Commentary
Business & Economics
An education autopsy for Steinberg’s tax swap
The tax swap proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg may be dead, but it can still help educate legislators in their quest to fix the budget, currently about $20 billion in the red, and restore prosperity in California. Steinberg advanced a plan to cut the sales tax rate ...
Business & Economics
Studies Disprove “Second Shift” Narrative
Vol. 14 No. 08, September 7, 2010 Studies Disprove “Second Shift” Narrative By Sally C. Pipes, President and CEO It’s been a challenging summer for the Women’s Movement. The recent publication of two “time use surveys” in the United States and Europe contradicts the preferred feminist narrative about the lives ...
Commentary
Helping Our Troops and Their Families
Children with special needs whose parents are in the Armed Services may soon be eligible for academic opportunity scholarships. Unfortunately, the National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE) is mounting a militant campaign against opportunities for those children. The Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2011 (S. ...
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
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
Commentary
That sucking sound is LAUSD doing business as usual
WHEN the Los Angeles Unified School District unveiled its opulent $578 million Robert F. Kennedy High School, the most expensive government-run K-12 school in this nation’s history, it was not just an isolated PR disaster. Rather, it was only the latest evidence that the floundering district is like a vacuum ...
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
CARB Fakes Out California
Vol. 16 No. 32, September 1, 2010 CARB Fakes Out California By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director The University of California at Los Angeles is attempting to dump James Enstrom, a researcher with the UCLA School of Public Health. This action is part of a larger story with consequences for ...
Commentary
Obamacare undermines our right to health care
President Obama has made no secret of his belief that health care should be “a right for every American.” This moral argument for reform was no doubt among the strongest offered by Obamacare’s proponents. Unfortunately, Obamacare doesn’t guarantee a right to health care. Instead, it undermines that right by subverting ...
An education autopsy for Steinberg’s tax swap
The tax swap proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg may be dead, but it can still help educate legislators in their quest to fix the budget, currently about $20 billion in the red, and restore prosperity in California. Steinberg advanced a plan to cut the sales tax rate ...
Studies Disprove “Second Shift” Narrative
Vol. 14 No. 08, September 7, 2010 Studies Disprove “Second Shift” Narrative By Sally C. Pipes, President and CEO It’s been a challenging summer for the Women’s Movement. The recent publication of two “time use surveys” in the United States and Europe contradicts the preferred feminist narrative about the lives ...
Helping Our Troops and Their Families
Children with special needs whose parents are in the Armed Services may soon be eligible for academic opportunity scholarships. Unfortunately, the National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE) is mounting a militant campaign against opportunities for those children. The Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2011 (S. ...
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 ...
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
That sucking sound is LAUSD doing business as usual
WHEN the Los Angeles Unified School District unveiled its opulent $578 million Robert F. Kennedy High School, the most expensive government-run K-12 school in this nation’s history, it was not just an isolated PR disaster. Rather, it was only the latest evidence that the floundering district is like a vacuum ...
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 ...
CARB Fakes Out California
Vol. 16 No. 32, September 1, 2010 CARB Fakes Out California By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director The University of California at Los Angeles is attempting to dump James Enstrom, a researcher with the UCLA School of Public Health. This action is part of a larger story with consequences for ...
Obamacare undermines our right to health care
President Obama has made no secret of his belief that health care should be “a right for every American.” This moral argument for reform was no doubt among the strongest offered by Obamacare’s proponents. Unfortunately, Obamacare doesn’t guarantee a right to health care. Instead, it undermines that right by subverting ...
