The Reading Crisis: Why Illiteracy Threatens California’s Future and What We Can Do Now
The Reading Crisis: Why Illiteracy Threatens California’s Future and What We Can Do Now
The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results for Grade 12 reading are out — and the numbers are grim. Only a staggering 35 percent of high school seniors nationwide were proficient in reading. Nearly one in three graduates struggles to draw basic conclusions from a text, a skill essential for everything from voting to...
By Lance Christensen, Sheridan Karras
The Clock is Ticking on Charter School Bills
The Clock is Ticking on Charter School Bills
SACRAMENTO — As charter school advocates wait for the California legislature to complete their work before session ends this weekend, the following is a summary of the most important developments regarding charter school bills in the California legislature. Since the Senate Pro Tem waived Joint Rule 61, any bill that was amended within 72-hours will...
By California Policy Center
The $137 Billion Question: What Are California’s Schools Delivering?
The $137 Billion Question: What Are California’s Schools Delivering?
With schools back in session and the state budget finalized, the question of what California spends on public education — and what it delivers in return — is at the forefront of many parents’ and taxpayers’ minds. California has among the highest per-pupil spending in the nation, but questions persist about whether California families are...
By Sheridan Karras
Declining enrollment in traditional schools highlights California’s need for alternatives
Declining enrollment in traditional schools highlights California’s need for alternatives
With many California classrooms set to reopen in August, California Policy Center took a closer look at school enrollment patterns, and what they signal for the year ahead. Looking at public school enrollment data from 2014-15 to 2024-25, broken down by county, CPC conducted an analysis of the 10-year trend in California. The data revealed...
By Sheridan Karras
California’s Experience With Compulsory Education
California’s Experience With Compulsory Education
It’s time to review our collective fascination with perpetuating mandatory government school attendance. Since the beginning of statehood, Californians have pursued education at a steep cost to produce a free society in the frontier along the Pacific Ocean. During the height of the Mexican–American War, women like Olive Mann Isbell established the first school in...
By Lance Christensen
Systems of Power and Oppression: Ethnic Studies and The Dark Side of Teachers’ Unions
Systems of Power and Oppression: Ethnic Studies and The Dark Side of Teachers’ Unions
Most parents assume the greatest threats to student learning are budget shortfalls or outdated curricula. Yet, the real danger may be hiding in plain sight: politically entrenched teachers’ unions. Cloaked in promises of social justice and equity, these influential groups have quietly seized control of K–12 classrooms, steering education toward radical ideologies with deliberately deceiving...
By Nicole Bernstein
Assembly Bill 84 fails our most vulnerable students
Assembly Bill 84 fails our most vulnerable students
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...
By Lance Christensen
Action Alert: Charter Schools Under Attack
Action Alert: Charter Schools Under Attack
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...
By California Policy Center
Charter School Emerges as Financial Lifeline for Struggling Orange County District
Charter School Emerges as Financial Lifeline for Struggling Orange County District
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,...
By Will Swaim
Trump’s Education Smackdown: Shutting Down the Department of Education
Trump’s Education Smackdown: Shutting Down the Department of Education
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...
By Lance Christensen
Lawsuit: University of California Systematically Discriminates Against Asian American Applicants
Lawsuit: University of California Systematically Discriminates Against Asian American Applicants
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,...
By Thomas Buckley
Why was a brilliant kid rejected by the University of California?
Why was a brilliant kid rejected by the University of California?
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...
By Thomas Buckley