The Brief

From standardized test scores to student demographics and suspension rates, there’s a lot to consider when choosing a school.

LAist talked to parents, educators and researchers to better understand what different sources of information can tell you about your child’s school or one they might attend.

“You can look at all the information and you can analyze all the available data, but you still don't know how it’s going to play out for an individual kid,” said Los Angeles County educator and parent Andrea Schpok. “You gotta make the best choice given the information available.”

Though the simple appeal of a single number or star rating offered by some websites is tempting, the experts we interviewed say there is no one metric that defines a great school.

What is GreatSchools? 

This story was prompted by parents who wanted to know if there was an alternative to the ranking site, GreatSchools.

The website aggregates publicly available data about schools. One prominent feature on each school’s page is a 1-10 rating. These scores also appear on home listings for several real estate websites.

Researchers have criticized GreatSchools and other school rating sites for oversimplifying what actually makes a school good and for steering families away from low-income schools that serve many Black and Latino students.

The basis of the criticism is that GreatSchools and similar sites rely in part on standardized test scores to calculate school ratings.

“The scores tell you something, but usually they are — across the whole country — highly correlated with socioeconomic status,” said Learning Policy Institute President Linda Darling-Hammond. “A lot of what they tell you is how well off economically are students in this school, rather than how much is the school contributing to their gains and growth.”

Part of the problem is that standardized tests in English language arts and math are one of the few widely administered and tracked metrics.

“We've never really invested in collecting data that is just much harder to get at than a simple test,” said Rebecca Jacobsen, who studies education, politics and policy at Michigan State University.

GreatSchools has changed how it calculates ratings over the years and now factors in how much scores increase year-to-year, college readiness, and an “equity” score that measures how students from disadvantaged backgrounds perform academically.

The nonprofit also offers schools the opportunity to provide information and a space for parents, educators, and alum to leave reviews.

“It's a continual process for us to find the right information to share with each parent,” said GreatSchools CEO Jon Deane.

Deane said the information on GreatSchools is meant to help parents start their school choice journey, not be the sole deciding factor.

“We want to make sure we can help people find what their version of great is,” Deane said.

Where else can you go to find information about a school? 

Individual school websites/social media

Many schools maintain their own websites and social media accounts. There is a wide range of quality in individual school websites. At their best, these platforms are a window into the school’s history, curriculum, current programs and events. On the other end of the spectrum, information can be sparse or outdated. 

Look for: 

• Events 
• Tours 
• Extracurricular activities and after- and before-school programs
• How to contact teachers and administrators
• Parent and family resources

Where does the data come from? Typically these websites are maintained by district and school staff.

Keep in mind: Parent groups might maintain their own websites and social media accounts that can give you additional insight into a specific school. 

Los Angeles Unified School District open data 

LAUSD leaders in 2018 voted to create a new website to present a variety of information about students and school sites. 

Highlights:

• Attendance
• School demographics
• Budgets
• Suspensions
• Student and family surveys about safety and school climate
• Students with disabilities
• Progress of English Language Learners
  

Where does the data come from? District records, the California Department of Education, the College Board (which administers tests including AP exams) and The National Student Clearinghouse.

Keep in mind: There are several ways to navigate the website. If you want to search for schools in a specific area or compare multiple schools, use the “explorer” tool. There is also an option to view schools on a map.

California School Dashboard 

A collection of data maintained by the California Department of Education available at the state, district, and individual school level intended to hold schools accountable for meeting standards. 

Highlights:

• Chronic absenteeism 
• English Language Learner progress
• Enrollment 
• Demographics
• Suspension rates
• Graduation rate 
• College/ career readiness as defined by a series of measures including meeting the requirements for state university admission or completing career and technical education classes.

Where does the data come from? The California Department of Education, districts, schools and County Offices of Education. 

Keep in mind: The dashboard doesn’t assign schools a single score or rating. Many measures are assigned a color from red (worst) to blue (best) based on performance from the current year and growth from the prior year. You can also see how a school compares to the state overall. 

DataQuest

Another collection of data maintained by the California Department of Education available at the state, county, district, and individual school level. This site includes some information not available through the California School Dashboard and  in some cases, parses the data by grade level. 

