New PRI Education Study Draws National Attention

In April, PRI released a groundbreaking study on the teacher training methods of the California State University (CSU) system, Facing the Classroom Challenge: Teacher Quality and Teacher Training in California’s Schools of Education by Lance T. Izumi with K. Gwynne Coburn. The study has drawn high praise from leading experts on teaching methodology and a defensive response from CSU.

The study reveals that teachers educated by the CSU system have been trained to use the faddish student-centered teaching methods instead of the tried and true teacher-centered instruction. The study evaluates the texts and curricula used at CSU schools of education statewide, including campuses in Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, and Sonoma. The CSU system trains the majority of teachers in California.

As Mr. Izumi explains, when the importance of grammar and math are not emphasized, it is no surprise that low-income and minority children are hurt the most by student-centered methods of teaching.

Nationally syndicated columnist Walter Williams covered the study in his regular column, which ran in more than 50 newspapers nationwide including Tampa Tribune Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Sunday Tribune Review (PA), Charlotte Observer, and Chattanooga Times & Free Press. Debra J. Saunders, also nationally syndicated, covered the report and criticized the CSU response to the study in “Either They’re Dishonest or Clueless” in the San Francisco Chronicle. Lance Izumi’s op-ed was published by Las Vegas Review-Journal & Sun headlined “How Teachers are Taught.”

PRI’s Diallo Dphrepaulezz is spurring reform in the San Francisco Unified School District.

Grassroots outreach and support were the key elements of the substantial impact PRI had in the fight to save the Edison Charter Academy (ECA) in San Francisco. Before the board granted the charter for Edison Schools of New York to take over the management of Edison Elementary, the school was one of the most notable failures in the District. But since then, the school’s academic performance has improved at a greater rate than all but two of the District’s 73 elementary schools. So then why did the Board want to revoke the charter?

In response, PRI published The Fight to Save the Edison Charter in San Francisco by Diallo Dphrepaulezz. The briefing exposed the board and its members as ideologues: against Edison only because they are a for-profit corporation managing the charter. The briefing was distributed to media, policymakers, Edison teachers and parents, and community leaders in the Bay Area and across the nation. Nationally syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock quoted statistics from the briefing in his column. The article appeared in more than a dozen newspapers and web editions nationwide, including National Review Online, New York Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Washington Times.

Mr. Dphrepaulezz was interviewed by Business Week, Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Las Vegas Review-Journal, and The Independent. He has had several op-eds published on the Edison fight, including in the San Francisco Examiner and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He also appeared on local television opposite San Francisco school board president Jill Wynns. PRI President Sally C. Pipes appeared on a Christian Broadcasting Network special segment on Edison.

Supporting parents of ECA students was Mr. Dphrepualezz’s first priority, and PRI served as an important community resource for frustrated Edison parents. PRI’s impact on this issue has inspired parents at other schools and community groups, some with charter petitions pending or rejected, to come forward and demand school choice for San Franciscans. Plenty of work and public outreach remain to be done, and PRI will continue to champion school choice in the Bay Area and throughout California.

Turning the Lights on Governor Gray Davis

In May, PRI released Lights Out: California’s Electricity Debacle, Causes and Cures by senior fellow in California studies, Lance T. Izumi. The report gives a blow-by-blow account of how California’s leaders generated the power crisis with a botched “deregulation” plan; how Governor Davis failed to respond to the crisis; and how to resolve the crisis through full deregulation. The briefing was showcased at an event for California Legislators in Sacramento, and was distributed to the media and policymakers nationwide. Mr. Izumi’s op-ed summarizing the report ran nationally on Knight-Ridder news service opposite a counter-point by the executive director of Greenpeace.

PRI Makes News in California Legislature’s Budget Fight

In July, when Republicans in the California legislature dug their heels in for a protracted budget fight against the Democrats, the Republicans relied on PRI data to bring their anti-tax message home. The standoff was over an automatic quarter-cent reduction in the state sales tax that was triggered back when California’s budget surplus was still setting records. Once Gray Davis started burning through the surplus to pay for the state’s takeover of electricity purchasing, the Democrats wanted to reinstate the quarter-cent tax. But Republicans took a stand against the tax increase, arguing that it would only further harm California’s deflating economy.

Relying on data from a chapter in PRI’s California Legislators’ Guide 2001, “Tax Relief for California” by PRI fellow Erik Bauman, the Republicans were able to show that the sales tax cut had spurred job creation in the state, and that reinstating the tax could cost California over 150,000 jobs by 2004. California Assembly Republican Leader Dave Cox, Assemblyman Tony Strickland, and Assemblyman George Runner all cited PRI’s data on the Assembly floor and in op-eds throughout the budget battle. The impasse finally ended in a partial victory for the Republicans and Californians—the final budget changes the formula by which the tax will be triggered.