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...

For the first time since its founding, population shifts resulted in California losing a House seat this week, while more free states like Texas and Florida increased their voice in Washington.  And is it any wonder? This week alone, we saw union-funded politicians in Sacramento try to gut charter schools with Assembly Bill 1316, and...

On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom presented a 2020-21 state budget that includes more money for K-12 public schools than ever before. But even as metrics-driven education reforms over the past quarter-century have paid major dividends in both union states (Massachusetts, New Jersey) and non-union states (Florida, Texas), California lawmakers have never seriously considered trying to...

Blue states oppress black people too. Nowhere is this more obvious than in policing and public education in California. California’s Legislature is grappling with these issues this session. Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), a progressive voice and chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, is authoring AB 392, which seeks to change the use of...

When discussing the seemingly intractable and growing problem of homeless people living in California, journalists reporting on the issue don’t spend enough time questioning the numbers, much less the policies driving the insane numbers. A recent article in the San Jose Mercury provides a perfect example. The article gets off to a good start with a provocative, and very...

Charter school leaders and supporters took aim at Assemblymember Kevin McCarty during a March 13 protest on the steps of the state capitol in Sacramento. McCarty, a Sacramento Democrat, found himself under fire for sponsoring a bill to cap the number of public charter schools in California. Public charter schools, which are privately operated public...

California’s political elites are at odds with history and the natural preferences of millions of Californians. The good life in California is out of reach to ordinary people. The reason for that is simple: homes cost too much, energy costs too much, water costs too much, and transportation infrastructure is inadequate. In each of these...

Most countries around the world think that it’s a good thing to have cheap energy. But in California, we have plenty of cheap energy available, just not the political will to access it. California depends on natural gas-driven turbines and hydroelectric generators to provide just 38 percent of its oil needs. The state imports 12 percent...

The Obama administration has gotten itself into a fix between its contradictory stories about the Benghazi incident, reports of the IRS targeting conservative groups, and the Justice Department’s grabbing of phone records from AP reporters. There are few things more fun to watch than arrogant political leaders — folks who spend their lives bossing everyone...