Highlights:

• Stability rate, the percentage of students that completed a full year of instruction at the same school. 
• California Healthy Kids Survey results, which includes information on school climate and safety
• School staff demographic data
• Rate of high school graduates attending college

Where does the data come from? The California Department of Education, districts, schools and County Offices of Education. 

Keep in mind: Not all data is available at the individual school level. 

School Accountability Report Card (SARC) 

An annual assessment that public K-12 schools are required to perform and submit to the state each year. 

Highlights:

• Teacher qualifications
• Textbook updates
• School facility conditions
• Average class sizes
• Career and technical education classes available
• Average teacher salaries
• Student support staff on campus (librarian, nurse, psychologist, etc.) 

Where does the data come from? Individual schools. 

Keep in mind: The state’s website isn’t super user-friendly. Search for an individual school here and then click the button that says “view full sarc” to see all of the available information.

What do the experts look for? 

Clear family values

These will vary, but education researcher Jack Schneider said defining what’s important to your family will help you sort through the data.

“ And if [test scores are] what folks value, there's nothing wrong with starting there,” said Schneider, who directs the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “But, people shouldn't stop there.”

For example, when Schneider and his wife, a teacher, started looking for a school for their child, they knew she’d have plenty of academic support at home.

“The top priority for us, when looking for a school, was actually that the school was a diverse one, that it served all different kinds of students coming from all different kinds of families,” Schneider said. “We knew that we could give her all kinds of academic advantages at home, but we couldn't give her that — we couldn't just inside our household teach her how to live in a diverse democracy.”

Schneider, who’s also written a book about measuring school quality beyond test scores, also looked at what resources were available to students and how long teachers had worked at the school.

Teacher quality and retention  

 "Having a stable set of qualified teachers is very important,” Darling-Hammond said. “If teachers want to stay in the school, that's a good sign for whether kids are being well taught and whether parents are going to be able to connect with experienced teachers who know a lot about how to make things work well.”

Where to find it: 

• Check the school accountability report card. It shows the number and percentage of teachers who are credentialed to teach their assigned subject and class. 
• Ask administrators about teacher retention. That data is not listed publicly. Instead you’ll have to ask the principal or other staff about turnover and the experience of educators on staff. 

School climate 

This is a broad, wonky educational term that can refer to a variety of factors that affect whether students feel safe and supported.

School climate data is less universal than other information like demographics or standardized test outcomes. One potential source of information is annual surveys to students and families.

“I think these are very high quality data sources that allow us to learn things that we would never learn from a standardized test score,” Schneider said.

Where to find it: 

• DataQuest: This site links to the California Healthy Kids Survey results, which includes information on school climate and safety at the district and county level. 
• The School Accountability Report Card (see up above) provides a school’s suspension and expulsion rates.
• In LAUSD’s open data profile there are several places to view school climate data. 
  
  • Select “Local Control Accountability Plan” from the dashboard view dropdown menu and “School Safety and Climate” from the metric sub groups to see survey results about whether:
    
    • Students feel safe at and a part of their school 
    • Parents feel their child is safe on school grounds and welcome to participate at school 
    • Staff feel safe and supported at school 
  • The “Parent, Student, and Community Engagement” metric subgroup offers additional survey results from parents. 
  • Schools that are part of the Black Student Achievement Plan also collect additional survey data about: 
    
    • Access to mental and socio-emotional health resources 
    • Participation in extracurricular activities
    • Availability of curriculum that matches students individual experiences
• If you have the opportunity to talk to students or alumni you can ask, “Did you feel … “
  
  • A sense of belonging?
  • Connected to teachers and peers?
  • Safe at school?

An emphasis on social and emotional learning

There are many non-academic skills that live under the social and emotional learning umbrella including understanding and managing feelings and building relationships.

“It means that students are learning how to get along with each other, how to solve their own problems, what to do with tough situations… and how to problem solve in good ways,” Darling-Hammond said.

Where to find it: 

• There’s no dashboard to track social and emotional learning at individual schools. Investigate a school’s website, and talk to educators, administrators and other parents to understand how this type of instruction is prioritized. 

