We believe every Californian should have the opportunity to flourish.

Carrying for the kids

Carrying for the kids

An analysis of school shootings by the U.S. Secret Service doesn’t really tell us anything new. A report released last week by the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center on “targeted school violence” doesn’t add much to what we already knew. Nearly every attacker “experienced negative home life factors.” Most were victims of bullying...

By Larry Sand

Long-Term Solutions for California Wildfire Prevention

Long-Term Solutions for California Wildfire Prevention

Nobody knew how the fire started. It took hold in the dry chaparral and grasslands and quickly spread up the sides of the canyon. Propelled by winds gusting over 40 miles per hour and extremely dry air (humidity below 25 percent), the fire spread over the ridge and into the town below. Overwhelmed firefighters could...

By Edward Ring

Will UTLA endorse socialist Bernie Sanders?

Will UTLA endorse socialist Bernie Sanders?

The L.A. teachers union may officially support Bernie Sanders for president next week. Back in September, the United Teachers of Los Angeles board of directors began a process to endorse Bernie Sanders for president, and on November 14th there will be a formal vote by the union’s House of Representatives. UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl is...

By Larry Sand

How Federal Intervention Can Ease California’s Homeless Crisis

How Federal Intervention Can Ease California’s Homeless Crisis

California’s homeless crisis is now visible to everyone living in the state. Along with tens of thousands of homeless who are concentrated in various districts of the major cities, additional thousands are widely dispersed. If you drive into most major urban centers, you will see their tent encampments along freeway junctions, under bridges, along frontages,...

By Edward Ring

Elizabeth Warren’s “No Teachers Union Left behind” Campaign

Elizabeth Warren’s “No Teachers Union Left behind” Campaign

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren used to be a Republican, a Native American and pro-school choice. Now she is a Democrat, a Caucasian and anti-choice teacher union suck-up. As I wrote back in May, the Democratic presidential contenders were battling each other fiercely to score the endorsement of the nation’s teachers unions. The anointment comes with...

By Larry Sand

Parents stand up to the failing education establishment and win

Parents stand up to the failing education establishment and win

If you’re suffering a bad-news hangover, I have a cure — and it’s not a shot of tomato juice and some equally bad or worse news. It’s actual great news: In just one year, a historically failing elementary school in a tough part of Anaheim has produced an educational turnaround that would be called a...

By Will Swaim

How many laws does San Francisco’s Prop A violate?

How many laws does San Francisco’s Prop A violate?

Whether or not San Francisco’s upcoming appeal to voters to borrow $600 million to pay for for low income housing is a good idea or a bad idea depends on who you ask. Proponents claim Prop. A, which will appear on the ballot this November 5th, is necessary because San Francisco doesn’t have enough affordable housing....

By Edward Ring

Penalty Assessment Fees Report

Penalty Assessment Fees Report

Investigating the relationship between stressed public finances and rising misdemeanor fines and penalties By Reiss Becker, David Vasquez, Zane Zovak   BACKGROUND California Policy Center analysts have documented the state’s collapsing public finances over the past few decades – not just the rising level of public debt, but the subsequent effects of crumbling infrastructure, slashed government...

By California Policy Center

Electricity and Ideology – Competing Priorities in California

Electricity and Ideology – Competing Priorities in California

“If I wanted the power shut off for days by bloated, corrupt utilities enabled by bloated, corrupt one-party politicians,” quipped Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney and prominent conservative political activist, “I would have stayed in India.” Dhillon’s observation pretty much sums up the frustration felt by millions of Californians last week. In Northern California, nearly 800,000 homes...

By Edward Ring

The Great “Awokening”

The Great “Awokening”

The U.S. is in the grips of a Godless religious revival. The “Great Awakening” refers to several periods of religious rejuvenation in American Christianity. Historians and theologians have identified three or four waves of increased religiosity occurring between the 18th and 20th centuries. However, the latest version is secular, and its zealots are focusing their...

By Larry Sand

SPLC and NEA v. Parents and Kids

SPLC and NEA v. Parents and Kids

The disgraceful Southern Poverty Law Center is now trying to keep poor parents from getting their kids out of awful schools. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which regularly labels organizations whose politics they disagree with as “Hate Groups,” has jumped head-first into the school choice fray. Just a few weeks ago, they began Public Funds...

By Larry Sand

Crazy and Woke on the Western Front of Progressive Insanity

Crazy and Woke on the Western Front of Progressive Insanity

The reason progressive extremism persists in America today is because progressives are either making money by embracing progressive policies, or because progressives are not living on the front lines of progressive insanity. It is hard to imagine a place that would have an electorate any more progressive than Venice Beach. Located on the shores of...

By Edward Ring

San Francisco’s Prop. A – Expensive Insanity Marches On

San Francisco’s Prop. A – Expensive Insanity Marches On

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein There is no solid evidence that one of history’s greatest geniuses ever said this, but its applicability to California’s housing crisis is too big to let attribution get in the way. Because California’s politicians are trying to solve...

By Edward Ring