Research shows that technocratic reforms have made no difference in alleviating the achievement gap. A new study by Eric Hanushek et al. for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) shows that all the top-down fixes – No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, etc. – piled on by the education industrial complex have...
Congratulations this week go to Jonathan Boring (Cleanclean.christian.memes.daily) for an incredible array of Prop65 warnings in a wonderfully ironic post. Watch out, hunters. Gun legislation has to be particularly ripe in a state in which even toy guns are deemed lethal. Only in Crazy California! View this post on Instagram I guess we...
The “WWHD Conference — What Would Howard Ahmanson, Sr., Do?” — was held August 1, 2018, the year marking the 50th anniversary of my father’s death. I decided I wanted to sponsor it, mostly to honor him. In the tumultuous year of 1968, when Howard Sr. died, he owned Home Savings and Loan, the largest savings...
California, the welcoming sanctuary state, has a population on track to break 40 million by the end of this year. Its highway system was designed to handle a population of 20 million. Its cities, bound by legislated “urban containment,” are 3.5 million homes short of what would meet current housing needs. As a result, commuters spend hours stuck in...
As reported by the Ventura County Star, the City of Oxnard faces budget headwinds. Quoted in the article, Mayor Tim Flynn had this to say: We’re making decisions that should have been made 10, 20 years ago to put the city on a sustainable path,” Flynn said. “These are very painful cuts, but we have to...
Blue states oppress black people too. Nowhere is this more obvious than in policing and public education in California. California’s Legislature is grappling with these issues this session. Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), a progressive voice and chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, is authoring AB 392, which seeks to change the use of...
Union leader and the school district want more of your money to feed a bad habit. United Teachers of Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl is on a mission. In an online rant to his flock, he makes a pitch for Measure EE, a parcel tax that will be on the ballot in Los Angeles on...
Week 36’s winning entry is provided by Denise Smith (MrsNellie08). It appears that being fashionable is just another way that Californians can contract cancer or put their progeny at risk. It also points to one of the benefits of the web. The warning only appears when a Californian makes a purchase. Fashion apparently kills only...
On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Janus vs AFSCME. An immediate consequence of this ruling was that public sector unions could no longer collect so-called “agency fees” from workers in their bargaining units who had opted out of full union membership. The other main consequence of the Janus ruling was that those...
When discussing the seemingly intractable and growing problem of homeless people living in California, journalists reporting on the issue don’t spend enough time questioning the numbers, much less the policies driving the insane numbers. A recent article in the San Jose Mercury provides a perfect example. The article gets off to a good start with a provocative, and very...
AFT president’s talk is rife with platitudes, attitude, and misinformation. Platitudes at the ready, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten gave a speech to the National Press Club in Washington last Thursday. Calling her talk “The Freedom to Teach,” she referenced a poster on her office wall which reads, “Teachers inspire, encourage, empower, nurture,...
David Boring’s (DavidBoring02) simple picture of a walnut board and its combination Proposition 65 warning/bar label is Week 35’s winning entry. Doesn’t his equip, “I guess man glitter is toxic” say it all? So much for wood working, at least in crazy California. View this post on Instagram It’s official! I no longer...
The union assault on charter schools in California has intensified, but resistance is not futile. Parents, students, conscientious teachers, lawmakers and concerned citizens are stepping up. There are many ways to fight for charter schools, which represent one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal performance by California’s K-12 system of public education. In an April...
More bad news from the nation’s second largest school district. According to a report released last week, less than half of the 2019 Los Angeles Unified School District graduating class will be eligible to attend one of the state’s public universities. There are 15 essential “A–G” courses, including English, math, and science that students need...