Education
Blog
In America’s Education Darkness, Catholic Schools Are a Bright Spot
On the 2024 NAEP eighth-grade reading test, Catholic-school students scored 20 points higher than public school students. On the eighth-grade math test, Catholic-school eighth graders scored 21 points higher than their public-school peers. According to education policy analyst Matt Ladner, the academic advantage for Catholic-school students has been growing over ...
Blog
Get the inside scoop on what's going on under the Capitol dome
Three Big Issues to Watch as 2025 Legislative Session Draws to Close
Assembly Bill 84: Yet Another Attack on California Charter Schools Ever since charter school supporter Gov. Jerry Brown left office in 2019, charter schools have been under attack in Sacramento. The latest attack is Assembly Bill 84 (Muratsuchi), which would – if enacted – would impose huge new restrictions that ...
Commentary
Obscuring the forest for the trees: Most LAUSD students still below standards
Recently, Los Angeles school superintendent Alberto Carvalho held a celebratory press conference to trumpet the incremental increase in the district’s student test scores, but while he was focusing on some bright trees, the dark forest remains—a large majority of Los Angeles students still fail to meet state grade-level standards in ...
Blog
Anti-Charter School Bill Would Hurt Most Vulnerable CA Students
Anti-Charter School Bill Would Hurt Most Vulnerable CA Students by Lance Izumi | July 14, 2025 A bill plowing through the State Legislature is using fiscal accountability as a fig-leaf issue to hide its real intentions—crippling California’s popular charter-school sector in order to bolster regular public schools that are seeing ...
Classroom Ideology
Students left behind?: San Francisco tried to bury this radical school policy – it backfired
While San Francisco’s recently halted equity grading scheme sparked national uproar and derision, the real lesson of this fiasco is the near-total lack of transparency in the school district’s education decision-making process. Equity grading, which has been adopted by school districts across the country, is basically grade inflation dressed up ...
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 ...
California
Assembly Member Blanca Rubio – How to Reverse the Collapse of Learning in California’s Schools
Parents, students, and taxpayers are growing increasingly frustrated by the inability of California’s schools to educate our kids for the future, and they are even more frustrated to learn why our schools are doing so badly – outdated and ineffective learning models. From PRI’s 2025 Sacramento policy conference, hear a ...
In America’s Education Darkness, Catholic Schools Are a Bright Spot
On the 2024 NAEP eighth-grade reading test, Catholic-school students scored 20 points higher than public school students. On the eighth-grade math test, Catholic-school eighth graders scored 21 points higher than their public-school peers. According to education policy analyst Matt Ladner, the academic advantage for Catholic-school students has been growing over ...
Get the inside scoop on what's going on under the Capitol dome
Three Big Issues to Watch as 2025 Legislative Session Draws to Close
Assembly Bill 84: Yet Another Attack on California Charter Schools Ever since charter school supporter Gov. Jerry Brown left office in 2019, charter schools have been under attack in Sacramento. The latest attack is Assembly Bill 84 (Muratsuchi), which would – if enacted – would impose huge new restrictions that ...
Obscuring the forest for the trees: Most LAUSD students still below standards
Recently, Los Angeles school superintendent Alberto Carvalho held a celebratory press conference to trumpet the incremental increase in the district’s student test scores, but while he was focusing on some bright trees, the dark forest remains—a large majority of Los Angeles students still fail to meet state grade-level standards in ...
Anti-Charter School Bill Would Hurt Most Vulnerable CA Students
Anti-Charter School Bill Would Hurt Most Vulnerable CA Students by Lance Izumi | July 14, 2025 A bill plowing through the State Legislature is using fiscal accountability as a fig-leaf issue to hide its real intentions—crippling California’s popular charter-school sector in order to bolster regular public schools that are seeing ...
Students left behind?: San Francisco tried to bury this radical school policy – it backfired
While San Francisco’s recently halted equity grading scheme sparked national uproar and derision, the real lesson of this fiasco is the near-total lack of transparency in the school district’s education decision-making process. Equity grading, which has been adopted by school districts across the country, is basically grade inflation dressed up ...
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 ...
Assembly Member Blanca Rubio – How to Reverse the Collapse of Learning in California’s Schools
Parents, students, and taxpayers are growing increasingly frustrated by the inability of California’s schools to educate our kids for the future, and they are even more frustrated to learn why our schools are doing so badly – outdated and ineffective learning models. From PRI’s 2025 Sacramento policy conference, hear a ...
