Lance Izumi
Blog
Newsom’s Mental Health Plan for Kids: Way Too Late for Problem He Caused
Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed mental health plan for children reminds me of the arsonist who starts a fire, but then calls the fire department to put out the blaze he started. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Newsom closed California’s public schools for a longer time period than most other states, which ...
Lance Izumi
September 15, 2022
Blog
CAPITAL IDEAS—Not April Fool’s Day: Newsom Gets Education Award as California Students Suffer and Fail
DOWNLOAD THE PDF When Governor Gavin Newsom recently received a national award for education, just as student learning craters due to his disastrous school policies, one could hear California parents collectively exclaim, “Seriously?” The Education Commission of the States, which is an interstate agency that is supposed to create ...
Lance Izumi
August 24, 2022
Blog
A Student Issues a Stark Warning on the State of California Schools
While Governor Gavin Newsom was accepting a laughable award for California’s supposed innovation in education, student achievement in the state’s classrooms is spiraling downward due to failed government education policies. The Education Commission of the States, which gave the innovation award to California, lauded all the tax dollars that Newsom ...
Lance Izumi
August 1, 2022
Blog
New Study Dispels Special Ed Funding Myth About Charter Schools
The wide funding gap between regular public schools and charter schools is often explained by charter opponents as due to the larger number of special-education students in regular public schools versus charter schools. A just released study, however, debunks this claim. There is no doubt that regular public schools receive ...
Lance Izumi
July 22, 2022
Blog
Mandatory Kindergarten: Bad Idea for Kids and Taxpayers
As if California parents and children have not had enough mandates from Sacramento, the Legislature is considering mandating kindergarten, even though research, international experience, and teacher testimony undercut the idea. SB 70 by State Senator Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) would, according to her press release, “require all students to complete ...
Lance Izumi
July 6, 2022
Commentary
Teachers unions causing schools and students to fail
Recently in Time magazine, American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten argued, “Far-right advocates of privatizing public education are using Big Lies to undermine public schools.” However, in an eye-opening resignation letter, Oakland school board member Shanthi Gonzales, a former labor organizer, shows that it is the teachers union that ...
Lance Izumi
June 6, 2022
Blog
The Math Deficiencies in California’s Proposed Math Curriculum
While California’s proposed K-12 math curriculum framework has taken justifiable hits for its woke politicization of math instruction, it is also rife with subject-matter deficiencies that will result in students being ill-prepared for higher education and the workplace. The second draft of the proposed math curriculum framework, which was released ...
Lance Izumi
May 25, 2022
Classroom Ideology
Woke Math Returns to California
Like the return of the undead, woke math has come back to haunt California’s classrooms and make it even harder for the state’s struggling students to receive a quality education. Last year, the California Department of Education released the first draft of a new curriculum framework for K-12 mathematics, which ...
Lance Izumi
May 7, 2022
Blog
California’s Woke Curricula Built on Research Quicksand
While activists pushing to impose woke curricula in California’s classrooms claim that their ideological innovations are based on research, it turns out that these claims are really built on research quicksand. Take, for example, the proposed California K-12 math curriculum framework, which seeks to serve as a guide for math ...
Lance Izumi
April 21, 2022
Blog
CAPITAL IDEAS: The 2022 Education Landscape and the Coming Homeschool Tsunami
Lance Izumi, senior director of PRI’s Center for Education, recently delivered the following speech to the Northern California Lincoln Club.
Lance Izumi
April 11, 2022
Newsom’s Mental Health Plan for Kids: Way Too Late for Problem He Caused
Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed mental health plan for children reminds me of the arsonist who starts a fire, but then calls the fire department to put out the blaze he started. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Newsom closed California’s public schools for a longer time period than most other states, which ...
CAPITAL IDEAS—Not April Fool’s Day: Newsom Gets Education Award as California Students Suffer and Fail
DOWNLOAD THE PDF When Governor Gavin Newsom recently received a national award for education, just as student learning craters due to his disastrous school policies, one could hear California parents collectively exclaim, “Seriously?” The Education Commission of the States, which is an interstate agency that is supposed to create ...
A Student Issues a Stark Warning on the State of California Schools
While Governor Gavin Newsom was accepting a laughable award for California’s supposed innovation in education, student achievement in the state’s classrooms is spiraling downward due to failed government education policies. The Education Commission of the States, which gave the innovation award to California, lauded all the tax dollars that Newsom ...
New Study Dispels Special Ed Funding Myth About Charter Schools
The wide funding gap between regular public schools and charter schools is often explained by charter opponents as due to the larger number of special-education students in regular public schools versus charter schools. A just released study, however, debunks this claim. There is no doubt that regular public schools receive ...
Mandatory Kindergarten: Bad Idea for Kids and Taxpayers
As if California parents and children have not had enough mandates from Sacramento, the Legislature is considering mandating kindergarten, even though research, international experience, and teacher testimony undercut the idea. SB 70 by State Senator Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) would, according to her press release, “require all students to complete ...
Teachers unions causing schools and students to fail
Recently in Time magazine, American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten argued, “Far-right advocates of privatizing public education are using Big Lies to undermine public schools.” However, in an eye-opening resignation letter, Oakland school board member Shanthi Gonzales, a former labor organizer, shows that it is the teachers union that ...
The Math Deficiencies in California’s Proposed Math Curriculum
While California’s proposed K-12 math curriculum framework has taken justifiable hits for its woke politicization of math instruction, it is also rife with subject-matter deficiencies that will result in students being ill-prepared for higher education and the workplace. The second draft of the proposed math curriculum framework, which was released ...
Woke Math Returns to California
Like the return of the undead, woke math has come back to haunt California’s classrooms and make it even harder for the state’s struggling students to receive a quality education. Last year, the California Department of Education released the first draft of a new curriculum framework for K-12 mathematics, which ...
California’s Woke Curricula Built on Research Quicksand
While activists pushing to impose woke curricula in California’s classrooms claim that their ideological innovations are based on research, it turns out that these claims are really built on research quicksand. Take, for example, the proposed California K-12 math curriculum framework, which seeks to serve as a guide for math ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: The 2022 Education Landscape and the Coming Homeschool Tsunami
Lance Izumi, senior director of PRI’s Center for Education, recently delivered the following speech to the Northern California Lincoln Club.