November 1997 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 just a sample of PRI's recent contributions.

SALLY PIPES, PRESIDENT & CEO
As the news broke on November 3 that California's Prop. 209 would not be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court – and therefore is, for all intents and purposes, now the law of California – Sally was interviewed by Paul Akers of Scripps Howard News Services in Washington, D.C. (Nov. 4) on the implications of the Supreme Court Decision and the Prop. 209 ruling.

Sally spoke on October 31 to a gathering of Board Members of the Fund for American Studies in Napa, California, where she discussed PRI's current projects.

On November 4, Sally spoke to the Marin Republicans about the national implications of the California Civil Rights Initiative. That same week, her op-ed entitled "Favors Based on Race and Sex" appeared in the Marin Independent Journal (Nov. 5).

Ed Rubenstein quoted Sally in his National Review (Oct. 13) article entitled "Right Data" about sex discrimination in the workplace.

CIVIL RIGHTS

Regarding the likelihood of the U.S. Supreme Court granting certioari to consider Proposition 209, John Liu, Director of Health and Welfare Studies was quoted by San Francisco Chronicle's regular columnist Debra Saunders, as saying, "the [U.S. Supreme] Court may pass on 209 by arguing that its own recent decisions and the 9th Circuit ruling speak clearly enough."

Lance Izumi, Co-Director of the Center for Innovation in Education, authored "Confounding the Paradigm: Asian Americans and Race Preferences" which was published in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy (Volume 11, Issue No. 1, 1997). Lance was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle (Oct. 31) on affirmative action in an article entitled "Asians Benefit from Changes at UC."

Public Policy Fellow Candice Jackson Mayhugh's article "Initiative Seeks To Restore True Equality" was printed in Vancouver, Washington's Columbian discussing California's Prop. 209 and its implications for the state of Washington – where its own version of Prop. 209, the Washington State Civil Rights Initiative, will appear on the November 1998 ballot.

EDUCATION

Writing in Forbes magazine (Oct. 6) in an article titled "Leaks in the Melting Pot," Peter Brimelow states that "charts published in the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute's 'California Index of Leading Education Indicators,' inspired Ron Unz to spearhead a referendum drive aimed at ending the current policy of teaching Limited-English-Proficient students in their own language."

This fall, PRI's Lance Izumi was in London as a Visiting Fellow in Education Studies at the Institute for Economic Affairs, where he studied Great Britain's grant-maintained schools – the British cousin of our charter schools. At the request of The Sunday Times London, Lance wrote "It's the National Curriculum," an article which compared grant-maintained schools to California's charter schools.

On October 26, Lance spoke in Sacramento on his California Index of Leading Education Indicators. His Capital Ideas, "Union Powerplay for L.A. School Construction Contracts" (Oct. 22), was distributed statewide to local building associations by the California Business Properties Association.

Pam Riley, Co-Director of the Center for Innovation in Education, attended a training session on private scholarship foundations on October 17-19 in Bentonville, Arkansas. Also in early November, at the invitation of the U.S. Department of Education, Pam travelled to Washington, D.C for a charter schools conference.

In their book, A Choice for Our Children, Curing the Crisis in America's Schools, authors Alan Bonsteel and Carlos A. Bonilla state that "the percentage of American mathematics teachers who actually have a degree in mathematics is shockingly low [and that] (In the state ranking, California comes in dead last, at 39 percent)." Their source, PRI's "California Index of Leading Education Indicators."

HEALTH & WELFARE

John Liu, PRI's Director of Health and Welfare Studies, spoke to legislative leaders and their staff on October 15 at a briefing on "Kid's Care," sponsored by Senate Republican Leader Rob Hurtt and Assembly Republican Leader Bill Leonard. John argued for allowing children and the working poor to receive vouchers to buy into CalPers, the California state-administered savings and retirement program.

Dismissing complaints that welfare cuts punish immigrants, John Liu was quoted in the Oakland Tribune (Oct. 15) as saying, "There are people abusing the system and [they should be] weeded out." On October 27, John also spoke before the San Jose Republican Women's forum on welfare and healthcare issues.

TECHNOLOGY

Justin Matlick, new Director of the Center for Freedom in Technology, writes in his op-ed entitled "Encryption Debate Ignores the Obvious" in the Seattle Times (Oct. 2) that government efforts to regulate encryption technology threaten the freedom of the Internet.

PRIVATIZATION

As proselytizers of free markets principles, PRI offers private alternatives to state-run programs. Erin Schiller’s op-ed, “Turning the Page on Library Privatization” (The Orange Country Register, September 1) focuses Bay Area attention on Riverside County library, one of the first libraries to be privatized. As the Public Policy Fellow wrote, “While some feared staff reductions, an end to children’s programs or other spending cuts in the name of efficiency, changes so far demonstrate that quality of service has increased under privatization.”