School conditions and cleanliness 

The quality of school facilities is linked to student achievement — it’s easier to learn in clean, climate-controlled, well-lit classrooms. Poorly maintained schools may even pose health risks to students and staff.

Where to find it: 

• In the School Accountability Report Card (SARC): Look for the section that says “School Facility Conditions and Planned Improvements” to see self-reported information about the status of restrooms, heating, cooling and ventilation systems and overall maintenance. One caveat, the categories (poor, fair, and good) are broad and reflect the conditions of the school at a single point in time. For example, an inspection of the HVAC system in the winter may not reflect the potential for a breakdown in the midst of a heatwave. 
• Ask your school or district about a Facilities Master Plan: This can help you better understand medium-to-long term plans for repairing and building school facilities. 

The one thing everyone recommends

Your own observations. Touring schools is time-consuming, but researchers, parents and educators all said there’s no better way to evaluate a campus than by visiting in person, preferably while class is in session. 

“The very best thing that people can do is go to the school and try to watch the way that educators interact with students, the way that students interact with each other, and the way that families are included or not in the life of a school,” Schneider said. “Once you do that, you really get a sense of what kind of place kids are going to school.”

Darling-Hammond looks for “joyful and respectful” interactions between adults and students.

“ I look to see if students work is on the walls,” Darling-Hammond said. “Because if it is, it says that this school values what students are doing and that that is the central idea of what's going on there.”

Set up a school tour: 

• Every school is going to handle tours a bit differently. Start at the school’s website and call the front office for more information. 

Questions to ask teachers/administrators: 

• What opportunities are there for family involvement? 
• What types of homework are students assigned? 
• How are grades calculated? 
• What extracurriculars are offered? How can students access those opportunities?
• Is there before or after school care? 
• Is transportation provided? 
• For younger students: What opportunities are there for play? 

Questions to ask students:

• How do you feel about coming to school? 
• What is interesting for you in school? 
• What’s your favorite part of school? 
• Do the children here get along with each other? 
• Are teachers available when you have a problem? 

Illustration: Olivia Hughes / LAist

Two of California’s largest courts are testing an AI tool that can draft orders and produce research memos.

Judges so far are using it primarily for civil cases, but documents obtained by CalMatters indicate the possibility of expanded applications in criminal cases, where people’s freedom and access to justice are on the line.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court began a pilot program in February to test a tool created by the company Learned Hand. Other courts may follow, according to Learned Hand founder and chief executive officer Shlomo Klapper.

Learned Hand uses a combination of language models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google to act as an AI clerk for judges. The company says it tests for bias and accuracy, but it has not yet published results.

In Riverside County, which has a $10,000 agreement with the company to test the program, civil and probate attorneys are primarily using the tool to draft research memos that help judges reach their decisions. It’s typical for research attorneys to assist judges as they review cases.

Los Angeles County Superior Court has a roughly $314,000 contract that includes a roadmap to test the tool’s use in criminal, family and probate divisions. Officials would not describe in detail to CalMatters the criteria they’re using to evaluate whether use of the tool can safely expand to criminal and family courts, where the stakes are often much higher than in civil cases.

One judge who spoke to CalMatters on condition of anonymity due to judicial rules of conduct was alarmed when their colleagues at a recent luncheon said the technology could be used one day to evaluate appeals from people who believe their conviction or sentence was tainted by racial bias. California courts are handling a wave of those claims after lawmakers passed the Racial Justice Act in 2020.

“I think it is outrageous,” said the Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. “AI cannot and never will be able to replace human judgment in evaluating complex social dynamics. Ultimately, that will erode the public’s confidence in the competence and fairness of the judiciary.”

A majority of California's superior courts now have generative AI use policies, according to documents obtained by CalMatters via public records requests, which they were required to create by the state Judicial Council before using the technology. Roughly a dozen of the 51 courts that have responded to CalMatters’ requests said they are using AI-powered tools from LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, and Microsoft’s Copilot.

Use of AI in courts has been controversial because of the propensity of AI models to cite falsehoods and to produce sycophantic text. Models from major companies like Google and Anthropic can reduce critical thinking and brain activity, according to a 2025 MIT study.

