My friend Lance Izumi, director of the Pacific Research Institute’s California Education Studies, rece
ntly was on a locally produced version of "The View" and over the weekend sent me a link to the video.
For anyone who is at all interested in education policy, this is a hysterical video to watch. And it is even funnier if you know Lance, a perpetually polite and well-spoken policy wonk who knows a ton about 
He’s interviewed, in this tape, by Spencer Christian, a local TV personality and host of "View from the Bay," and a guest host, Nancy Grahn, an actress who stars on
Have a look. It’s another reminder why mixing
March 21st, 2007 at 12:00 am
Too dang funny, and my compliments to Lance for keeping his calm, focused demeanor through her rants. I can’t believe she actually said “evidence, schmevidence” — and Lance managed to work from that to make a useful point!
March 21st, 2007 at 12:00 am
I hope Grahn has the proper intellect level to figure out that she is obviously being used as a puppet of the ranting liberal left, but I doubt it. All of her “concerns” are straight off the failed bash-public-education playbook. She attempts to defend public education, but then admits that her own child attends a private school – typical subscriber to the “do as I say, not as I do” mantra. Then she claims that schools are overcrowded and underfunded. Again, both completely unoriginal thoughts. Lance Izumi calmly and clearly refutes those claims by providing evidence – not schmevidence – that charter schools in Oakland receiving less funding than other district schools, actually have higher test scores and student achievement. For those interested, I highly recommend reading Lance Izumi and Claire Yan’s book – “Free to Learn: Lessons from Model Charter Schools”.