Studies
Education
Back Stories to Waiting for Superman
Waiting for Superman, touted by Oprah, Bill Gates and other celebrities, is now playing California theatres. Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim directed the film, best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Several back stories, and the star, will not be apparent on the big screen. Waiting for Superman follows five ...
Business & Economics
The Whole 209 Yards: California’s Proposition for the Nation
The November elections have been dominating the news, obscuring a story of great interest to Contrarian readers. Those readers know that this column finds little merit in most government policies on women’s issues or gender issues. Sometimes, however, a government measure can have a positive effect. That even holds true ...
Business & Economics
The Prospective Effects of Proposition 23 on Employment in California
Suspension of AB 32 Would Add 150,000 Jobs in California in 2011 and More than 500,000 in 2012, According to New Study San Francisco A new study by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, finds that the approval of Proposition 23, suspending the implementation ...
Business & Economics
Does California’s Budget Crisis Discriminate Against Women?
A group of California legislators and community leaders recently met on the steps of the state capitol to protest Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts. The group charged that these budget cuts disproportionately affect women, but the claim ignores some key realities. “We are here to say we’d like to ...
California
Governor Schwarzenegger: Don’t Build This Wall!
One of President Reagan’s most famous quotes was his appeal to Soviet Communist Party Chairman Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!” Governor Schwarzenegger has a similar opportunity to prevent a wall that limits people’s freedom from being built in the first place. ObamaCare relies on states to implement most of ...
Education
New Study Finds GI Junior Scholarships Would Expand Education Options for CA Military Children
New policy brief finds that providing military families with school vouchers to allow parents to choose schools that best fit their children’s needs would raise educational achievement and save the state money. Sacramento— Today, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based public policy think tank, released a policy brief on ...
Health Care
ObamaCare Will Dramatically Reduce Choice in Private Insurance
Key Points The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has just issued regulations that will reduce choice in health insurance for individuals and businesses. These regulations focus on the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR), a misleading bookkeeping concept irrelevant to peoples’ choice of health insurance. To succeed in reducing choice, ObamaCare ...
Education
Back-to-School Lessons from LAUSD
Vol. 16 No. 32, September 8, 2010 Back-to-School Lessons from LAUSD By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director After 15 years of legal and environmental battles, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently opened the Robert F. Kennedy High School, which cost $578 million—more than half a billion dollars—and now ...
Commentary
Which is More Obese, San Francisco’s Kids, or Its Government?
Imagine this scene a year or two in our future: An inspector from the San Francisco Department of Public Health spots something shiny behind a restaurant freezer. He pulls out a plastic Iron Man™ action figure, which the manager claims belongs to his son. No dice – they haul him ...
Business & Economics
20 years later: Self esteem movement was utopian hucksterism
Twenty years ago, a California state document was flying off the shelves. “Toward a State of Esteem” was the final report of the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. That body shut down in 1990, but Californians have good reason to look back. Then-Assemblyman John ...
Back Stories to Waiting for Superman
Waiting for Superman, touted by Oprah, Bill Gates and other celebrities, is now playing California theatres. Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim directed the film, best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Several back stories, and the star, will not be apparent on the big screen. Waiting for Superman follows five ...
The Whole 209 Yards: California’s Proposition for the Nation
The November elections have been dominating the news, obscuring a story of great interest to Contrarian readers. Those readers know that this column finds little merit in most government policies on women’s issues or gender issues. Sometimes, however, a government measure can have a positive effect. That even holds true ...
The Prospective Effects of Proposition 23 on Employment in California
Suspension of AB 32 Would Add 150,000 Jobs in California in 2011 and More than 500,000 in 2012, According to New Study San Francisco A new study by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, finds that the approval of Proposition 23, suspending the implementation ...
Does California’s Budget Crisis Discriminate Against Women?
A group of California legislators and community leaders recently met on the steps of the state capitol to protest Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts. The group charged that these budget cuts disproportionately affect women, but the claim ignores some key realities. “We are here to say we’d like to ...
Governor Schwarzenegger: Don’t Build This Wall!
One of President Reagan’s most famous quotes was his appeal to Soviet Communist Party Chairman Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!” Governor Schwarzenegger has a similar opportunity to prevent a wall that limits people’s freedom from being built in the first place. ObamaCare relies on states to implement most of ...
New Study Finds GI Junior Scholarships Would Expand Education Options for CA Military Children
New policy brief finds that providing military families with school vouchers to allow parents to choose schools that best fit their children’s needs would raise educational achievement and save the state money. Sacramento— Today, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based public policy think tank, released a policy brief on ...
ObamaCare Will Dramatically Reduce Choice in Private Insurance
Key Points The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has just issued regulations that will reduce choice in health insurance for individuals and businesses. These regulations focus on the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR), a misleading bookkeeping concept irrelevant to peoples’ choice of health insurance. To succeed in reducing choice, ObamaCare ...
Back-to-School Lessons from LAUSD
Vol. 16 No. 32, September 8, 2010 Back-to-School Lessons from LAUSD By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director After 15 years of legal and environmental battles, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently opened the Robert F. Kennedy High School, which cost $578 million—more than half a billion dollars—and now ...
Which is More Obese, San Francisco’s Kids, or Its Government?
Imagine this scene a year or two in our future: An inspector from the San Francisco Department of Public Health spots something shiny behind a restaurant freezer. He pulls out a plastic Iron Man™ action figure, which the manager claims belongs to his son. No dice – they haul him ...
20 years later: Self esteem movement was utopian hucksterism
Twenty years ago, a California state document was flying off the shelves. “Toward a State of Esteem” was the final report of the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. That body shut down in 1990, but Californians have good reason to look back. Then-Assemblyman John ...
