Uneducating America: Student Test Scores on U.S. History and Civics Hit All-Time Lows
Uneducating America: Student Test Scores on U.S. History and Civics Hit All-Time Lows
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, is a test that measures the knowledge of American students in various areas. The results of the NAEP test in U.S. history and civics, taken in 2022, were released last month. They paint a grim picture: according to the data,...
By Larry Sand
Bay Area Financial Crisis: Oakland
Bay Area Financial Crisis: Oakland
Like San Francisco, the Bay Area City of Oakland is facing major budget woes. Mayor Sheng Thao’s proposed budget for 2023-25 released last month reveals the city is facing a $360 million shortfall, the largest budget deficit in Oakland’s history. The proposed budget for FY 2023-24 and 2024-25 plans for total expenditures of over $2.1...
By Sheridan Swanson
San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
The State of California isn’t the only one scrambling to prepare a budget while staring down a deficit. Several Bay Area municipalities are also struggling with their own budget problems, San Francisco chief among them. San Francisco’s 2022-23 budget and next year’s 2023-24 budget total approximately $14 billion each. On March 31, the San Francisco...
By Sheridan Swanson
Challenging the Premise of Our Destruction
Challenging the Premise of Our Destruction
The most powerful and destructive perception in the world today is that using fossil fuels will cause catastrophic climate change. This belief, marketed by every major government and corporate institution in the Western world, is the foundational premise underlying a policy agenda of stunning indifference to the aspirations of ordinary people. The war on fossil...
By Edward Ring
Newsom Wisely Avoids Transit Bailout in May Budget Revise
Newsom Wisely Avoids Transit Bailout in May Budget Revise
Governor Newsom’s FY 2023-24 budget update included a larger projected deficit and more balancing measures than his January budget. But, despite pressure from Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and transit agencies, the May Revise excluded emergency funding for local bus and rail systems around the state. The agencies’ proposed transit bailout was at best premature,...
By Marc Joffe
The Rise of Zombie Cities
The Rise of Zombie Cities
When the California State Auditor’s Office released its annual report on the “Fiscal Health of California Cities” in fall 2022, most city officials and journalists focused on the blunt financial risk rating results and the relative position of their city organization amongst the 431 cities analyzed. But there is more that we can learn from...
By Mark Moses
A Success Story at an Orange County Charter
A Success Story at an Orange County Charter
By Michael Davis Dire were the predictions when our little charter school, Orange County Classical Academy, was approved over three years ago in a famously raucous Orange Unified School District board hearing. The skepticism was forgivable then but not today. In its first year of operation, 50 percent of OCCA’s English Learners achieved English-language proficiency by the...
By California Policy Center
The War on Boys and Girls
The War on Boys and Girls
Over the years, a cause for teen angst, suicide, etc., has reportedly been the media. But there is no definitive evidence to corroborate that. In fact, every recent generation has traditionally pointed to the media or some other cultural factor as damaging to youth. In the 1920s, it was the Charleston, and in the 1940s,...
By Larry Sand
California Holds the Key to Western Water Security
California Holds the Key to Western Water Security
Dams and aqueducts on the Colorado River make civilization possible in the American Southwest. But for the last 20 years, as a prolonged drought has gripped the region, withdrawals from the river have averaged 15 million acre-feet per year, while inflows into Lake Mead and Lake Powell have averaged only 12 million acre feet per year. For the first...
By Edward Ring
Sacramento’s Mismanagement of Taxpayer Dollars
Sacramento’s Mismanagement of Taxpayer Dollars
Leaders in Sacramento are grappling with the state budget this month as California faces a budget deficit of nearly $32 billion. Senate leaders claim they can address the deficit without cutting spending on state programs, but the reality is that a fiscal reckoning is long overdue. According to a survey released by the Public Policy...
By Sheridan Swanson
The Bullet Train Epitomizes Golden State Corruption
The Bullet Train Epitomizes Golden State Corruption
It sounded too good to be true, and it was. Travel from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles in two hours via high-speed rail. California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 1A, authorizing $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to build this so-called “bullet train.” They were told not only that the total cost would...
By Edward Ring
An Open Letter to Assemblymember Kevin McCarty
An Open Letter to Assemblymember Kevin McCarty
RE: Assembly Constitutional Amendment 9 – OPPOSE, UNLESS AMENDED Dear Assemblyman McCarty, I write in respectful opposition to Assembly Constitutional Amendment 9 (ACA 9) as it is presently constituted. Full disclosure – I was the runner-up candidate for the constitutional office of Superintendent of Public Instruction on the November 2022 general election ballot. While considering the following comments...
By Lance Christensen