Language model hallucinations have already made it into the judicial system. Researcher Damien Charlotin has documented hundreds of instances of litigants, lawyers, and judges making mistakes when using AI to do their jobs including nearly 90 cases in state or federal courts based in California since August 2024.

Last fall, a Los Angeles-based lawyer received a historic $10,000 fine for citing cases that don’t exist, and earlier this month the Sacramento Bee reported that use of AI led to errors in four cases handled by prosecutors in Nevada County. Most of these cases involve lawyers or people who are representing themselves in court, but UCLA Law School professors predict that more judges will make AI-fueled mistakes in the future. In recent months, the U.S. Senate investigated federal judges in Mississippi and New Jersey for drafting decisions with generative AI that had serious factual errors.

Klapper, who previously worked as a clerk for a federal appeals court and for surveillance technology company Palantir, said the judiciary needs AI in order to reduce backlogs and increase efficiency.

“Could we hire more people?” he told CalMatters. “Maybe, but it’s not going to keep pace with the exponential increase that’s coming, nor is it going to be able to adequately solve the crisis of today. I think the only solution is to give every single judge and staff attorney their own AI clerk.”

Klapper said he’s aiming to combine the best parts of what human judges can do with the best parts of what machines bring to bear.

“I’m not saying all machines aren’t biased,” he said. “I’m not saying my machine isn’t even biased. I’m saying we can test it and people have tested it. And that is the benefit over humans.”

Generative AI use policies for the Los Angeles and Riverside County superior courts only require disclosure if a motion, decision, or other document is written entirely with generative AI.

Both courts refused to say whether plaintiffs are aware that the tool is being tested on their cases. In a statement to CalMatters, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Superior Court said testing is done on motions that have already been decided, separate from live case environments. However, the contract allows for testing on live cases.

“It is important to note that even with successful evaluation and thorough testing, the Court remains several months, if not years, away from implementing this type of tool,” said the spokesperson.

The contract allows the tool to be used for two critical motions in the criminal division: A motion to suppress, which is designed to determine what type of evidence the prosecution is allowed to present at trial, and motions for post conviction relief, which are filed by people who have already been convicted and want another shot at freedom.

That’s the “greatest concern” for Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman. When he reviewed the contract, he referred to the motions as “two incredibly important motions in the criminal justice system.”

“When you’re dealing with someone’s liberty — as opposed to in the civil setting, which is everything other than liberty — the stakes couldn’t be higher,” said Hochman. “I don’t want to take the chance, particularly in a criminal case, that AI happens to get it wrong. And now someone’s constitutional rights have been infringed. Someone has gone to prison who shouldn’t have, or on the flip side, that somehow someone gets off.”

'An extremely perilous road'

In Los Angeles, some judges first heard about the new Learned Hand contract during a March presentation by Superior Court Judges Yvette Verastegui and Olivia Rosales. They lead the criminal branch and visit courthouses throughout the county as part of an annual roadshow, where they update judges on court operations, discuss workload and field questions. During a luncheon, Verastegui and Rosales said the tool could be used to assist with Racial Justice Act petitions in the future.

California’s Racial Justice Act allows people to challenge a criminal conviction or sentence that they believe was based upon racial bias. Petitions are filed directly to the court from people in state prison. If a case is found to have merit, the process includes appointing legal counsel, filing briefs and setting evidentiary hearings before a judge would decide whether to grant the petition.

That process could look different with a tool like Learned Hand. Verastegui and Rosales explained that, following an incarcerated person’s petition, the tool could generate tentative decisions for judges to consider in denying or advancing cases to the next stages, according to one judge who attended the luncheon.

“The concern, of course, that I have is that the courts will utilize that as a reference point and then get stuck to that initial analysis,” said the judge. “It’s an extremely perilous road to go down. Putting aside the inaccuracy, which will be a significant concern, it dehumanizes the whole process. It does not treat people as individuals with lived experiences. It essentially reimposes a one-size-fits-all style of justice.”

A second Los Angeles Superior Court judge who spoke with CalMatters on the condition of anonymity remembered the presentation and said they would not trust nor use the tool to summarize a Racial Justice Act petition.

