Voters Approve Over $3.0 Billion Per Year in New Local Taxes

AB 421: SEIU’s Bid to Gut California’s 112-year-old Referendum and Initiative Laws

In the devil’s workshop we call the state legislature, government union leaders are hard at work — destroying another of California’s democratic institutions. Fresh off the shutdown of Los Angeles Unified schools and the overthrow of their own elected president — and facing steep declines in membership and revenue — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) activists are...

By Will Swaim

California Policy Center’s Statewide Take Back California Education Tour Continues

It did not take long after I announced a statewide education reform tour as a former candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction and in my role as California Policy Center’s Vice President of Education Policy and Government Affairs to receive an overwhelming and positive response. Parents, educators, school board members, and other concerned community members...

By Lance Christensen

Unions’ Strike Hurts L.A. Students and Families

Two employee unions in Los Angeles Unified are poised to strike this week, shutting down schools and leaving many parents angry that students are — once again — being used as leverage by the unions in contract negotiations. The unions are demanding huge pay raises despite financial reports showing LAUSD is already upside down $16.4...

By California Policy Center

Capistrano Unified: A Case Study in Opposing Bad Bonds

A practical way for citizens to fight ill-conceived school bond measures View our full School Bonds Toolkit here for additional resources. School bonds are designed to fund the building and maintenance of school facilities, but there have been increasing concerns about bond oversight and how districts utilize bonds. Too often, school districts put bond measures on...

By Sheridan Karras

Huntington Beach’s Lawsuit Challenges Newsom’s Housing Mandates

We’ve seen Gov. Gavin Newsom impose questionable — even dangerous and illegal — policies by declaring states of emergency or merely “crisis” with regard to Covid, climate and energy. He’s done it again on the issue of housing. The problems of housing affordability and homelessness constitute a crisis so compelling, the governor says, that they...

By Will Swaim

School Choice Wins Across the Nation

The school choice movement is accelerating across the nation as more state legislatures pass laws that empower parents to use tax dollars to send their child to the best school for them. Support for school choice is also skyrocketing among voters across demographics. Among likely voters, a survey by the Invest in Education Coalition found...

By Sheridan Karras

SB 292: Is California Ready for School Choice?

You can add Arkansas to the list of states that have enacted universal school choice legislation this year. In just three months, Republican governors in Iowa and Utah, and now newly-elected Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, have signed laws creating statewide Education Savings Account (ESA) programs that empower parents to use state education dollars to...

By California Policy Center

Unionized Public Education is Destroying California

Behind any popular mass movement there are often good ideas and noble objectives. Public sector unions—including teachers’ unions—are no exception. Organized labor, ideally, offers collective power to ordinary workers and provides a counterweight whenever business interests become exploitative. How to regulate that balance is a topic that deserves vigorous and ongoing debate, but most of...

By Edward Ring

Lone Star Bound

Frisco, Texas — nestled in the north Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex — has been making headlines for the number of companies flocking to the city to take advantage of its business-friendly environment and rapid growth. This month, the Frisco Economic Development Corporation (FEDC) released a statement highlighting the city’s impressive 2022 track record, having welcomed sixteen...

By Sheridan Karras

Barnstorming California on Education Reform

California’s primary and secondary education system is broken. I don’t need to list the parade of horribles — we all know them. We are failing the next generation. With your input, I would like to find a better way. You’re skeptical that any reform of value can be achieved in California. I get it. I...

By Lance Christensen

The Covid Lockdown Disaster: Three Years Later

Beginning in March 2020, many bad decisions were made that will impact untold numbers of young people for the rest of their lives. There has been nothing but awful news about the unnecessary Covid-related shutdown of American schools. Study after study and a mass of anecdotal evidence show the harm done by the forced lockdowns....

By Larry Sand

Unions Are Behind California’s Latest Wealth Tax Proposal

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. This adage applies well to ideas for new ways to tax Californians. Every election cycle we see new ways to be taxed, and higher tax rates, but rarely will we see a tax get repealed. So it is that Assemblyman Alex Lee (D, San Jose) has introduced Assembly...

By Edward Ring

California Per Capita General Fund Spending Doubles – Where Is It Going?

California’s state government is spending twice as much as it did a decade ago, and by every metric that matters to ordinary Californians, things have only gotten worse. Even without further analysis, this is an incredible fact. California’s state government, in constant dollars, is spending nearly twice as much per resident as it did a...

By Edward Ring

Voters Approve Over $3.0 Billion Per Year in New Local Taxes

When state ballot initiatives propose new taxes, it’s big news. But while every election features a handful of state tax and bond proposals that get statewide attention, additional hundreds of local state and bond proposals fly under the radar. Fortunately, after each election cycle and once all the votes are certified – something that in...

By Edward Ring