Public Schools
Education
Lance Izumi Discusses the Consequences of Easier Tests on WTVM’s Midday with Dee
PRI’s Lance Izumi appeared on WTVM’s Midday with Dee to discuss the consequences of making student tests easier. He explains why rigorous exams matter and how maintaining academic standards helps prepare students for the demands of the workplace. Watch the full interview here.
Blog
Los Angeles public school parents are sending a clear message. Is the district listening?
A recent poll shows the district receiving largely positive marks from local parents despite their widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of the state and city. But the same poll shows the district might not know how to leave well enough alone by pushing forward with broad restrictions on classroom technology. ...
Blog
California’s Bad Student Test Scores and Newsom’s Deceitful Edu-Ganda
The state administers its California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CASPP) annually to students in grades 3-8 and grade 11. There are four performance levels on the exam—advanced, proficient, developing, and minimal. For a student to meet grade-level standards, he or she must score at either the advanced or ...
Book
NEW PRI Book Tells Stories of Students, Parents and Educators Fighting Back Against DEI
SACRAMENTO – Students, parents, teachers, school board members and college professors across the country are challenging controversial so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies (DEI) and winning. Their stories are at the heart of a new book released today by the nonpartisan, California-based, free-market think tank, the Pacific Research Institute. The ...
Blog
Students can’t be expected to learn in schools plagued by violence
Students can’t be expected to learn in schools plagued by violence By Rafael Perez | April 3, 2026 A U.S. News & World Report comparison of public schools ranks California’s Pre-K-12 schools 38th in the nation. In California, 51.2% of our students fail to meet English standards and 62.7% fail ...
Blog
Ni Estudian – Ni Trabajan – On California’s Poor Education System and Its Consequences for Public Safety
The prospects for California’s high school grads are not good as they face a shrinking job market and a correspondingly high youth unemployment rate. In Latin America, they are known as the “Nini’s” – out of school and out of work. According to a November 2025 LA Times article, a ...
Blog
New Study Shows Success of School Choice in Action
Recently released scores on California’s state tests in English and math show huge proportions of students failing to achieve proficiency in the basic subjects. More than half of California students taking the 2025 state English exam failed to score at the proficient level. On the state math test, more than ...
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 ...
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 ...
Lance Izumi Discusses the Consequences of Easier Tests on WTVM’s Midday with Dee
PRI’s Lance Izumi appeared on WTVM’s Midday with Dee to discuss the consequences of making student tests easier. He explains why rigorous exams matter and how maintaining academic standards helps prepare students for the demands of the workplace. Watch the full interview here.
Los Angeles public school parents are sending a clear message. Is the district listening?
A recent poll shows the district receiving largely positive marks from local parents despite their widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of the state and city. But the same poll shows the district might not know how to leave well enough alone by pushing forward with broad restrictions on classroom technology. ...
California’s Bad Student Test Scores and Newsom’s Deceitful Edu-Ganda
The state administers its California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CASPP) annually to students in grades 3-8 and grade 11. There are four performance levels on the exam—advanced, proficient, developing, and minimal. For a student to meet grade-level standards, he or she must score at either the advanced or ...
NEW PRI Book Tells Stories of Students, Parents and Educators Fighting Back Against DEI
SACRAMENTO – Students, parents, teachers, school board members and college professors across the country are challenging controversial so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies (DEI) and winning. Their stories are at the heart of a new book released today by the nonpartisan, California-based, free-market think tank, the Pacific Research Institute. The ...
Students can’t be expected to learn in schools plagued by violence
Students can’t be expected to learn in schools plagued by violence By Rafael Perez | April 3, 2026 A U.S. News & World Report comparison of public schools ranks California’s Pre-K-12 schools 38th in the nation. In California, 51.2% of our students fail to meet English standards and 62.7% fail ...
Ni Estudian – Ni Trabajan – On California’s Poor Education System and Its Consequences for Public Safety
The prospects for California’s high school grads are not good as they face a shrinking job market and a correspondingly high youth unemployment rate. In Latin America, they are known as the “Nini’s” – out of school and out of work. According to a November 2025 LA Times article, a ...
New Study Shows Success of School Choice in Action
Recently released scores on California’s state tests in English and math show huge proportions of students failing to achieve proficiency in the basic subjects. More than half of California students taking the 2025 state English exam failed to score at the proficient level. On the state math test, more than ...
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 ...
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 ...