On a recent afternoon, more than a dozen California lawmakers gathered to discuss thorny issues impacting a state that is the cradle of technological innovation — but also suffering from wildfires, aging infrastructure, and vast economic inequality. On the agenda: how to maintain wireless phone service during emergencies; how to...
How Is This Poor, Rural District Keeping Kids in School?
At a time when rural schools all over California struggle to keep students in school, a three-year-old experiment in the southern Fresno County community of Parlier is showing some interesting results. And, officials say, chronic absenteeism isn’t the only problem the Parlier experiment may eventually solve. Like many Central Valley...
California Analysts Urge Lawmakers: Reject Gov. Newsom’s $1 Billion Climate Loan Proposal
Nonpartisan policy analysts took aim at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to use $1 billion in state funds to seed innovative climate change efforts, questioning the state’s ability to even identify the right projects. The Climate Catalyst Loan Fund, which Newsom called for in his $222.2 budget proposal for next year, would offer low-interest loans to...
California Settles Lawsuit With Agreement to Spend $50M for Kids Who Can't Read
The state of California on Thursday agreed to settle a years-long, high-profile lawsuit that accused the state of depriving low-income students of color of their constitutional right to a basic education — by failing to teach them reading skills. Under an agreement reached with plaintiffs in the complaint, Ella T. v....
The New Thing for California Politicians? Sweet Charity
The California Legislature’s Latino Caucus recently circulated a memo offering a potential perk for members: A trip to Cuba to learn about “culture, history and possibly government structure and policy making.” The caucus’ nonprofit foundation, the memo said, would help pick up the tab. A visit to Israel for the...
Facing Doctor Shortage, Will California Give Nurse Practitioners More Authority to Treat Patients?
Nurse practitioner Surani Hayre-Kwan sees long-time patients and first-timers. She manages chronic illnesses, diagnoses kids with colds and refers people to specialists. She goes it alone or works with another nurse practitioner at the Russian River Health Clinic in Sonoma County. Sometimes a supervising physician is on-site, but often is...
Will This Be the Year California Tackles Its Waste Crisis?
Even the special interests that helped kill a California Senate bill aimed at reforming beverage bottle recycling say the state needs to fix its broken system. And one lawmaker who voted no on the bill says he might just introduce his own. Authored by Democratic state Sen. Bob Wieckowski of Fremont, the Beverage...
What Happens If California Takes Over PG&E?
Calling the bankruptcy of California’s largest investor-owned utility a “godsend,” Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened a public takeover of Pacific Gas & Electric unless it can transform into a provider of affordable, reliable, clean and — above all — safe energy. That means no more ferocious wildfires sparked by PG&E...
Bay Area Has Highest Income Inequality in California
It’s official: The gap between the Bay Area’s haves and have-nots is wider than anywhere else in the state. Top income earners in the Bay Area make 12.2 times as much as those at the bottom of the economic ladder, according to new research from the Public Policy Institute of...
The Achievement Gap: California’s Disparities in Education Explained
Few goals in education have been as frustrating and urgent as the effort to fix the deep, generational disparity in achievement between the haves and the have-nots in California schools. It is an article of faith in the K-12 school system that every student — regardless of race, creed, wealth or color...