Education
Blog
Californians Reject Racial Preferences
In an election result that astonished the country, Californians voted down an initiative that would have returned racial preferences to state college admissions, hiring, and contracting. In a margin of 56% to 44%, one of the most diverse and deepest blue states in the nation voted a resounding No to ...
Blog
Patriotism and Veterans Day
I was honored to give the Veterans Day address at John Adams Academy charter school. I focused on the connection between patriotism and military service. The following is an abridged version of my speech. Dr. Gary Houchens, an education professor at Western Kentucky University, recently wrote a great essay on ...
Blog
Big Agenda Facing Presidential Winner
As of this writing, we don’t know who has won the 2020 presidential election. Whoever wins, America’s next chief executive has many important policy decisions to make in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview of some of the big issues that the president will have to confront over the next ...
Blog
Spreading Successful Patriotic Education Programs
By Lance Izumi and McKenzie Richards President Trump has signed an executive order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education and to “encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history.” When that commission gets down to work, there are numerous examples of successful curricula ...
California
Proposition 16 backers are spending big to reinstitutionalize racial discrimination
By Lawrence Siskind In 1996, California voters amended their Constitution by enacting Proposition 209. It reads: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin … in education or public employment or contracting.” ...
Education
Watch PRI’s Rowena Itchon in KPIX story on Debate Over Affirmative Action
PRI’s Rowena Itchon was featured in a KPIX story discussing her recent Right by the Bay blog post on the debate over the future of affirmative action in California. Watch her comments below . . .
Blog
Rename San Francisco’s Schools? Try these…
While San Francisco parents struggle to help their kids keep up with their education during the coronavirus school closures, San Francisco school district officials are worrying about how to rename 44 schools out of the 125 in the city. The names of these schools are “inappropriate,” according to the San ...
Blog
What We’re Watching- October 22
Rowena Itchon – The Presidential Cookie Poll In battleground Pennsylvania, a presidential cookie poll shows that Trump is leading Biden. Kerry Jackson – Trump-Biden Debate Rap Some needed humor during an election more heated than any of us has ever seen. Tim Anaya – Businesses Face Bankruptcy As California Keeps ...
Charter Schools
PRI’s Lance Izumi Featured in Article on DeVos Interview
Lance Izumi, senior director of the Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Education, recently interviewed U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and covered the importance of expanding school choice opportunities for every student in America, school re-openings following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the President’s education reform agenda. Izumi is the author ...
Distance Learning
Lance Izumi Quoted in Los Angeles Times on School Reopenings
California teacher unions fight calls to reopen schools By Howard Blume As parents express widespread dissatisfaction with distance learning, two influential California teachers unions are pushing against growing momentum to reopen schools in many communities, saying that campuses are not yet safe enough amid the pandemic. Leaders with the California ...
Californians Reject Racial Preferences
In an election result that astonished the country, Californians voted down an initiative that would have returned racial preferences to state college admissions, hiring, and contracting. In a margin of 56% to 44%, one of the most diverse and deepest blue states in the nation voted a resounding No to ...
Patriotism and Veterans Day
I was honored to give the Veterans Day address at John Adams Academy charter school. I focused on the connection between patriotism and military service. The following is an abridged version of my speech. Dr. Gary Houchens, an education professor at Western Kentucky University, recently wrote a great essay on ...
Big Agenda Facing Presidential Winner
As of this writing, we don’t know who has won the 2020 presidential election. Whoever wins, America’s next chief executive has many important policy decisions to make in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview of some of the big issues that the president will have to confront over the next ...
Spreading Successful Patriotic Education Programs
By Lance Izumi and McKenzie Richards President Trump has signed an executive order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education and to “encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history.” When that commission gets down to work, there are numerous examples of successful curricula ...
Proposition 16 backers are spending big to reinstitutionalize racial discrimination
By Lawrence Siskind In 1996, California voters amended their Constitution by enacting Proposition 209. It reads: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin … in education or public employment or contracting.” ...
Watch PRI’s Rowena Itchon in KPIX story on Debate Over Affirmative Action
PRI’s Rowena Itchon was featured in a KPIX story discussing her recent Right by the Bay blog post on the debate over the future of affirmative action in California. Watch her comments below . . .
Rename San Francisco’s Schools? Try these…
While San Francisco parents struggle to help their kids keep up with their education during the coronavirus school closures, San Francisco school district officials are worrying about how to rename 44 schools out of the 125 in the city. The names of these schools are “inappropriate,” according to the San ...
What We’re Watching- October 22
Rowena Itchon – The Presidential Cookie Poll In battleground Pennsylvania, a presidential cookie poll shows that Trump is leading Biden. Kerry Jackson – Trump-Biden Debate Rap Some needed humor during an election more heated than any of us has ever seen. Tim Anaya – Businesses Face Bankruptcy As California Keeps ...
PRI’s Lance Izumi Featured in Article on DeVos Interview
Lance Izumi, senior director of the Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Education, recently interviewed U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and covered the importance of expanding school choice opportunities for every student in America, school re-openings following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the President’s education reform agenda. Izumi is the author ...
Lance Izumi Quoted in Los Angeles Times on School Reopenings
California teacher unions fight calls to reopen schools By Howard Blume As parents express widespread dissatisfaction with distance learning, two influential California teachers unions are pushing against growing momentum to reopen schools in many communities, saying that campuses are not yet safe enough amid the pandemic. Leaders with the California ...
