Satish RaoSatish Rao

Efficient, efective, and humane. That’s the test. Every policy helps some and hurts others, so discussion is necessary—and hard. Too often tribalism, power, and narrow incentives decide the outcome. Education makes it plain. California has failed vulnerable students at a basic task: learning to read. Meanwhile, places we’re taught to dismiss have done better. The genius stroke? Words are made of letters— fundamentals, not magic. Arithmetic is not a hate crime. Yet in California, basics are treated like villains and complexity like virtue: a thousand-page, state-approved physics book that’s great for strong backs and publisher margins, but essentially unread. The people who oversaw failure still control the institutions. That’s not a conspiracy; it’s bureaucracy. In universities, power concentrates in administration, and budgets follow power. At the University of California, Berkeley—where I work—non-academic staff compensation alone runs north of $30,000 per student. That’s before you pay a single instructor, professor, TA, tutor, reader, lab assistant, or researcher. And it doesn’t stop at bloat. In California, there is a regulation for every problem—and too often it fails to solve it while creating new ones. Governor Newsom tries—hair always in place. Still, he governs in a dishonest system that rewards the loudest interests and the fanciful promises they sell. California is rich in people, place, and position. Let’s get out of our own way: do what works, stop what doesn’t, and treat people with decency.

VIG listing; Occupation: Professor