A contentious, intra-party dispute over a Republican lawmaker who helped propel a bipartisan climate bill to victory last month is underscoring just how hard it is for the GOP to find a direction in politically progressive California.

Two rising stocks have caught my eye – one being Apple, which reached a record high earlier this week before announcing that it’s going to war with Netflix on the video content front.

Of all the 48 continental states, the Grizzly Bear State, as it was originally known, has the hottest, driest valley (Death Valley), the highest hill (Mt. Whitney), the largest living tree (Sequoia), the most people, and the greatest number of domestically raised turkeys living outside the state capital (Sacramento). But when it comes to K-12 education, are the views of Californians any different from those living elsewhere across the United States?

The fundamental obstacle to meaningful change for the students in the Los Angeles region can best be summed up by a statement we hear all the time from former students: “I am a proud product of LAUSD.”