April 1998 PRI Ideas in Action
Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report

PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. The following is a sample of PRI’s work in April.

Sally was a panelist at the plenary session of the April 4 Stanford University Law School conference on race, participating in a discussion on the future of the civil-rights agenda. Other panelists included Cornel West, Harvard University, and Charles Ogletree, Jr. of Harvard Law School, Ronald Takaki of UC Berkeley, and Constance Rice of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Sally discussed University of California admissions policy on “Save the Dream: Erasing the Color Lines on Campus,” in an April 19 call-in program on “The Beat,” 92.3 FM in Los Angeles. Interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle about gender preference programs in the city, Sally said, “We should not be supporting any quotas or preference programs that give women a leg up based on their gender.”

On April 16, Sally was in Washington D.C. to announce the release of PRI’s annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. Also, Sally and Pam Riley, Co-Director of PRI’s Center for School Reform, attended the founders’ meeting of the Children’s Education Opportunity Foundation in New York, April 28-29.

EVENTS

Columnist and author George Will spoke to an audience of more than 400 at PRI’s Sixth Annual Privatization Awards Dinner, at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. In a wide-ranging speech, peppered with baseball references, Mr. Will showed his characteristic combination of wit and erudition on such themes as welfare reform, cultural decline, social security, and American public education, which he said had replaced the traditional three Rs with “Racism, reproduction and recycling.” The state monopoly, bureaucratic system of education, he said, was “dead as Tyrannosaurus Rex. It’s just not smart enough to fall over yet, but it will.”

Guests at the dinner included Ward Connerly, University of California regent and chairman of the voter-approved Proposition 209, and Eloise Anderson, director of California’s Department of Social Services. Also present were Ron Unz, author of Proposition 227; Minnesota governor Arnie Carlson; Shannon Reeves, candidate for mayor of Oakland; Joe Rodota, deputy chief of staff for California Governor Pete Wilson; San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders, and former San Francisco mayor Frank Jordan.

EDUCATION

Lance Izumi, PRI Fellow in California Studies and Co-Director of the Center for School Reform, was interviewed by television stations KCRA and KXTV on bilingual education and Proposition 227.

A regular contributor to California Journal, Lance addressed education standards in his April article. His April KQED commentary dealt with the state Legislative Analyst Office’s support for school choice. In addition, Lance’s views on San Francisco’s racial reading quotas were cited in the Baltimore Sun, Juneau Empire, and the Sun Herald of North Port, Florida.

On March 30 in Sacramento, Lance discussed education issues with Gloria Matta Tuchman, candidate for State Superintendent of Public Education, and was interviewed by the San Francisco Examiner about admissions policy at UC Berkeley.

Alison Weeks, Program Director for the San Francisco Independent Scholars (SFIS), led a group of scholarship recipients to Sacramento on April 27 to provide testimony on AB 2110, a bill that would provide a tax credit of up to $500 for charitable contributions to private scholarship foundations. “Without this scholarship, I wouldn’t be able to go to a private school,” said Tyrone Anderson, one of the 1998-1999 recipients, speaking at the press conference. According to Sandra Palmero, mother of SFIS student Seanan Palmero, the students were so excited about their experience providing testimony to the taxation committee, that they decided—on their own—to personally write the committee members. “They seemed to come away from the Capitol believing that it is possible to affect change. Talk about ‘educational,’” Mrs. Palmero said.

Alison is serving on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s task force to review CLAD (Cross-cultural Language and Academic Development) examinations. Teachers in the state must pass these exams in order to teach LEP (limited English proficient) students. Alison contributed to a workshop on non-classroom instruction at the April 2-4 California Network of Educational Charters (CANEC) conference in Sacramento.

Also at the CANEC conference, PRI’s Pam Riley organized a strand on research-based school designs and handed out journalistic awards for coverage of charter schools. As a member of CANEC’s legislative committee, Pam negotiated to put charter reform onto the fast track. Legislation that would raise the cap and allow parents to sign charter petitions has now passed the Legislature and awaits Governor Wilson’s signature.

