Vermont’s school choice secret

Grassroots Infrastructure for Initiatives and Recalls is Growing in California

Earlier this month the effort to recall Gavin Newsom was officially ended. As reported in the Times of San Diego on March 17, “Last week, the California Secretary of State’s Office informed Erin Cruz of Palm Springs that her petition effort to oust the Democratic governor had failed. A year earlier, an initiative to repeal California’s gas tax made...

By Edward Ring

Schools out…forever?

Whether it’s a pandemic, a damn panic, or all the above, the coronavirus has turned us into a nation of homeschoolers. With just about every public school in the country closed at this time, the only way for kids to get an education is at home. Many see this as nothing less than tragic. Writing...

By Larry Sand

California Dystopia Update, March 2020 edition: How the stage was set for a coronavirus homeless disaster

The debate over homelessness in California seemed to shift last fall, when dozens of local governments supplied or co-signed amicus briefs in a case in which Boise, Idaho, officials urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that banned arrests of people sleeping in public if they had nowhere else to go....

By Chris Reed

California Cities in Critical Condition

The specter of California’s cities and counties becoming insolvent is nothing new. Three major California cities have already declared bankruptcy, Vallejo in 2008, Stockton and San Bernardino in 2012. In October 2019, the California State Auditor’s Office reported on the fiscal health of 471 California cities. On what the California State Auditor’s office describes as a “Local Government...

By Edward Ring

Sustainable Megacities

Modern urban centers around the world now have neighborhoods that house well over 100,000 people per square mile. The Choa Chu Kang district in Singapore, defined by boulevards lined with 10 to 12 story mid-rise residential buildings, has a population density of over 125,000 per square mile. The entire borough of Manhattan has an average population density of over 70,000 per square...

By Edward Ring

Government Pensions Are Dividing Americans and Damaging the Economy

Now that financial markets around the world are experiencing a long-overdue correction, the best we can hope for is that we hit bottom before a deflationary cascade causes a worldwide depression. Those economists who believe in the long-term debt cycle may claim that this time the end has arrived, and they may be right. COVID-19, oil price...

By Edward Ring

Bond fatigue and school choice

Californians nix school bonds as Florida’s parental choice program expands. It looks like California’s Prop.13, a $15 billion school construction bond, has been defeated. This is notable because voters had not rejected a bond of this nature since 1994. Additionally, supporters raised $10 million for the campaign, while opponents spent 1/40th of that amount –...

By Larry Sand

Gathered for the feast at the Hotel California

Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place… Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year, you can find it here… – “Hotel California,” by the Eagles, 1977 For decades California’s aristocracy has engaged in unsustainable feasting, as they consume the leviathan carcasses of what were for a time the world’s the...

By Edward Ring

Californians reject new taxes and borrowing

The preliminary election returns reported on March 4th indicate that California’s voters delivered a stunning rejection of new taxes and borrowing. It’s about time. At the state level, Prop.13 which would have authorized $15 billion in general obligation bonds for schools and colleges, required a simple majority for approval. But as of March 9th the...

By Edward Ring

The Wondrous, Magnificent Cities of the 21st Century

The American Conservative recently laid an egg. They published a misanthropic, pessimistically aggressive Malthusian screed, written by James Howard Kunstler. Kunstler’s “Why America’s Urban Dreams Went Wrong” attacks pretty much every urban amenity Americans have built since the invention of the automobile. And his reasoning, all of it, reflects a dismal lack of faith in human...

By Edward Ring

My latest open letter to Randi Weingarten

This is the fifth in a series of missives to the president of the American Federation of Teachers. (The first four can be accessed here.) Hey Randi! Can you believe it! Next Monday will be our tenth anniversary! Yup, a whole decade has passed since Terry Moe, Rod Paige and I devoured you and two...

By Larry Sand

The Premises of California’s Dysfunction

Anyone unfamiliar with what is really going on in California would have listened to Governor Newsom’s State of the State address on February 12 and gotten the impression that things have never been better. Newsom’s opening set the tone for the rest of his 4,400 word monologue: “By every traditional measure, the state of our state is...

By Edward Ring

California’s K-12 spending exceeds $20,000 per pupil

“It’s not enough. We’re still 41st in the nation in per pupil funding. Something needs to change. We need to have an honest conversation about how we fund our schools at a state and local level,” – California Governor Gavin Newsom, State of the State Address, February 12, 2020 It should come as no surprise that Governor...

By Edward Ring

As the political exhibition season ends, here’s a brief look at where the candidates stand on school choice, and the Green Mountain State’s 150-year-old parental choice program. In 2015, the American Federation of Teachers anointed Hillary Clinton as its 2016 presidential preference, with no input from its rank-and-file. This did not sit well with the...

By Larry Sand