Many are doing it, like the Washington, D.C. district—and have observed teacher quality, retention of better teachers, and students' standardized test scores go up. Perhaps SJUSD could use a shake-up. The brilliant Larry Sand reports on American Greatness.
Read MoreIn the second part of our Opp Now exclusive conversation, UATX prof David Puelz and past Heterodox Academy fellow Elizabeth Weiss explain how “political correctness” and other ideological compulsions have long been around—but today’s climate against free speech is pretty unprecedented. Would Dr. Weiss have been kicked out of SJSU 20, even 10, years ago?
Read MoreAcademic achievement is down. Enrollment, down. But K-12 schools in the Bay—and beyond—keep pandering for increased state/fed funding (by 32% since 2018!) and for taxpayers to sign off on yet another tax. Um, isn't gluttony supposed to be a sin? Public Policy Institute of CA gives the data.
Read MoreA more proportionate budget. Board of Supes elected at-large (not by district). Elected gov't auditors—and more. Here, the San Francisco Briones Society's “common-sense” suggestions to better manage their beloved city.
Read MoreSometime Opp Now contributor Susie Murillo writes in to note that equity is often a geographic phenomenon within cities—check out SJ's eastside/westside distinctions. She suggests that SJ's Office of Racial Equity could expand its brief to include solving geographic unfairness. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreMarc Joffe of Contra Costa Taxpayers Association analyzes SB 545 (authored by SJ’s Dave Cortese), which will commission a study on “economic opportunities along the corridor” of California HSR. Um, shouldn’t the DOT instead be figuring out funding sources for the $128b boondoggle? An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreEven Haven for Hope, one of the nation's most successful homeless shelters—the founding president of which previously led the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness—gets criticism. Its philosophy of encouraging independence is often vilified as “punitive” or “disengaged from reality.” But the results speak for themselves. Texas Tribune reports.
Read MoreA collection of SJ's far-left advocacy groups protested outside the family home of Mayor Mahan last weekend—complaining about the Mayor's homelessness programs. The groups' promotional flyer included violent imagery (crossing out Mahan's eyes—invoking a comic book convention to indicate someone's dead), and a parade of misinformed howlers that we fact check, below. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreScrapped speeches. Ousted professors. Whole campuses biting their tongues. We discuss, below, how replacing scholarship with illegitimate advocacy has bolstered ideological discrimination—via recruitment, hiring, and internal pressures. An Opp Now exclusive with SJSU prof emeritus Elizabeth Weiss and University of Austin prof David Puelz.
Read MoreCity prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into the nonprofit San Francisco Parks Alliance, a prominent fundraiser for the city’s open spaces that admitted recently to misspending at least $3.8 million. The Chron reports.
Read MoreFor years, the Bay's progressive advocates have loudly and magnanimously replaced the word "homeless" with "unhoused"—while ignoring (until now?) the community's actual material needs. And, yep, they're not the only ones. Self-avowed leftist Freddie DeBoer analyzes this phenomenon on his blog.
Read MoreSupport for the tax-raising Prop 5 spent 2x as much as the opposition. They had 11 vocal unions on their side (but none for "No on 5"). Even local city councils like SJ were ardently vouching for the measure. But it lost, in November. Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association reminds us how the underdogs won.
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