Having served on the California State Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee during my six years in Sacramento, I was recently challenged to take a closer look at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget. I started with his Jan. 10, 2024, budget message to the members of the California State Legislature. I was not amused. It...

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...

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...

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...

Register for this free online Zoom event HERE. 10 am to 12 pm, Saturday, Jan. 30. Learn about quality school options that are available for K-12 students in California: Local Public Schools Charter Schools Homeschooling Private Schools Alternative Schools Learning Pods Speakers include: Mari Barke (emcee), California Policy Center Andrew Campanella, National School Choice Week...

In the November 2020 election, California’s powerful teachers’ unions spent over $20 million promoting Prop. 15, which would have increased taxes on commercial properties. Other unions, mostly in the public sector, spent another $17 million to promote Prop. 15. But voters weren’t buying it. Prop. 15 failed. Overall, in November 2020, California’s government unions spent nearly $70...

A new CPC analysis suggests that South LA charter schools have 37% more college-ready SAT-taking students than comparable district schools nearby. The analysis compares the California Department of Education’s SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmarks at charter and district high schools located in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods in South Los Angeles (Zip Codes: 90001, 90002, 90003,...

With a Biden presidency looming, charter schools are once again under attack. “I remember seeing a bumper sticker when the telephone company was all one…and it said ‘We don’t care. We don’t have to.’ And that’s what a monopoly is. That’s what IBM was in their day. And that’s certainly what the public school system...

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck hard back in April 2020, California’s teachers’ unions went into overdrive. The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) released a lengthy document outlining what they believed to be “Safe and Equitable Conditions for Starting LAUSD in 2020-21.” In a report published by the California Policy Center that same month, Larry Sand explained the deal...