AI can replicate or intensify patterns contained in the data used to make a model, including human biases. Large language models have a history of demonstrating race and gender bias, an analysis of predictive policing tech used by LAPD found racial bias, and an analysis of the risk assessment algorithm COMPAS found that it is more likely to label Black people as at risk of committing crimes after incarceration than white people with a similar record.

Public defenders who spoke with CalMatters echoed those concerns.

Elizabeth Lashley-Haynes, a deputy public defender at the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, said it would be “highly problematic and bordering on unethical” for a judge to use the tool to review Racial Justice Act petitions, which she described as “incredibly nuanced.”

“They’re like nothing else in the legal system that has ever really been done,” said Lashley-Haynes, who specializes in Racial Justice Act cases. “Words that are used in these cases that have racial undertones or racial meanings are way beyond the realm of anything that artificial intelligence could do.”

In interviews with CalMatters, Klapper and Los Angeles County Superior Court Executive Officer, David Slayton, denied that the court has any plans to use the tool for Racial Justice Act petitions. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Superior Court later confirmed in an email to CalMatters that the contract permits the tool to be used in such a way “but that possibility has not commenced in any way.”

Klapper said if they were to build out a Racial Justice Act module, the tool would need to be evaluated for bias and co-developed with the court.

“The timing very fortuitous, right?” he said. “It’s a very fraught decision, I’m not going to lie…extremely high stakes — a scenario where I understand people might be very concerned. Especially with criminal, I have even more hesitancy, even more guardrails than normal about, because there are liberty interests at stake.”

Extending beyond civil cases

In Los Angeles, six superior court judges and their research attorneys are primarily using the Learned Hand tool to conduct research, summarize motions and assist in drafting tentative rulings, according to Slayton. He says the tool won’t move beyond the civil division “until the court leadership is comfortable.”

“The court is being very deliberate and careful about how we use technology like this,” he said. “So until we evaluate it and determine that it is effective in those areas, we will not extend it to other areas.”

Los Angeles County Superior Court's Hollywood Courthouse, in Los Angeles, on March 12, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters The tool will be evaluated on a quarterly basis to determine its future application, Slayton said, but he did not specify what kind of evaluation that entails. In an email to CalMatters, a spokesperson later said that Learned Hand is evaluated “against the same substantive expectations applied to law clerks and research attorneys: accurate legal research, sound analysis, neutral and judge-ready writing, and reliable work product that supports judicial decision-making.”

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Samantha Jessner, who chairs the Judicial Technology Advisory Committee, said she was unaware of the possibility that the tool could eventually be used outside of the civil division until recently. Judges are not privy to contract negotiations due to certain ethical limitations, she said.

“I think we have a duty and obligation to explore whether or not there is a place for artificial intelligence in what we do as a judicial branch and that’s exactly what this pilot is intended to afford us the opportunity to do,” said Jessner.

Riverside County Superior Court signed an agreement with Learned Hand in February. In emails obtained by CalMatters, Klapper proposed to two Riverside County Superior Court executives, Jason Galkin and Sarah Hodgson, that the court use the tool for a common civil court motion and “then expand quickly once we earn our stripes.” He suggested that Hodgson assemble a list of motions and workflows “that generate the most pain,” citing examples that included the Racial Justice Act.

Roughly two weeks later, Hodgson described the most laborious motions “that want to drive us into retirement,” including discovery motions and attorney fee motions. For criminal cases, the court suggested that Klapper focus on “things with the largest paper records,” citing death penalty habeas petitions and parole revocation.

Since the pilot started, seven civil and probate attorneys have been granted access to the tool. Galkin, the chief executive officer of the Riverside County Superior Court, said they are “kicking the tires on the product” to see what tasks it can do. The tool is not being used to draft tentative rulings, he said.

“We don’t even know if expansion is likely so there is no set criteria for what expansion might look like or thresholds for that because right now, the core question is: Does this help staff and does it advance what they’re trying to do in their roles?” said Galkin.

As testing is underway, attorneys like Hochman say that use of AI is inevitable, but would be better suited for low-level, repetitive and routine tasks.

“It’s the analysis of the case itself, coupled with the conclusions that will be reached, that I’m very hesitant to trust AI at this point — in large part, because I don’t know all of the inputs that AI is using to make its decision. The only thing I’m 100% sure of is that AI didn’t go to law school,” said Hochman.

