Dan Walters

California not only has the nation's highest rate of poverty, thanks to high housing costs, but its highest level of income disparity, and raising the state's minimum wage may be reducing job creation.

A collection of commentaries by Dan Walters over the past week.

Some legislative bills are silly, but one, allowing local governments to create their own banks, transcends silliness and is just plain dumb.

A collection of commentaries by Dan Walters over the past week.

New poll says voters want to raise school spending, but are leery about taxing themselves to do it.

The Legislature has another chance to protect adolescents from too-early school start times. Former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill setting 8:30 a.m. as the earliest class time in most instances, but it's back this year and opponent are trying to keep it from reaching Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.

Despite California's status as a technological innovator, its state government has seen failure after failure in implementing information technology. Gov. Gavin Newsom is promising to fix this chronic problem.

California's "achievement gap" in its K-12 schools has persisted, despite spending many billions of dollars to close it. Two new proposals, a state audit and a system to track students' achievement, may tell us why the gap has been so stubbornly wide.

A collection of commentaries by Dan Walters over the past week.

As Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators consider state tax increases, local government ballots are being loaded up with tax proposals and the jousting over them is becoming heated.