Environment
Commentary
Assessing a Teacher’s Value
What are the benefits and pitfalls of using student test scores to measure a teacher’s effectiveness? Help the Parents Lance T. Izumi is the senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute. The “value-added” assessments are useful in analyzing teacher performance, but they can be made better. The ...
Business & Economics
State budget mess a comedy, or tragedy?
SACRAMENTO – As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were pretentious. Those of us in the audience sometimes rolled our eyes ...
Commentary
Ratios condemn patients to inferior care
In 1999, Gray Davis signed a law mandating a statewide ratio of one nurse to five patients in surgical wards, one to six in psychiatric wards, one to four in pediatric wards, one to three in maternity wards, and one to two in intensive care. The law was strong-armed to ...
Commentary
Toss Fraud-Ridden State Program and Recycle E-waste a Better Way
Vol. 16 No. 30, August 18, 2010 Toss Fraud-Ridden State Program and Recycle E-waste a Better Way By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director SACRAMENTO—California’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act (EWRA) is a magnet for fraud on a massive scale, totaling tens of millions of dollars, as Tom Knudson revealed in a ...
Environment
Should the Federal Government Stick Its Nozzle in Your Shower?
Vol.4 No.8: August 17, 2010 Should the Federal Government Stick Its Nozzle in Your Shower? By Amy Kaleita, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Pacific Research Institute oned, the same result could be obtained by effective pricing of water, instead of intrusive regulation. In May, the DOE announced a new ...
Business & Economics
Democrats picking on oil companies
SACRAMENTO – Legislators are more than six weeks past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats last week weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the red, but the two sides aren’t even close to coming to terms. ...
Commentary
How to make shopping more annoying
SACRAMENTO – While walking though the supermarket the other day, my wife and I began playing a game I call Unintended Consequences. We tried to guess how things will really work after some new law is put in place. Our governments continually pass legislation that promises to fix every problem ...
Business & Economics
More regulators is the wrong fix
The BP oil spill has prompted calls for more federal regulatory power. Yet the behavior of the federal bureaucrats who were supposed to prevent this type of disaster provides no reason to expect better outcomes with more bureaucracy. The Minerals Management Service was the Interior Department agency responsible for regulation ...
Climate Change
Environmental lessons from the late Stephen Schneider
Stephen H. Schneider, hailed as the “Carl Sagan of climate science,” and who served on the international panel that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore, has passed away at 65. He should be remembered as much more than a global warming alarmist. In fact, he was once a ...
Commentary
Less bang for education bucks
California’s public education establishment continually argues that the state ranks near the bottom in funding K-12 education. A just-released study by the U.S. Census Bureau pokes a giant hole in these claims. Those trying to portray California as miserly when it comes to education funding often cite figures put out ...
Assessing a Teacher’s Value
What are the benefits and pitfalls of using student test scores to measure a teacher’s effectiveness? Help the Parents Lance T. Izumi is the senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute. The “value-added” assessments are useful in analyzing teacher performance, but they can be made better. The ...
State budget mess a comedy, or tragedy?
SACRAMENTO – As entertainment goes, the final regular-season episode of the Budget Show in the Capitol was shoddy. The actors – the Assembly members and senators – are B-rate. The speeches, despite their strained attempts to sound Kennedy-esque, were pretentious. Those of us in the audience sometimes rolled our eyes ...
Ratios condemn patients to inferior care
In 1999, Gray Davis signed a law mandating a statewide ratio of one nurse to five patients in surgical wards, one to six in psychiatric wards, one to four in pediatric wards, one to three in maternity wards, and one to two in intensive care. The law was strong-armed to ...
Toss Fraud-Ridden State Program and Recycle E-waste a Better Way
Vol. 16 No. 30, August 18, 2010 Toss Fraud-Ridden State Program and Recycle E-waste a Better Way By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director SACRAMENTO—California’s Electronic Waste Recycling Act (EWRA) is a magnet for fraud on a massive scale, totaling tens of millions of dollars, as Tom Knudson revealed in a ...
Should the Federal Government Stick Its Nozzle in Your Shower?
Vol.4 No.8: August 17, 2010 Should the Federal Government Stick Its Nozzle in Your Shower? By Amy Kaleita, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies, Pacific Research Institute oned, the same result could be obtained by effective pricing of water, instead of intrusive regulation. In May, the DOE announced a new ...
Democrats picking on oil companies
SACRAMENTO – Legislators are more than six weeks past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats last week weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the red, but the two sides aren’t even close to coming to terms. ...
How to make shopping more annoying
SACRAMENTO – While walking though the supermarket the other day, my wife and I began playing a game I call Unintended Consequences. We tried to guess how things will really work after some new law is put in place. Our governments continually pass legislation that promises to fix every problem ...
More regulators is the wrong fix
The BP oil spill has prompted calls for more federal regulatory power. Yet the behavior of the federal bureaucrats who were supposed to prevent this type of disaster provides no reason to expect better outcomes with more bureaucracy. The Minerals Management Service was the Interior Department agency responsible for regulation ...
Environmental lessons from the late Stephen Schneider
Stephen H. Schneider, hailed as the “Carl Sagan of climate science,” and who served on the international panel that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore, has passed away at 65. He should be remembered as much more than a global warming alarmist. In fact, he was once a ...
Less bang for education bucks
California’s public education establishment continually argues that the state ranks near the bottom in funding K-12 education. A just-released study by the U.S. Census Bureau pokes a giant hole in these claims. Those trying to portray California as miserly when it comes to education funding often cite figures put out ...
