Across the nation, parents are pushing back against inappropriate and hyper-sexualized content in K-12 schools. This organic parent movement is erupting across diverse demographics — in stark contrast to the PR effort by teachers unions and Democrats to fictionalize it as a “Christian nationalist white supremacist” campaign to “ban books.” Earlier this month, Muslim parents in...
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, is a test that measures the knowledge of American students in various areas. The results of the NAEP test in U.S. history and civics, taken in 2022, were released last month. They paint a grim picture: according to the data,...
By Michael Davis Dire were the predictions when our little charter school, Orange County Classical Academy, was approved over three years ago in a famously raucous Orange Unified School District board hearing. The skepticism was forgivable then but not today. In its first year of operation, 50 percent of OCCA’s English Learners achieved English-language proficiency by the...
RE: Assembly Constitutional Amendment 9 – OPPOSE, UNLESS AMENDED Dear Assemblyman McCarty, I write in respectful opposition to Assembly Constitutional Amendment 9 (ACA 9) as it is presently constituted. Full disclosure – I was the runner-up candidate for the constitutional office of Superintendent of Public Instruction on the November 2022 general election ballot. While considering the following comments...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
This month, we celebrated and honored the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man who fought for equality and a quality education for all children. More than fifty years later, too many of our district schools are failing Latino families. This is the social justice issue of our generation. More than half of...
The teachers-union-backed California School Boards Association (CSBA) is warning school officials that a financial crisis is coming for the state’s hundreds of school districts. CSBA’s advice: Beg for a handout. “At a time when 25 cents of every dollar received by local schools goes toward pension obligations, districts and county offices of education need more...
As we transition into 2023, we can see that the field of education will once again be a contentious one, as too many government-run schools are failing, and parents are not happy. In Chicago, for example, great numbers of students are avoiding their local schools. In fact, more than one-third of the city’s public schools...
The Orange County Classical Academy (OCCA) was recognized this week as a California Distinguished School, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced. OCCA, a high-performing public charter school, was the only school to receive the prestigious 2023 award in Orange Unified School District. “Orange County Classical Academy truly deserves to be recognized as a...
And how they ultimately hurt minority students and expose a glaring hypocrisy in the California education system. State-funded universities in California are pushing to use race as a metric for college admissions, a practice many Californians believe should stay in the past. But while claiming to champion educational opportunity for low-income and minority students,...