Commentary
Commentary
National Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade
Adopting the final draft of proposed national education standards in English language arts (ELA) would result in a significant weakening of the intellectual demands placed on Massachusetts and California students in language and literature, according to a review published jointly by the Pacific Research Institute and Pioneer Institute. In Part ...
California
Pensions are S.F.’s other golden gate
SACRAMENTO – I’d been starting to wonder about whether there are any true progressives left in California, until I heard about Jeff Adachi, San Francisco’s public defender. Many people describe themselves as progressive, mind you, but few seem to embody the core principles of a movement that is supposed to ...
Commentary
How California can improve its plunging graduation rates
The average national high school graduation rate, from 1997 to 2007, rose 3.1 percentage points to 68.8 percent, according to a recent report from Education Week. California’s graduation rate, meanwhile, dropped 4.7 percentage points to 62.7 percent. Only Nebraska and Nevada posted worse declines, and the problem is not limited ...
Commentary
Medical Tort: Ranking the 50 States
Key Points States’ liability laws drive medical-tort costs, which increase health costs. Evidence indicates that medical-tort costs are higher than optimal, with consequences including unfair verdicts, reduced availability of doctors, and increased use of wasteful “defensive” medicine. Eight variables contribute to a medical-tort index that measures all 50 states’ success ...
Business & Economics
Can GOP quit weed whacking?
Sacramento – If the California Republican Party were serious about its oft-stated calls for limiting government, then it should be championing an initiative on the November ballot that would reduce government interference in our lives, increase the efficiency of law-enforcement, protect property rights and help fill the gaping hole in ...
Commentary
School choice is the key to improving education
Los Angeles Daily News, July 7, 2010 Throughout the nation, among the 20 private-school scholarship programs now in existence, many of the most successful have been aimed at special-needs children. A June 30 study by the Pacific Research Institute has shown that a scholarship program for California families welcoming foster ...
Business & Economics
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director In early June the California State Crime Lab Task Force voted to shut itself down. This unusual action sets a good example for other state entities, and for legislators looking to trim state government. Most ...
Business & Economics
Census Nonsense
Vol. 14 No. 07: July 6, 2010 Census Nonsense By Sally C. Pipes, President and CEO, Pacific Research Institute Some 2010 Census results are in, and Contrarian readers will be pleased to know that feminist organizations are already hard at work massaging the data to fit their tired narrative. This ...
Commentary
What Canada can teach the U.S. about education
Canadians, particularly those of conservative persuasion, love to compare Canada with the United States, which has a lot to learn in the key area of K-12 education. As the United States struggles with mounting deficits and debt, Americans would be well served to look north if they want to raise ...
Business & Economics
Police budget cuts won’t spike crime
SACRAMENTO – “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary,” observed the journalist, critic and satirist H.L. Mencken. Mencken perhaps would not have envisioned the ...
National Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade
Adopting the final draft of proposed national education standards in English language arts (ELA) would result in a significant weakening of the intellectual demands placed on Massachusetts and California students in language and literature, according to a review published jointly by the Pacific Research Institute and Pioneer Institute. In Part ...
Pensions are S.F.’s other golden gate
SACRAMENTO – I’d been starting to wonder about whether there are any true progressives left in California, until I heard about Jeff Adachi, San Francisco’s public defender. Many people describe themselves as progressive, mind you, but few seem to embody the core principles of a movement that is supposed to ...
How California can improve its plunging graduation rates
The average national high school graduation rate, from 1997 to 2007, rose 3.1 percentage points to 68.8 percent, according to a recent report from Education Week. California’s graduation rate, meanwhile, dropped 4.7 percentage points to 62.7 percent. Only Nebraska and Nevada posted worse declines, and the problem is not limited ...
Medical Tort: Ranking the 50 States
Key Points States’ liability laws drive medical-tort costs, which increase health costs. Evidence indicates that medical-tort costs are higher than optimal, with consequences including unfair verdicts, reduced availability of doctors, and increased use of wasteful “defensive” medicine. Eight variables contribute to a medical-tort index that measures all 50 states’ success ...
Can GOP quit weed whacking?
Sacramento – If the California Republican Party were serious about its oft-stated calls for limiting government, then it should be championing an initiative on the November ballot that would reduce government interference in our lives, increase the efficiency of law-enforcement, protect property rights and help fill the gaping hole in ...
School choice is the key to improving education
Los Angeles Daily News, July 7, 2010 Throughout the nation, among the 20 private-school scholarship programs now in existence, many of the most successful have been aimed at special-needs children. A June 30 study by the Pacific Research Institute has shown that a scholarship program for California families welcoming foster ...
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director In early June the California State Crime Lab Task Force voted to shut itself down. This unusual action sets a good example for other state entities, and for legislators looking to trim state government. Most ...
Census Nonsense
Vol. 14 No. 07: July 6, 2010 Census Nonsense By Sally C. Pipes, President and CEO, Pacific Research Institute Some 2010 Census results are in, and Contrarian readers will be pleased to know that feminist organizations are already hard at work massaging the data to fit their tired narrative. This ...
What Canada can teach the U.S. about education
Canadians, particularly those of conservative persuasion, love to compare Canada with the United States, which has a lot to learn in the key area of K-12 education. As the United States struggles with mounting deficits and debt, Americans would be well served to look north if they want to raise ...
Police budget cuts won’t spike crime
SACRAMENTO – “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary,” observed the journalist, critic and satirist H.L. Mencken. Mencken perhaps would not have envisioned the ...