PRI Editorial Director Lloyd Billingsley was also present at the April conference of CANEC. From April 13-17, he attended the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association in San Diego, the nation’s largest gathering of education professionals, with more than 12,000 attendees and 1,400 sessions. On April 19, the Washington Times published his “Immigrants Support Education in English.” Robert Champion of Champion Securities cited “Fakery Faces the Music,” Lloyd’s April 7 Capital Ideas, in a letter to Governor Wilson about education reform.

The April 26 Los Angeles Daily News published “Teacher’s Union Misleading Public on Ballot Measure” about Proposition 223, the “95-5” initiative on education spending, by Royce Van Tassell, PRI Fellow in education. Royce was also quoted on Proposition 223 in the April Policy Review.

Ed Facts, published by the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., cited PRI’s California Index of Leading Education Indicators in its story on the failure of bilingual education.

CIVIL RIGHTS

On April 1 the Wall Street Journal quoted Lance Izumi on the effects of Proposition 209. On April 30, Lance served as a panelist for a “town hall” discussion on race sponsored by television stations KQED and KRON, and the San Francisco Bar Association.

Lance also participated in a KCRA-TV “town hall” meeting on the subject of affirmative action and on April 7 was a panelist in a discussion on race and education at the Stanford University Law School.

ENVIRONMENT

On Earth Day, April 22, Investor’s Business Daily mentioned PRI’s Index of Leading Environmental Indicators and the Washington Times extensively cited the Index in its lead editorial on improvement in environmental conditions.

John Rago of WDEL in Wilmington, Delaware, interviewed PRI Policy Fellow Erin Schiller, who appeared with Gale McDonald, president of the Global Climate Coalition. Erin focused on the flaws of the Global Warming Treaty emerging from the Conference on Global Climate in Kyoto last December, and discussed how the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators charts environmental progress since the first Earth Day in 1970. Harry Osibin of FM-105 in San Francisco interviewed Erin about the Index on April 23. Also, James Higgins sent copies of The Road Ahead, Erin’s monograph on traffic congestion, to every member of the New York Port Authority Board.

Dana Joel, PRI’s Director of Research, spoke at PRI’s April 16 press conference at the National Press Club, along with PRI fellows Steve Hayward and Erin Schiller to release the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. On April 17, Dana discussed the Index on KSFO radio’s Barbra Simpson Show.

NOTABLES

The spring issue of Grantmakers in the Arts published Lance Izumi’s article “How the Political Right Views Arts Funding,” based on a speech Lance gave to the Western States Arts Federation in December. The speech was distributed to each member of the California Arts Council, where it was discussed at the April 30 meeting.

Katherine Post, Director of PRI’s Center for Enterprise and Opportunity, was the guest speaker at the Conservative Women’s Network, hosted by the Heritage Foundation, on April 17. She discussed the success of women in the work force. The Rocky Mountain News cited Katherine in an April 12 editorial about National Equal Pay Day, and her fact sheet on the “glass ceiling,” co-authored with Michael Lynch, is cited in A History of the American People, a new book by Paul Johnson. Katherine’s editorial “California’s Top Campuses Start Playing Fair,” appeared in The BridgeNews Forum, an education periodical based in New York.

Lloyd Billingsley’s op-ed, “Checchi Gets a Lesson in Ethnic Politics,” appeared in the April 2 San Diego Union-Tribune and on April 3, the Washington Times published his article, “California’s Files on Radical Groups May be Unsealed.”

The Nevada Policy Research Institute reprinted “Scrap, Don’t Reform the Tax Code,” an April Capital Ideas by PRI fellow Steve Hayward. On April 24, Steve spoke to the Heritage Foundation Resource Bank in Chicago on “Rebuilding from the Wreckage of Liberalism in the Cities.” Steve’s article, “Another Blow against Racial Preferences,” about FCC policies on ethnic quotas, appeared in the Columbus Post Dispatch (Ohio) on April 16.

Eugene Volokh, PRI Senior Fellow in Legal Studies, wrote on the Monica Lewinsky affair in the March 16 Legal Times.