Education
Classroom Ideology
The Retreat From Euclid And America’s Great Math Collapse
When average people think about classical education, they tend to think about students reading the great works of Western civilization such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Those same people probably do not think about mathematics and its classical origins, yet it is the movement away from mathematics’ classical heritage that ...
Lance Izumi
February 18, 2025
Blog
Latest test scores show CA's public schools continue to fail kids
The California Classroom Collapse Hits the Middle Class
Last year, Bret Daniels, the mayor of the middle-class Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, announced that he was quitting his position as mayor and moving to Kentucky, in part because of the quality of education his seven-year-old daughter was receiving. Recently released test scores show that California’s education decline is ...
Lance Izumi
February 11, 2025
Classroom Ideology
Elon Musk needs H-1B workers because math education fails our students
When entrepreneur Elon Musk made headlines with his vociferous comments supporting the H-1B visa program, the ensuing debate focused on the implications of his position on immigration. But this debate obscured the reason America even has such a program in the first place: its homegrown students are being poorly educated ...
Lance Izumi
February 3, 2025
Commentary
Give fire victim families emergency school choice
As Gov. Gavin Newsom stood near a burned-down school, Pacific Palisades mom Rachel Darvish pleaded with Newsom: “That was my daughter’s school, what are you going to do?” Newsom offered no real answer for the distraught parent at the time. Well, here’s the answer he should have given: all families ...
Lance Izumi
January 31, 2025
Blog
State Budget Week - Learn How the Newsom Education Budget Will Impact You
The Newsom Education Budget: No Bang for the Buck
In the 2019-20 budget–Newsom’s first enacted budget–California spent $103 billion in state, local, and federal funds for education, which translated to $17,423 per pupil. In the governor’s new proposed budget, total education spending comes in at a whopping $137 billion, which pencils out to $24,764 per pupil. All this added ...
Lance Izumi
January 22, 2025
Classroom Ideology
Looming ‘enrollment cliff’ for high school graduates threatens future of higher education
U.S. high schools will graduate a record 3.9 million students in 2025 before entering a long decline that threatens the future of higher education, a report shows. In findings published Wednesday, the nonprofit Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education projected the headcount of public and private high school graduates will ...
Lance Izumi
December 12, 2024
Education
Adam Abolfazli – Permission to Fail
Adam Abolfazli, Sacramento-area public high school student and author of the new book Permission to Fail, shares with us his firsthand view from the classroom on how recent changes in public education such as increased parent and student apathy toward the learning process and a lack of academic rigor, have ...
Pacific Research Institute
December 9, 2024
Classroom Ideology
Young People Aren’t Reading Great Books Because Many Can’t Read
Think about your favorite novel that you read in school. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables? Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote? Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations? Now imagine if all the wonder and wisdom of those great works was closed off to you because your school failed to ...
Lance T. izumi
December 3, 2024
american dream
How Localism Ignites The American Dream
As the United States waged an ideological war against the Soviet Union in the latter half of the 20th century, the American dream became a symbol of prosperity, one which captured the imagination of millions around the world who sought a better life. My father, who grew up in a ...
Nikhil Agarwal
December 2, 2024
Blog
Learn how poorly California students scored on the latest national literacy test
Low Adult Literacy Screams for Science-of-Reading Instruction in Schools
The United States ranks 36th in the world at a 79% literacy rate, which is quite terrible considering the US’s status as one of the most developed nations in the world. “Developed nations consistently boast adult literacy rates of 96% or higher, while the least developed countries struggle with an ...
Matthew Fleming
December 2, 2024
The Retreat From Euclid And America’s Great Math Collapse
When average people think about classical education, they tend to think about students reading the great works of Western civilization such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Those same people probably do not think about mathematics and its classical origins, yet it is the movement away from mathematics’ classical heritage that ...
Latest test scores show CA's public schools continue to fail kids
The California Classroom Collapse Hits the Middle Class
Last year, Bret Daniels, the mayor of the middle-class Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, announced that he was quitting his position as mayor and moving to Kentucky, in part because of the quality of education his seven-year-old daughter was receiving. Recently released test scores show that California’s education decline is ...
Elon Musk needs H-1B workers because math education fails our students
When entrepreneur Elon Musk made headlines with his vociferous comments supporting the H-1B visa program, the ensuing debate focused on the implications of his position on immigration. But this debate obscured the reason America even has such a program in the first place: its homegrown students are being poorly educated ...
Give fire victim families emergency school choice
As Gov. Gavin Newsom stood near a burned-down school, Pacific Palisades mom Rachel Darvish pleaded with Newsom: “That was my daughter’s school, what are you going to do?” Newsom offered no real answer for the distraught parent at the time. Well, here’s the answer he should have given: all families ...
State Budget Week - Learn How the Newsom Education Budget Will Impact You
The Newsom Education Budget: No Bang for the Buck
In the 2019-20 budget–Newsom’s first enacted budget–California spent $103 billion in state, local, and federal funds for education, which translated to $17,423 per pupil. In the governor’s new proposed budget, total education spending comes in at a whopping $137 billion, which pencils out to $24,764 per pupil. All this added ...
Looming ‘enrollment cliff’ for high school graduates threatens future of higher education
U.S. high schools will graduate a record 3.9 million students in 2025 before entering a long decline that threatens the future of higher education, a report shows. In findings published Wednesday, the nonprofit Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education projected the headcount of public and private high school graduates will ...
Adam Abolfazli – Permission to Fail
Adam Abolfazli, Sacramento-area public high school student and author of the new book Permission to Fail, shares with us his firsthand view from the classroom on how recent changes in public education such as increased parent and student apathy toward the learning process and a lack of academic rigor, have ...
Young People Aren’t Reading Great Books Because Many Can’t Read
Think about your favorite novel that you read in school. Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables? Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote? Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations? Now imagine if all the wonder and wisdom of those great works was closed off to you because your school failed to ...
How Localism Ignites The American Dream
As the United States waged an ideological war against the Soviet Union in the latter half of the 20th century, the American dream became a symbol of prosperity, one which captured the imagination of millions around the world who sought a better life. My father, who grew up in a ...
Learn how poorly California students scored on the latest national literacy test
Low Adult Literacy Screams for Science-of-Reading Instruction in Schools
The United States ranks 36th in the world at a 79% literacy rate, which is quite terrible considering the US’s status as one of the most developed nations in the world. “Developed nations consistently boast adult literacy rates of 96% or higher, while the least developed countries struggle with an ...