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What We’re Watching – September 20

Tim Anaya – How Rent Control Hurts Renters In the wake of the Legislature’s passage of AB 1482, so-called “rent gouging” legislation (which is really just another name for rent control), this great video from Prager U featuring Manhattan Institute scholar Nicole Gelinas shows just how government rent control policies ...
Blog

California State Senate Hands Newsom Decade-old Political Lightning Rod in Redevelopment Agencies

Since 2011, the California State Legislature has been itching to bring back redevelopment agencies. Governor Jerry Brown’s nixing of the 70-year-old program scored the California state budget several billion dollars during the Great Recession in 2011.  At the time of their elimination, redevelopment agencies collected around 12 percent of all ...
Blog

Split-Roll Forces Challenge Prop 13: How Will Californians React?

Supporters behind the split roll ballot measure that would remove Proposition 13’s tax protection for commercial properties had it been approved are apparently junking the initiative in favor of what they believe will be a “new and improved” plan. “They claim they are strengthening the measure to help it pass,” ...
Charter Schools

5 Warnings For Parents This Back-To-School Season

It is back-to-school time for students across America, which means that it also a time for parents to be aware of the signs that schools may not be providing the quality of education they want for their children. Here are the top five warning signs for which parents should be ...
Blog

Teacher Unions Veer Far Left

Recently, The Washington Times published an op-ed that I authored where I describe how the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, to use the newspaper’s headline, “Careen Left.”  But the reality is that the political landscape and momentum of teacher unions across the country is actually trending ...
Commentary

Post-Janus, How Unions Keep Teachers Trapped

By Lance Izumi and Rebecca Friedrichs Reports reveal that 10-15% of teachers have said “No thanks” to funding unions since the U.S. Supreme Court set them free from forced unionism through the Janus decision in June 2018. While these numbers might suggest that the great majority of teachers are happy ...
Charter Schools

Read Lance Izumi’s op-ed in the Washington Times: When national teacher unions careen left

As the national teacher unions careen farther and farther left, they now brazenly proclaim politics and power as their goals, while openly dismissing quality education as their priority. Education analyst and retired Los Angeles teacher Larry Sand observed that at the recent annual meeting of the National Education Association, the country’s ...
Blog

California’s Middle-Class Schools Still Not As Good As You Think

Recently, I gave a seminar presentation on my research on underperforming regular public schools in middle-class and more affluent neighborhoods in California, which allowed me to do some updates based on the most recent data. The seminar, sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, focused on ...
Charter Schools

Charter Schools Don’t Fiscally Distress Regular Public Schools

In their continuing war against charter schools, teacher unions have persistently argued that charter schools, which are mostly non-union, have a large negative financial impact on the regular public school system.  New research, however, contradicts this claim. In Sacramento, the California Teachers Association is pushing a package of anti-charter-school bills, ...
Charter Schools

Lance Izumi Writes About Importance of Charter Schools in TeachThought

While most traditional public schools continue to adhere to a one-size-fits-all model of curriculum, instruction, and learning, sometimes dubbed the ‘McDonaldization’ of education, public charter schools have the flexibility to implement more individualized learning models that promote curiosity, inquiry, and critical thinking. In a recent article, Terry Heick observed, “in education as ...
Blog

What We’re Watching – September 20

Tim Anaya – How Rent Control Hurts Renters In the wake of the Legislature’s passage of AB 1482, so-called “rent gouging” legislation (which is really just another name for rent control), this great video from Prager U featuring Manhattan Institute scholar Nicole Gelinas shows just how government rent control policies ...
Blog

California State Senate Hands Newsom Decade-old Political Lightning Rod in Redevelopment Agencies

Since 2011, the California State Legislature has been itching to bring back redevelopment agencies. Governor Jerry Brown’s nixing of the 70-year-old program scored the California state budget several billion dollars during the Great Recession in 2011.  At the time of their elimination, redevelopment agencies collected around 12 percent of all ...
Blog

Split-Roll Forces Challenge Prop 13: How Will Californians React?

Supporters behind the split roll ballot measure that would remove Proposition 13’s tax protection for commercial properties had it been approved are apparently junking the initiative in favor of what they believe will be a “new and improved” plan. “They claim they are strengthening the measure to help it pass,” ...
Charter Schools

5 Warnings For Parents This Back-To-School Season

It is back-to-school time for students across America, which means that it also a time for parents to be aware of the signs that schools may not be providing the quality of education they want for their children. Here are the top five warning signs for which parents should be ...
Blog

Teacher Unions Veer Far Left

Recently, The Washington Times published an op-ed that I authored where I describe how the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, to use the newspaper’s headline, “Careen Left.”  But the reality is that the political landscape and momentum of teacher unions across the country is actually trending ...
Commentary

Post-Janus, How Unions Keep Teachers Trapped

By Lance Izumi and Rebecca Friedrichs Reports reveal that 10-15% of teachers have said “No thanks” to funding unions since the U.S. Supreme Court set them free from forced unionism through the Janus decision in June 2018. While these numbers might suggest that the great majority of teachers are happy ...
Charter Schools

Read Lance Izumi’s op-ed in the Washington Times: When national teacher unions careen left

As the national teacher unions careen farther and farther left, they now brazenly proclaim politics and power as their goals, while openly dismissing quality education as their priority. Education analyst and retired Los Angeles teacher Larry Sand observed that at the recent annual meeting of the National Education Association, the country’s ...
Blog

California’s Middle-Class Schools Still Not As Good As You Think

Recently, I gave a seminar presentation on my research on underperforming regular public schools in middle-class and more affluent neighborhoods in California, which allowed me to do some updates based on the most recent data. The seminar, sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, focused on ...
Charter Schools

Charter Schools Don’t Fiscally Distress Regular Public Schools

In their continuing war against charter schools, teacher unions have persistently argued that charter schools, which are mostly non-union, have a large negative financial impact on the regular public school system.  New research, however, contradicts this claim. In Sacramento, the California Teachers Association is pushing a package of anti-charter-school bills, ...
Charter Schools

Lance Izumi Writes About Importance of Charter Schools in TeachThought

While most traditional public schools continue to adhere to a one-size-fits-all model of curriculum, instruction, and learning, sometimes dubbed the ‘McDonaldization’ of education, public charter schools have the flexibility to implement more individualized learning models that promote curiosity, inquiry, and critical thinking. In a recent article, Terry Heick observed, “in education as ...
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