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California’s Board of Equalization is a coveted spot once again for state lawmakers looking for a new gig almost a decade after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law gutting the organization of any serious governing responsibility.

This year, three current state lawmakers are competing for seats on the nation’s only elected tax board. They’re among some two dozen candidates on the ballot for its four elected positions, which are divided by geographic districts.

The board has long been a launching pad to higher offices in California politics — Fiona Ma served on it before becoming state treasurer, as did Betty Yee and Malia Cohen before each being elected state controller.

The agency itself is a throwback to the 19th Century. It’s rooted in an 1879 constitutional amendment that created it and charged it with “equalizing” county property tax assessments statewide.

From that narrow mandate, it swelled to become a juggernaut that collected a third of the state’s tax revenue and provided a venue for people and businesses to contest their tax bills in front of the elected board. It survived numerous efforts by governors to kill it outright, including attempts by Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That is until 2017, when a cascade of allegations about board members misusing the office to promote themselves led to an authoritative state audit that lawmakers could not ignore.

Brown signed a law stripping the agency of any powers beyond what voters gave it in 1879 and created two new departments that report to the governor instead of the elected board: one to collect sales and use taxes and another to hear taxpayer appeals.

After that, Board of Equalization elections tended to be lower profile contests. Ted Gaines, a former Republican state lawmaker from the Sacramento area, won a seat. Former Democratic Assemblymember Sally Lieber is up for reelection on the board this year. The other members had experience in local politics instead of inside the Capitol.

“We’re lean but we’re not mean,” said Lieber, the incumbent for District 2, which includes 19 counties centered on the Bay Area. “I think the Board of Equalization is the right size in the system right now…I do really believe that the board has a role to play in being a forum for taxpayers to come forward to.”

This year voters will see more contentious elections for the tax board:

• In District 1 representing inland California, Republican state Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield has more than $900,000 in a campaign account and name recognition from her representing the San Joaquin Valley in the Legislature since 2010. Democrats are putting up a fight for the district. Fresno City Councilmember Nelson Esparza is running with the party’s support.
• In District 2 representing coastal California north of Los Angeles, incumbent Lieber faces San Mateo Community College District Trustee John Pimentel. Lieber has the Democratic Party’s endorsement, but a number of Bay Area Democratic leaders are backing Pimentel, including state Treasurer Ma and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
• In District 3 representing the Los Angeles area, former Monterey Park City Councilmember Yvonne Yiu put up $760,000 of her own money and has about $1 million on hand. The race has another heavyweight in Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Democrat from Gardena who has served in the Legislature since 2014. 
• District 4 representing the San Diego area has an especially crowded race with Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, San Ysidro school board member Martín Arias, San Diego Unified School District board member Cody Peterson, and Denis Bilodeau, a Republican supported by San Diego Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s Reform California organization.

A forum for California taxpayers

The board was always popular among taxpayer advocacy groups, who liked that it provided a forum to focus on tax issues in a capital where debates often center on labor and business.

“It’s a very useful elected body that answers to the voters,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Some of this year’s candidates are thinking of ways to make the most of the agency.

Arias believes the board could do more to assist homeowners and potential homeowners. As a taxpayer advocate in the San Diego County Assessor’s Office, he says he works with the Board of Equalization every day and has a front seat to how the system works.

“I think there’s a bigger opportunity here to make the Board of Equalization the constitutional office that it is — that it should be,” he said. “There’s a clear opportunity here for us to start advocating at the state level for all of our taxpayers, including those that don’t speak English.”

Umberg said he’d like the board to have more investigative power and resources. Citing instances in which San Bernardino and Los Angeles assessors have been arrested on felony charges, he said he’s most interested in the board’s oversight of property tax assessors.

“Although it’s not a high-profile job, it’s a critically important job, especially when we’ve got so many revenue challenges in California,” Umberg said in an interview with CalMatters.

Questioning BOE’s relevance

Advocating for the board’s expansion has drawn criticism from former board members and employees. Yee, a board member from 2004 to 2014, has been vocal about abolishing the board entirely because she believes that its limited responsibilities could be easily transferred to another department or agency.

