Lance Izumi
California
Newsom’s ed budget: high spending, low results
Despite a $12 billion budget deficit, Governor Gavin Newsom still proposes to spend more on the state’s public schools, despite findings of a Georgetown University study showing that California is not getting education bang for its taxpayer buck. Newsom’s updated budget includes $137.8 billion in total education funding, which consists ...
Blog
Remembering our fallen heroes this Memorial Day
Memorial Day: Why We Celebrate It
This Memorial Day is particularly meaningful because in less than three weeks America will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States Army. Because we are alive today, it is natural for us to remember the conflicts and the sacrifices made during our own lifetimes. But the Army’s 250th ...
Classroom Ideology
The Disastrous Domino Effect of Social Promotion
Low student scores on national and state reading tests expose the disturbing reality that a lot of children are being promoted from one grade to the next even though they do not have the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed. Reading is the foundational skill that all children need to ...
Blog
California’s #1 Charter School Under Assault by Low-Performing School District
Located in Santa Ana, California and operating for 20 years as a charter school, OCSA says that it “offers a dynamic school culture that enables students to flourish as artists and scholars in a uniquely challenging and nurturing environment, celebrating creativity, individual growth, and opportunity.” The school, which enrolls around ...
Classroom Ideology
America’s Math Collapse: Harvard Institutes Remedial Math
America’s amazing technological achievements, such as SpaceX’s recent rescue of stranded astronauts, mask the death spiral of math learning in the U.S., which has reached an ignominious low with Harvard’s decision to offer remedial math. On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress math exam, 73 percent of eighth graders ...
Blog
Will Trump’s Anti-DEI Order Cure the Woke Flu Infecting U.S. Medical Schools?
More than two decades ago, I co-authored a Pacific Research Institute report entitled “Facing the Classroom Challenge,” which analyzed the teacher-training curricula at schools of education in the California State University system. Many of these schools openly stated their left-wing bias. At California State University Dominguez Hills in the Los ...
Education
Fighting For School Choice
Leland and Mark talk with Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute about fighting for school choice here in California. Listen to the entire interview here.
Commentary
California parents must be able to choose the education that best suits their child
When public school advocates argue against giving parents and their children more educational choices, one is reminded of the Boston Tea Party, a revolt against Britain’s tea monopoly and the taxes levied as a result of it. Now, as then, Americans are not buying the pro-monopoly claims. We are demanding ...
Classroom Ideology
The Retreat From Euclid And America’s Great Math Collapse
When average people think about classical education, they tend to think about students reading the great works of Western civilization such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Those same people probably do not think about mathematics and its classical origins, yet it is the movement away from mathematics’ classical heritage that ...
Blog
Latest test scores show CA's public schools continue to fail kids
The California Classroom Collapse Hits the Middle Class
Last year, Bret Daniels, the mayor of the middle-class Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, announced that he was quitting his position as mayor and moving to Kentucky, in part because of the quality of education his seven-year-old daughter was receiving. Recently released test scores show that California’s education decline is ...
Newsom’s ed budget: high spending, low results
Despite a $12 billion budget deficit, Governor Gavin Newsom still proposes to spend more on the state’s public schools, despite findings of a Georgetown University study showing that California is not getting education bang for its taxpayer buck. Newsom’s updated budget includes $137.8 billion in total education funding, which consists ...
Remembering our fallen heroes this Memorial Day
Memorial Day: Why We Celebrate It
This Memorial Day is particularly meaningful because in less than three weeks America will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States Army. Because we are alive today, it is natural for us to remember the conflicts and the sacrifices made during our own lifetimes. But the Army’s 250th ...
The Disastrous Domino Effect of Social Promotion
Low student scores on national and state reading tests expose the disturbing reality that a lot of children are being promoted from one grade to the next even though they do not have the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed. Reading is the foundational skill that all children need to ...
California’s #1 Charter School Under Assault by Low-Performing School District
Located in Santa Ana, California and operating for 20 years as a charter school, OCSA says that it “offers a dynamic school culture that enables students to flourish as artists and scholars in a uniquely challenging and nurturing environment, celebrating creativity, individual growth, and opportunity.” The school, which enrolls around ...
America’s Math Collapse: Harvard Institutes Remedial Math
America’s amazing technological achievements, such as SpaceX’s recent rescue of stranded astronauts, mask the death spiral of math learning in the U.S., which has reached an ignominious low with Harvard’s decision to offer remedial math. On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress math exam, 73 percent of eighth graders ...
Will Trump’s Anti-DEI Order Cure the Woke Flu Infecting U.S. Medical Schools?
More than two decades ago, I co-authored a Pacific Research Institute report entitled “Facing the Classroom Challenge,” which analyzed the teacher-training curricula at schools of education in the California State University system. Many of these schools openly stated their left-wing bias. At California State University Dominguez Hills in the Los ...
Fighting For School Choice
Leland and Mark talk with Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute about fighting for school choice here in California. Listen to the entire interview here.
California parents must be able to choose the education that best suits their child
When public school advocates argue against giving parents and their children more educational choices, one is reminded of the Boston Tea Party, a revolt against Britain’s tea monopoly and the taxes levied as a result of it. Now, as then, Americans are not buying the pro-monopoly claims. We are demanding ...
The Retreat From Euclid And America’s Great Math Collapse
When average people think about classical education, they tend to think about students reading the great works of Western civilization such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Those same people probably do not think about mathematics and its classical origins, yet it is the movement away from mathematics’ classical heritage that ...
Latest test scores show CA's public schools continue to fail kids
The California Classroom Collapse Hits the Middle Class
Last year, Bret Daniels, the mayor of the middle-class Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, announced that he was quitting his position as mayor and moving to Kentucky, in part because of the quality of education his seven-year-old daughter was receiving. Recently released test scores show that California’s education decline is ...
