First, the ...
Federal Lawsuit Filed Over Biased Curriculum
Policy debates over curriculum often center on test scores and other student performance indicators. However, according to a recent lawsuit filed in federal court, curricular bias and indoctrination have reached shocking levels that raise serious constitutional concerns. The lawsuit was filed by Fair Education Santa Barbara, whose members include parents ...
Are Teacher Unions the Biggest Threat to Freedom?
What is the biggest threat to freedom in our country? According to an eye-opening new book by educator Rebecca Friedrichs, who gained fame as the named plaintiff in a U.S. Supreme Court case challenging forced fees from teachers to unions, teacher unions are thwarting freedom on a massive scale. In ...
Honoring Our Veterans
Veterans Day, which we celebrated on November 11th, is not only a national holiday where we honor those men and women who served in our armed forces, but it is also an intensely personal day where family and friends remember their loved ones who wore the uniform. My father is ...
Homeless Kids – Federal Problems Block Local Solutions
Homelessness among children is more widespread than imagined, and the many problems faced by these children, from instability to personal safety, seriously impact their education. Yet federal housing policies undercut the ability of local organizations to implement proven solutions. A recent study by Schoolhouse Washington, an education research initiative in ...
The Race for CA’s Top Ed Official: A Study in Contrasts
While much of the media is focused on which party will control Congress, one of the most important races in California is for state superintendent of public instruction, the state’s top education official. In one corner is education reformer Marshall Tuck, who lost a close race four years ago to ...
At Last, Schools Paying for Suppressing Students’ Free Speech
While anti-Trump bias continues to reign in America’s schools, courageous students are standing up for their First Amendment free-speech rights, and the courts are starting to back them up. In Oregon, a high school outside Portland suspended student Addison Barnes because he refused to cover up his “Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.” t-shirt. An ...
The Wisdom of Trump’s Plan to Merge the Departments of Education and Labor
While his efforts in these regard haven’t received many headlines, President Trump has put forward proposal after proposal to make the federal government’s work on education policy less costly, less intrusive, more logical, and more effective. His latest idea — a proposal to merge the U.S. Departments of Education and ...
How the media got the Janus decision wrong
In their stories on the Supreme Court’s historic Janus decision striking down compelled fees for non-union public employees to public-sector unions, the liberal media fumbled badly in reporting the basic reasoning behind the ruling. The case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), involved Mark Janus, a non-union Illinois state employee, who ...
