As a father of five children and a lifelong advocate for educational excellence in California, I take the well-being and future of our students personally and seriously. I have spent my career working on education policy, including running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2022, because I believe every child—regardless of their zip code—deserves...
Help the charter school community fight AB 84 The Southern California News Group recently published commentary by CPC Vice President Lance Christensen on Assembly Bill 84 and the devastation it would cause to charter schools and thousands of California families. AB 84 threatens a 30% funding cut for charter schools where in-person classroom-based instruction is...
Times are tough in Orange Unified, Orange County’s fourth-largest school district. Already facing a years-long decline in state funding that followed the district’s plummeting enrollment, school officials in June 2024 nevertheless agreed to a teachers union demand for a 10 percent pay hike. Union officials celebrated – but only briefly. In September, internal documents show,...
Politicians are pros at promising the moon and delivering a pebble. G.K. Chesterton nailed it: when they’re out of power, they’re wizards with a plan; in power, they’re magicians at making excuses. Most folks have grown so used to this song-and-dance that they don’t bat an eye when campaign trail bravado fizzles into “meh.” Enter...
Were you or your child denied admission into medical school on the basis of race or ethnicity within the last 5 years? Click here to document your experience. In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, a state constitutional amendment that banned preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in state hiring, contracting,...
Were you or your child denied admission into medical school on the basis of race or ethnicity within the last 5 years? Click here to document your experience. Despite a 4.2 high school grade-point average, near-perfect SATs, and the fact that he founded a software company while still a high school sophomore, Stanley Zhong was rejected...
National School Choice Week — the last week of January each year – is here again. School choice is simply the ability for families to select the education option that’s best for their children, and states throughout the nation are supporting school choice with charter schools, Education Savings Accounts (ESA’s), school vouchers, scholarships, tax deductions,...
They may not care much about education, but give teacher union leaders in the city of Orange, California, credit for speed and political ingenuity. Shortly after a successful March recall campaign in which leaders of the Orange Unified Education Association replaced two conservatives with two union-backed trustees, the newly configured board promptly awarded teachers a...
The California Department of Education released its annual student test scores this week and the news is sobering. The state’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) results for the 2023-24 school year show the percentage of students who have met or exceeded state standards for English language arts, math and science has increased only slightly...
Bakersfield’s first charter school opened its doors to hundreds of students last week in a victory for students and parents. The local teachers union brought in the big guns to fight against the charter — 94-year-old Dolores Huerta herself. Thankfully, Huerta lost. There are nine charter schools spread throughout the most remote parts of Kern...
The diverse student population of Kern County deserves a public school system with equally diverse educational options and opportunities to meet their needs. Unfortunately, Kern County ranks in the bottom 10 percent of all California counties by public school performance – number 54 of 58 – and the vast majority of K-12 students are trapped...
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law Assembly Bill 1955, a bill that takes the unprecedented and outrageous step of instructing school districts to lie to and keep secrets from parents about their own children. Introduced by Assemblyman Chris Ward (D-San Diego), AB 1955 was pushed through the legislature as a “gut and...