“I just really do question how this board continues to have relevance,” she told CalMatters. “I sometimes feel like the board is really doing a lot of work in search of finding problems to solve. …I know with each of the board members, they feel very strongly about being a taxpayer advocate. But frankly, every public official should be a taxpayer advocate. ”

Democrats stopped short of killing the agency entirely because they would have had to put that question to voters.

“They should have just chopped the head of the snake off and done away with the Board of Equalization altogether,” said Mark DeSio, a former communications director for the board. “They didn’t do that. They left enough of the cancer to grow back.”

He cooperated with the audit that revealed misspending at the agency that appeared intended to promote its elected members as well as another that showed widespread nepotism in its hiring practices. He then lost his job in the reorganization and filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the state.

DeSio believes lawmakers want seats on the Board of Equalization because it allows them to maintain a high profile until they can run for office again.

“That was the recipe for disaster a few years back,” he said. “Somebody better watch these guys. They’re not there for the policy. It’s for the exposure.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Even as gas prices continued to rise across the United States, sales of electric vehicles fell in April. That is in contrast to strong growth elsewhere in the world, such as Europe. But American drivers are gravitating toward at least one more efficient powertrain: hybrids.

Sales of new EVs fell roughly 18 percent from March to April, according to the latest data from Edmunds, an auto research firm. Another company, Cox Automotive, pegged the drop at closer to 6 percent. Either way, experts said it’s clear that high gas prices aren’t leading to a significant shift toward EVs.

“There was a lot of window shopping,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, noting that searches for electrified vehicles on the company’s site were strong. “It did not translate to tire-kicking and purchases.”

Price remains the steepest barrier for most people, said Drury. While electric vehicles can be less expensive to operate over the long-term — especially when gas prices are high — the upfront costs remain significant. The average transaction price for an EV in April was $6,214 higher than for vehicles with internal combustion engines, Cox reported.

“It’s still a cost hurdle,” said Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “You don’t know how long it’s going to take to get that back.”

At Thursday’s average gas price of $4.56 per gallon, an EV buyer would have to drive more than 40,000 miles to make up the difference with a car that gets 30 mpg. Savings on maintenance, like oil changes, could accelerate that timeline, but factors such as higher insurance prices and having to install a home charger could make the payback period even longer. If fuel prices fall, the advantage of an EV also shrinks.

“It’s very difficult for people to wrap their head around, ‘Hey, if I spend this $55,000, I might over time save’,” said Drury. “It requires a bit more math than most people want to go through.”

The calculus is much simpler for hybrid vehicles, which utilize batteries that can improve fuel economy by 25 to 45 percent without needing to plug in. A Honda CR-V, for example, gets around 29 mpg while the hybrid version gets 37. More and more popular models are only available as hybrids, a strategy that Toyota has perhaps embraced most notably. Last year, it ditched the gas-only version of the Camry sedan. The 2026 RAV4 followed suit.

Overall, Edmunds data shows that sales of hybrids are up 20 percent year-over-year and nearly 50 percent since February, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began. Sales of gas-powered gas are up about 11 percent over those same two months.

“I think this is going to be a hybrid moment,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “There are a lot of options.”

Used EVs provided another somewhat bright spot, she said. The segment saw a 3 percent increase in sales from March to April and a price premium of only $1,096 over used internal combustion vehicles. Used EVs also sold faster than their used gas-powered counterparts. “They’re really selling efficiently,” said Valdez Streaty, who added that there should be a glut of EVs available throughout the year as leases end. “I don’t think the inventory will be an issue.”

With Iran maintaining its hold over the Strait of Hormuz and summer travel season looming, gas prices appear set to keep climbing — which would only make an EV more appealing. Other parts of the world have seen significant jumps in sales since the conflict began, with Europe experiencing a surge and China setting an export record in April, according to BloombergNEF.

In the United States, though, it seems that only people already in the market for EVs are making the leap. “Edge-case people,” as Brinley called them. Dramatic pump readings “might nudge them because they were already in that direction,” she said. “But what we’re unlikely to see is a shift in current [internal combustion car] owners just fundamentally making that change simply because of gas prices.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/solutions/why-hybrids-not-evs-are-winning-over-u-s-consumers/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org