Depending on who you ask, California’s K-12 system of public education would be doing just fine if taxpayers threw another $30 billion (or more) per year into its insatiable maw, or, it is a failed model mostly because the teachers’ union agenda has ruined everything, from a crippling administrative overhead to mandating a curricula more...

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,...

In 2004, following decades of poor student performance and gang crime, parents at San Diego’s Gompers Middle School and the school’s principal used a little-known state law to convert their campus into a public charter school. The new school, called Gompers Preparatory Academy, thrived. Campus safety improved, test scores rose, and students and teachers lined...

The following was written for the “Fake News or Real” quiz on National Review’s Radio Free California podcast. –Editor After a string of non-fatal gun battles in California’s classrooms, Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced new guidelines on Tuesday to ban the use of finger guns. “This ends now! We must act! We can’t just sit around...

When it comes to school districts, bigger is not necessarily better. The number of public school districts in the United States has fallen sharply since the early 20th century: declining from 117,108 for the 1939-40 school year to 13,672 in 2014-15. While school district consolidation has slowed in recent years, the general trend continues. This...

Incumbent Steve Zimmer, lost to challenger Nick Melvoin in the District 4 race for the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, while seventh grade teacher Kelly Gonez was leading in early election results Tuesday night to represent District 6 on the LAUSD Board of Education. cityclerk.lacity.org/election/results.html

LFor those of us old enough to remember its beginnings, the United Negro College Fund’s iconic “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” campaign is still haunting. It began in 1972 with TV images of black students shut out of classrooms, and ended with an almost undeniable appeal: donate to UNCF so that black...

Why are so many people unhappy and angry? Why is the electorate turning to populist candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? Why are they so mad at the Washington D.C. establishment? What’s the problem? Perhaps the biggest problem is the low growth of the economy leading to fewer job opportunities and little or no...

Everyone agrees that education for our children is a critical pathway for those children to grow into adults who are ready to earn a living and become responsible members of our society. Unfortunately labor unions including teachers unions have a different focus – to benefit their union bank accounts with your tax dollars more than...

Restoring a school system that has been hijacked by the left should be the nation’s highest priority. There have been endless post mortems following Barack Obama’s election victory over Mitt Romney last week. It has been posited that Romney lost because he wasn’t libertarian enough, not Tea Party enough, not socially conservative enough, didn’t reach...