The State has been given 37 days to respond or risk losing the remaining billions in federal funding. Jon Fleischman of FlashReport analyzes, on Substack.
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For many, it's easier choosing ironic detachment from real local issues than admitting to being invested, uncertain, and even nervous about them. (And, hey, we use our fair share of sarcasm, too!) But Substack's Catherine Shannon warns against numbly viewing all of life—not just politics, but every meaningful endeavor—as a ridiculous joke.
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Bay Area transportation and housing initiatives are often portrayed as solutions to the climate catastrophe we are facing due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Marc Joffe of SHIFT-Bay Area unpacks the data and finds a whole lot of exaggeration. From CA Policy Center.
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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.
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In 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?
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Academic 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.
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A 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.
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Sometime 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.
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Marc 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.
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Even 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.
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A 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.
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