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A Halloween Meditation
Capital Ideas
By: K. Lloyd Billingsley
10.31.2000
Gus Hall, longtime boss of the Communist Party USA, died at 90 earlier this month. What does this have to do with Halloween? As it happens, quite a lot. For one thing, Mr. Hall and his party were in perpetual costume.
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Welcome to Full Equality, Ladies
The Contrarian
10.31.2000
Erin Brockovich and Venus Williams can add to their considerable accomplishments the raising of public knowledge on an important but neglected subject. Taxes are not simply a man’s problem.
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School Choice Improves Public Schools
Capital Ideas
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
10.25.2000
In a recent op-ed, former New York Times education editor Edward Fiske and Duke University professor Helen Ladd claim, among other things, that school choice is bad public policy because it hurts poorly-performing public schools. Citing New Zealand’s quasi-school-choice program, Fiske and Ladd charge that when more advantaged students left New Zealand’s poorly-performing public schools, these “downwardly spiraling” public schools were left with disproportionate numbers of hard-to-educate students. Trouble is, Fiske and Ladd’s complaint assumes a static public-policy world. If they looked closer to home, they would have found that public schools respond to school choice by improving their educational services.
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Vote Buying and Other Campaign Anomalies
Capital Ideas
By: Steven F. Hayward, Ph.D
10.19.2000
The big political news on the eve of the final debate was the outrage of California Secretary of State Bill Jones and officials in other states about a website that was offering to sell votes to the highest bidder. The chairman of the Chicago Board of Elections (yes, that Chicago, the one where dead people routinely vote) solemnly charged that the website “impugned the integrity of our electoral system.” By the end of the day, the site, voteauction.com, was shut down.
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Magnum Force, or "Do You Feel Lucky?"
Capital Ideas
By: K. Lloyd Billingsley
10.17.2000
In a recent public drama, actor Clint Eastwood, also known as Dirty Harry, showcased an important principle. When you know you are right, stand your ground, even if the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is arrayed against you like some legal .44 magnum.
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What Accountability?
Capital Ideas
By: Lance T. Izumi, J.D.
10.5.2000
When student scores on California’s SAT-9 exam were released this summer, Governor Gray Davis quickly took credit for the incremental increase in average scores in some grades. According to Davis, “Our reforms are working.” In particular, Davis claimed that “Scores are going up, but that’s only because--for the first time ever--we are holding schools accountable for their scores.” Trouble is, Davis’s accountability program holds few public schools accountable and allows many of the worst schools to escape completely.
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Wives, to the Back of the Line
The Contrarian
By: Alejandra Arguello
10.5.2000
Last month, President Clinton vetoed a bill that could have helped working wives pursue a professional career, raise a family, and keep more of their hard-earned money. The president contends the bill would have primarily benefited the rich, but a closer look at the facts shows otherwise.
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Topping Off the Tax Tank
Action Alerts
By: Alejandra Arguello
10.5.2000
Californians are well aware that they pay among the highest gasoline prices in the country, an average of $1.83 per gallon, and much higher in some areas, notably the Bay Area. When they gas up their cars, however, most motorists are unaware of the role federal, state, and local taxes have on prices.
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Yahoo! Carnivore’s on the Menu
Action Alerts
10.1.2000
Earlier this month, the FBI’s attempts to smooth public opinion concerning its Carnivore system got even more desperate. Following a U.S. district court order, the FBI handed over documents to the Electronic Privacy Information Center showing that the government had not only been scanning people’s e-mail, but had been tracing their web browsing habits as well.
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Oakland Unified: Still Failing After All These Years
Study Update
10.1.2000
This year’s Stanford-9 achievement scores show that California students made slight gains over the last year. The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), however, continues to trail far behind the state, county, and national averages.
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Nabbing Napster Won't Stop Music Piracy
ePolicy
By: Justin Matlick*
10.1.2000
With a verdict looming in the Napster trial, the recording industry is lobbying for stronger copyright laws. But the Napster case illustrates why stricter laws would be ineffective and harmful. Copyrights are vital but, as the recording industry's investments reveal, technological innovation is the best hope against Internet piracy
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